PART III.—DUELLING.
[Note on Part II. on Criminal Responsibility in cases of Insanity.—A physician in a responsible official situation, affording him great opportunities for observation, has addressed to us a note from which we extract the following passages. Our only object is to aid in eliciting truth; and our anxiety to do so is proportionate to the difficulty and importance of the subject to which the ensuing letter has reference.[39]
"The article on Oxford and M'Naughten has interested me very much; and though I cannot at all admit the principle of punishing a man for his misfortune, I am yet satisfied that the doctors have assumed too much, and have helped to let loose upon society some who deserved hanging as much as any who have ever suffered the extreme penalty. The test of insanity, as laid down by the Judges on the solemn occasion to which you refer, is manifestly of no value; for it is, I might almost say, the exception for an insane person not to know the difference between right and wrong. Many of them deliberately commit acts which they know to be wrong. Dadd killed his father, and immediately fled to France to avoid the consequences of his crime; and nobody ever doubted that he was one of the maddest, if not the maddest, of the mad. Touchet shot the gunmaker, not only with a full knowledge of the nature of the crime, but for the express purpose of bringing about his own death. He has entertained various delusions: amongst others, the notion that certain passages of Scripture have special reference to himself personally; and, as regards those in actual confinement, on account of their mental malady, the majority know perfectly well that it is wrong to tear, break, and destroy, to injure others, and indulge their various mischievous propensities. So well satisfied are many of them that they are doing wrong, that they will try to conceal acts which they know are not permitted; and, in this way, a propensity to bite, or kick, is indulged in only when it is believed that it can be done unobserved. It seems to me that, in these most painfully embarrassing cases, every one must stand on its own particular merits; and, as neither judges nor doctors can say where sanity ends, and insanity begins, so no possible rule that can be devised will be alike applicable to all; but the previous habits and course of life of the person accused, together with the absence or presence of any motive, will go far to remove the difficulties which necessarily beset the question. I am not at all prepared to say that, because any degree of mental disturbance has been shown to exist, a person should be held irresponsible. It is a doctrine fraught with such dreadful danger to society, that it is very properly viewed with jealousy; but, when clearly proved that the mind was so far disturbed as to entertain delusions before and at the time of committing the offence, I would never resort to capital punishment. The Omniscient alone can tell how far the disease has gone, and to what extent the unfortunate being was really responsible for his actions to his follow men.">[
Is, or is not, a trial in this country for duelling to be regarded as a Farce following a Tragedy? There are those who say that it is; but we are not of the number. Such trials often greatly excite the public mind, and array opinions and prejudices against each other in such a manner as to disturb and derange the judgment. Then more or less is expected from the law, and its administration, than is right. If the heated public should have prepared itself for a conviction, loud and violent is its reclamation against an acquittal, especially if it have been brought about by what are styled technical objections, and vice versâ. They forget, under the impetuous impulses of a sense of natural justice, that settled rules of legal procedure must be observed indifferently on all occasions, if even-handed justice is to be administered in a court of justice. How did these rules come to be settled? They are the results of centuries of experience—of ten thousand instances of the advantage, nay, the absolute necessity, for observing them. If it could be imagined with any, even the slightest foundation of truth, that those sworn to decide according to the law and the facts had wilfully shut their eyes to the one or the other—or, either directly or indirectly, connived at an evasion of the letter or a violation of the spirit of the law, in order to secure a particular result—then there is no power in language adequate fitly to denounce so deliberate and awful a perjury, so monstrous an outrage on the administration of justice.
Bonâ fide duels are always lamentable affairs, under whatever circumstances they may happen, especially when attended by loss of life or serious personal injury—occurring, too, in a highly civilised and Christian country like ours. They properly arouse the grief and indignation of every thoughtful and virtuous member of the community; whom, however, they also satisfy as to the prodigious practical difficulty of dealing with such cases. While the law of the land is clear on the subject as the sun at noonday—alike unquestionable and unquestioned—there yet exist, in almost every detected duel, far greater difficulties than are suspected by the public, in bringing to justice the guilty actors. First of all, it must be borne in mind how deep an interest they have in cutting off all means of future evidence, by intrusting a knowledge of the affair to the fewest persons necessary for carrying it out, and by selecting scenes remote from observation. Then, again, let it be remembered that both principals and seconds, and all others present aiding and abetting, have incurred heavy criminal liability—are liable to be indicted for murder, as principals or accessories; and, consequently, none of them can be compelled to furnish any evidence which may even tend to criminate himself. This great rule of criminal law has doubtless operated as a great indirect encouragement to duelling; but how is this difficulty to be encountered? Must the rule be abrogated?
Assuming, however, the existence of evidence, and that it is satisfactorily adduced before the jury, it then becomes the duty of the judge and the jury to act in accordance with their oaths: the former to lay down the law distinctly and unequivocally; the latter to find their verdict conscientiously according to the principles of law so laid down, as applicable to the proved facts of the case. If a conviction ensue, the judge must then pronounce the sentence of the law; and it then depends upon the discretion and firmness of the executive whether that sentence shall be carried into effect. Take the case of a fatal duel, conducted with unimpeachable fairness, as far as concerns the practice of duelling—and that the prisoner had received great provocation from his deceased opponent, who had obstinately refused retractation or apology. What is to be the decision of the executive? What will be its moral effect, as an encouragement or discouragement of duelling? Will it operate as a tacit recognition, to any extent, of the practice of duelling, as at all events a necessary evil, and denuded of moral turpitude? These are questions by no means of easy solution.
In the present constitution of society in this country—a Christian community—duelling is a practice environed with difficulties, whichever way it may be approached by its most discreet and resolute opponents. We must deal with men and things as they are, at the same time that we would make them what we think they ought to be. How many professing Christians—men of otherwise pure and virtuous lives—have gone out deliberately to take the life of an opponent, or expose or sacrifice their own!—solely, it may be, from a puerile notion that their honour required the committing of the crime! "It is not one of the least evils of this system," it has been well observed, "that the word honour—which, rightly understood, denotes all that is truly noble and virtuous—should be prostituted as a pretext for gratifying the most malignant of human passions, or as a cover for that moral cowardice—the fear of being thought afraid." This is one of the chiefest roots of the poisonous tree: and can human laws kill it? We think they can. If the legislature were really intent upon annihilating duelling, its members would long ago have acted on the suggestion of Addison—that, "if every one who fought a duel were to stand in the pillory, it would quickly diminish the number of these imaginary men of honour, and put an end to so absurd a practice." If men will fight for a little stake, let them be made into little men, by enduring a degrading punishment; if for a great stake—that is to say, the gratification of malignant passions—let them be treated as great criminals, and die the felon's death, or live his life. Let justice be really blind in all such cases, her sword descending upon noble and ignoble of station alike.
We acknowledge that there is one aspect of the practice of duelling, which somewhat perplexes the moralist: for it cannot be denied, or doubted, that duelling operates as a great preventive check to ruffian insolence and violence—as a potent auxiliary in preserving the necessary restraints and the courtesies of society. "It must be admitted," says Robertson, "that to this absurd custom we must ascribe, in some degree, the extraordinary gentleness and complaisance of modern manners, and that respectful attention of one man to another, which at present renders the social intercourse of life far more agreeable and decent than among the most civilised nations of antiquity." How many a viper-tongued slanderer's lips have been sealed by the dread of a bullet! How many an insolent inclination to personal violence has been checked—how many a truculent heart has sickened, before the prospect of a "leaden breakfast!" Take a single case, which is really embarrassing to the candid opponent of duelling; an insult offered, by either words or deeds, to the character or person of a lady whom one is bound to protect—an injury beyond all legal cognisance, and perpetrated by one occupying the station of a gentleman. To one who does not bow under the paramount influence of religion, the harassing question occurs,—What is to be done? Cases may be easily imagined in which it would be idle to say—"treat the offence and the offender with contempt—leave them to the contempt of society;" where such a course would only add to the poignancy of the wrong or insult, and invite aggravation and repetition. Let the outraged lady be imagined one's own wife, or daughter, or sister! Is the wrong to be perpetrated with impunity? asks the upholder of duelling. "What would you do," retorts his opponent; "will you deliberately take the life of the offender, and give him an opportunity of taking yours?[40] Is that your notion of punishment, or satisfaction? What will be the effect of an example such as this, upon society at large? Is every one to be at liberty to do the like?—thus deliberately to ignore the law of God and of man?"
Duelling is, in truth, almost always the resource of the weak-minded, the vain, the vindictive, or the cowardly; and it is not right to ask society to be liberal in its allowances for the wrongdoings of its less worthy members. There are, nevertheless, cases in which persons have found themselves involved in duels under circumstances pregnant with extenuation in the eyes of even the hardest moralist, and such as warrant the executive, when the majesty of the law has been vindicated, and its authority recognised, in mitigating or remitting the punishment due to an acknowledged violation of the law.
The law of the land is better able to vindicate really outraged character and honour than may be imagined by many foolish hot-blooded persons, who give or accept "hostile messages." It is armed with ample powers of compensation and punishment, as may easily be ascertained by those who can satisfy it that they have been the victims of deliberate and wanton insult and injury. Little more than a year ago, one gentleman thought proper to write to some naval and military friends of another most offensive imputations upon his honour. When apprised of this, he instantly wrote to demand that his traducer should either prove the truth of his assertion, or unequivocally retract and apologise for them. Both alternatives were very contemptuously refused, on which the injured party brought an action for libel against his traducer; who, unable to justify, and unwilling to apologise, allowed the case to go before a jury. On their learning the true nature of the affair, and being reminded that they were appealed to as a jury of twelve gentlemen, to vindicate the honour of an unoffending gentleman, they gave such heavy damages (£500) as soon brought his infuriate opponent to his senses, and elicited an unequivocal retractation, and as ample an apology as could have been desired. A few instances of this kind would soon satisfy the most sceptical of the potency of the law in cases too often deemed beyond its reach, and of the effective reality of its redress in cases of wounded honour. Who could lightly esteem being solemnly and publicly branded by its fiat as a liar and a slanderer—its blighting sentence remaining permanently on record? He who would regard such a circumstance with indifference surely is not worth shooting, or running the risk of being shot by, or of being hanged or transported for shooting or attempting to shoot! If a person of distinguished station or character receive an insult or an injury of such a nature, as not to admit of being treated with silent contempt, it becomes his duty to society to set an example of magnanimous reliance on the protection of the laws of his country, and pious reverence for the laws of God. Against one thing, however, every one should be constantly on his guard—the entertaining and cherishing that false overweening estimate of personal dignity and importance, which predisposes too many to take offence, and then hurry to revenge it.
According to the law of England, as already stated, a death caused by duelling, though in the "fairest" possible manner, is clearly murder, to all intents and purposes whatsoever. In the year 1846, the majority of the Criminal Law Commissioners suggested a change in this law, recommending that, where two persons agree to fight, and a contest ensues, and one of them is killed, the homicide should be extenuated. The reasons on which this suggestion was founded appear to us of a very unsatisfactory nature; and one of the Commissioners—the late Mr Starkie—altogether dissented from the views of his brethren, embodying his reasons in an able and convincing protest or counter-statement. "Whilst," he observes, at its close, "as it seems to me, little good could be expected from the proposed alteration, it might be productive of much harm in a moral point of view. It would be understood to manifest an alteration in the opinion of the Legislature as to the heinousness of the crime of homicide, and of course tend to diminish the efficacy of the law against it." We entirely concur in the following remarks of Mr Townsend, in one of the best expressed passages in his book:—
"Founded on the law of God, the law of the land should remain clear and stringent, that whoever kills in a deliberate duel commits murder. The sanctity of human life would be impaired were this denunciation lessened, and the forfeit, for expediency's sake, commuted. The very good to be obtained by the compromise with 'codes of honour' would be temporary; for arguments of hardship, as the consequences of conviction, and appeals to compassion against a gentleman being adjudged guilty of felony, and transported—it might be for life—would equally tickle the ears of credulous jurors, and be listened to with as much avidity as the present topic of capital punishment. Let the law maintain its own independent straightforward path—irretortis oculis—and, be the fluctuations in fashionable feeling what they may, continue, in its austere regard for life, unchanged and unchangeable."[41]
Thus stands the matter: the Legislature not having ventured to interfere with the law, which must be administered with rigorous faithfulness by those to whom that severe and responsible duty has been entrusted, God forbid that there should ever be coquetting with an oath on these occasions!
We have no hesitation in saying that our English Judges, as far as our inquiries have gone, invariably lay down the law, in these cases, with clearness and unfaltering firmness. The only approach towards a departure from this rule of right, is one which we trust has no other foundation than an erroneous report of what fell from Baron Hotham at Maidstone, in the year 1794, in trying a Mr Purefoy, who shot his late commanding officer, Colonel Roper. That Judge, according to Mr Townsend[42]—who also intimates a hope that the judge has been incorrectly reported—concluded his summing up, which produced, as might have been expected, an instant acquittal, by the following extraordinary passage:—
"It is now a painful duty which jointly belongs to us; it is mine to lay down the law, and yours to apply it to the facts before you. The oath by which I am bound obliges me to say that homicide, after a due interval left for consideration, amounts to murder. The laws of England, in their utmost lenity and allowance for human frailty, extend their compassion only to sudden and momentary frays; and then, if the blood has not had time to cool, or the reason to return, the result is termed manslaughter. Such is the law of the land, which, undoubtedly, the unfortunate gentleman at the bar has violated, though he has acted in conformity to the laws of honour. His whole demeanour in the duel, according to the witness whom you are most to believe, Colonel Stanwix, was that of perfect honour and perfect humanity. Such is the law, and such are the facts. If you cannot reconcile the latter to your consciences, you must return a verdict of guilty. But if the contrary, though the acquittal may trench on the rigid rules of the law, yet the verdict will be lovely in the sight both of God and man."
If Baron Hotham really uttered this drivel, he was totally unfit to administer justice, and should have been removed from the Bench. Mr Townsend, in one place, observes that Baron Hotham "must have allowed his kindly feelings to master his judgment;" and in another cites the case as "a very famous one, being the first of those occasions on which judges admitted, from the bench, the necessity and expediency of juries tempering the law, where, by a stern necessity, they have held themselves bound by it;" that is, in plain English, where judges advised juries to violate their oaths, in order to defeat the just administration of the law. We know no parallel to this "famous" case, except that of Justice Fletcher, a judge in Ireland, in the year 1812; who—as we learn from Mr Phillips' very interesting Memoirs of Curran, about to issue from the press—thus addressed an Irish jury, in a trial for murder occasioned in a duel: "Gentlemen, it is my business to lay down the law to you, and I shall do so. Where two people go out to fight a duel, and one of them falls, the law says it is murder. And I tell you, by law it is murder; but, at the same time, a fairer duel I never heard of in the whole coorse [sic] of my life!" The prisoners were, of course, immediately acquitted.
Mr Townsend states, that "the long series of judicial annals has not been darkened by a single conviction for murder, in the case of a duel fairly fought."[43] If this be a correct statement, which we greatly doubt, it argues either a signal deficiency of evidence in every case, or a perverse disregard of duty by either judges or juries, or both. We repeat it, and do so anxiously desirous of giving every degree of publicity in our power to the fact, that our judges discharge their duties on these occasions with unwavering firmness. We shall give two or three modern and interesting instances. The late eminent Mr Justice Buller tried a clergyman—the Reverend Bennet Allen,(!)[44] and his second, for killing a Mr Dulany, in a duel fought at ten o'clock at night, in Hyde Park, at the distance of eight yards: the reverend duellist had put on his spectacles, in order to see his man. Mr Justice Buller told the jury that "they were bound to adhere to the law, as to which there never," he continued, "has been a doubt. In the case of a deliberate duel, if one person be killed, it is murder in the person killing him. Of that proposition of law there is not, there never has been, the smallest doubt. Sitting here, it is my duty to tell you what the law is, which I have done in explicit terms; and we must not suffer it to be frittered away, by any false or fantastical notions of honour." Here the judge did his duty: but the jury seem, according to Mr Townsend, who doubtless spoke after having duly examined the facts of the case, "to have temporised between their consciences and wishes, by acquitting the second, and finding the principal guilty of manslaughter."
Mr Justice Patteson, in trying the seconds for murder, in the case of the fatal duel between Dr Hennis and Sir John Jeffcott, who shot the former, thus plainly put the matter to the jury: "Whether duelling ought to be tolerated in this land, I say nothing. It is no question for any jury at all. The law of the land does not tolerate it. I repeat that, if you are satisfied on this evidence, that the three gentlemen went out to Haddon, knowing that Sir John Jeffcott and Dr Hennis were about to fight a duel there, without heat or irritation—but deliberately aiding and assisting the affair on a point of honour, after vainly endeavouring to effect an amicable arrangement—I cannot tell you, in point of law, that it is anything short of murder." The jury at once acquitted the prisoners![45]
In the year 1838, a young man named Mirfin was shot in a duel at Wimbledon, by a young man named Elliott, twenty-five years of age, under deplorable and aggravated circumstances. The former had been a linendraper in Tottenham Court Road; and, together with the latter, seemed to have led the dissolute life, for some time, of men about town. The duel arose out of a quarrel which had occurred in a certain indecent scene of infamy near Piccadilly! Two young men named Young and Webber, respectively only twenty-four and twenty-six years of age, were tried for the wilful murder of Mirfin. They had not acted as seconds of the survivor, but had accompanied him and his second to the scene of action. The chief witness was a surgeon, who detailed with a deadly simplicity and matter-of-fact air the whole particulars of the duel, at which he was present; and produced such an effect on the jury that, on delivering their verdict, they expressed the "horror" with which they had heard his evidence and regarded his conduct, and their regret that he had not himself been put upon his trial for murder. The reader shall have an opportunity of judging for himself on the subject, from a portion of the evidence given by this person.[46]
"After the pistols were loaded, Mr Elliott and Mr Mirfin were placed on their ground, and a pistol was delivered to each. I then went and stood seven or eight paces from them, with the two seconds. I looked at the principals. The word to fire was given by Mr Elliott's second: he said, 'Gentlemen, are you ready?—Stop!' That was the agreed signal for firing: they were to fire instantly on the last word 'stop' being uttered, and not before. They fired together immediately on the signal. After they had fired, I observed that the ball had passed through the crown of Mr Mirfin's hat: I saw something fly up in the air: I saw a portion of the crown just raised at the moment. As soon as they had fired, the seconds interfered. I and they were standing together. They moved towards the principals, who remained in their places. Some conversation took place between the principals and seconds, and then between the seconds themselves—which lasted for a few minutes only. Mr Mirfin insisted on a second shot. He spoke loud enough for all present to hear. I stood within seven or eight paces of him, and could hear every word he said. I was intent looking at his hat—I saw the ball had passed through it. I could hear that the conversation was with a view to reconcile the parties; but Mr Mirfin would not hear of any reconciliation. I believe Mr Elliott would have made a verbal apology; but Mr Mirfin would accept nothing but a written apology, and insisted on a second shot. After he had made this statement, another pistol was delivered to each. They next left their ground. I told Mr Mirfin that his hat had been shot through, and he took it off and looked at it, and said nothing, but replaced it on his head. The second pistols were Mr Mirfin's, and were fired at a signal exactly similar to the former one. Mr Elliott fired first, but not till after the signal had been given. I distinctly heard the sound of his pistol, immediately after the word had been given; and Mr Mirfin's shot was fired almost immediately. I think his pistol was discharged after he had received the fatal shot. I think he felt the wound previous to his firing off his pistol. He did not sufficiently raise his hand. His ball struck the ground. He was in the act of bringing his pistol to the level, when he fired. After both shots had been fired, I looked at each of the men, and did not, at first, perceive that either was injured. Mr Mirfin walked towards me about six paces, I think, with his left hand on his right side, and, I think also, the pistol still in his right hand. I think he gave it to me. He advanced towards me saying, 'I am wounded.' I asked him where; he looked towards the wound and raised his fingers, showing me where he was wounded, but without speaking. I said, 'I am exceedingly sorry to hear it: good bye. God bless you!' He replied, 'Good bye, old fellow!' I then assisted him to lie on the grass. He did not fall immediately. I undid his pea-jacket and waistcoat, and pulled up his shirt, and probed the wound. The other persons were standing by. Mr Mirfin's second walked up, and asked if the wound were fatal. I said it was a very fatal wound. Mr Elliott and his second said nothing, merely looking on. Mr Broughton asked me again, after I had probed the wound, whether it was fatal. I said it was. He asked, 'What shall we do?' I replied, 'The sooner you leave the ground the better, and I will wait.' They all three left the ground together. Mr Mirfin died within ten minutes. I did not speak to him after this. I saw I could be of no service to him, and did not wish to fatigue him by saying anything to him. I examined the body after I had got it home, and discovered a small wound not quite the size of a (bird's?) egg, between the fifth and sixth ribs."
We have given these details in all their sickening simplicity and utter hideousness, because they are worth a world of comment on the nature and tendency of affairs of honour.
The trial came on before the late Baron Vaughan, and the present Baron Alderson, at the Old Bailey, on the 22d Sept. 1838; and the former thus laid down the law to the jury: "When upon a previous arrangement, and after there has been time for the blood to cool, two persons meet with deadly weapons, and one of them is killed, he who occasions the death is guilty of murder; and the seconds are also equally guilty. The question then is, did the prisoners give their aid and assistance by their countenance and encouragement of the principals, in this contest? Though neither of the prisoners acted as second, still, if either sustained the principal by his advice or his presence—or, if you think he went down for the purpose of encouraging and forwarding the unlawful conflict, although he did not say or do anything, yet if he were present, and was assisting and encouraging, at the moment when the pistol was fired—he will be guilty of the offence of wilful murder. Questions have arisen as to how far the second of a party killed in a duel is liable to an indictment for the murder of the deceased: I am clearly of opinion that he is."
The prisoners were convicted; but under the special circumstances of the case—for there existed, in the evidence, considerable doubt as to the part taken in the murderous affair by the prisoners—or even whether they, in fact, took any part in it—sentence of death was not passed upon them, but only ordered to be recorded against them; and they were afterwards sentenced to a lengthened term of imprisonment. Mr Townsend does not seem to have been aware of this case, as he makes no allusion to it.
We ourselves were present at a remarkable trial for duelling, about eighteen or twenty years ago, at the Old Bailey, before the late excellent and very learned Baron Bayley, on which occasion he also laid down the rule of law respecting duelling, with uncompromising firmness and straightforwardness. This was the case of Captain Helsham, who had shot Lieutenant Crowther in a duel, at Boulogne. There were rumours of foul play having been practised; and a clergyman, the brother of the deceased, made strenuous and persevering efforts to bring Captain Helsham to trial. The latter continued, for some time after the duel, in France, though anxious to return to England; and after (as we have heard) taking the opinion of a well-known counsel at the criminal bar—who advised him that he could not be tried in this country for a duel fought in a foreign country not under the British crown—he came to England, where he was instantly arrested, under Stat. 9 Geo. IV. c. 31, § 7, which had been passed two or three years previously—viz., in 1828—and must have altogether escaped the notice of the counsel in question. That act authorises the trial, in England, of any British subject charged with having committed any murder or manslaughter abroad, whether within or without the British dominions, as if such crimes had been committed in England. Captain Helsham was admitted to bail to meet the charge, and, having duly surrendered, took his place at the bar of the Old Bailey, at nine o'clock on a Saturday morning.
He was a middle-aged man, of gentlemanly appearance, his features indicating great determination of character; but they wore an expression of manifest anxiety and apprehension as he entered the dock, and, looking down, beheld immediately beneath him the brother of the man whom he had shot, and through whose ceaseless activity he was then placed on trial for his life as a murderer. And he was to be tried by an uncompromising judge—stern and exact in administering the law, and animated by pure religious spirit; but, withal, thoroughly humane. Throughout the whole of that agitating day, the prisoner stood firm as a rock—sometimes his arms folded, at others his hands resting on the bar; while his eyes were fixed intently on the judge, the witnesses, or the counsel—every now and then glancing with gloomy inquisitiveness at the jury and the judge. His lips were from first to last firmly compressed. It was understood that the counsel for the prosecution were in possession of a damning piece of evidence—viz., that the prisoner had spent nearly the whole of the night immediately preceding the duel in practising pistol-firing. However the fact might be, it nevertheless was not elicited at the trial; and probably the prisoner, who had been prepared for such evidence being produced, began, on finding that it was not so, to take a more favourable view of his chances. As the case stood, however, it looked black enough to those who knew the law, and the character of the judge who sat to administer it. That venerable person began his summing up to the jury about seven o'clock in the evening, and the scene can never be effaced from our memory. The court was extremely crowded; the lights burned brightly, exhibiting anxious faces in every direction: but what a striking figure was the central one—that of the prisoner! Immediately over his head was a mirror, so placed as to reflect his face and figure vividly, especially to the jury. A few moments after the judge had commenced his charge, we observed the Ordinary of Newgate glide into court, the late Rev. Dr Cotton, in full canonicals, and with flowing white hair, having a picturesquely venerable and ominous appearance, and take his seat near to, but a little behind the judge. It was then usual for the Ordinary to be present at the close of capital cases, in order to add a solemn "amen" to the prayer with which the sentence of death concluded—that "God would have mercy on the soul" of the condemned. "Gentlemen of the jury," commenced Mr Baron Bayley, amidst profound silence, "we have heard several times, during the course of this trial, of the law of honour; but I will now tell you what is the law of the land, which is all that you and I have to do with. It is this: that if two persons go out with deadly weapons, intending to use them against each other, and do use them, and death ensue, that is—murder, wilful murder." He paused for a moment, as if to give the jury time to appreciate the dread significance of his opening. As soon as he had uttered the last two words, Captain Helsham's cheek was instantaneously blanched. We were eyeing him intently at the moment, and shall never forget it. He stood, however, with rigid erectness, gazing with mingled anger and fear at the judge, whom he felt to be uttering his death-warrant; and after a while bent his eyes on the jury, from whom they wandered scarce a moment during that momentous summing-up—one which, with every word, was letting fall around him, as he must have felt, the curtain of death. "The law of honour," said the judge, towards the close of his charge, "is an imposture—a wicked imposture, when set against the law of the land, and the law of God Almighty, claiming the right to take away human life. I tell you, who sit there to discharge a sworn duty, that a fatal duel is malicious homicide—and that is wilful murder." The jury retired to consider their verdict; and the judge at the same time quitted the court till his presence should be required again. Captain Helsham, however, continued standing at the bar almost motionless as a statue. After a prolonged absence of an hour and forty minutes, the jury returned into court. The prisoner eyed them, as one by one they re-entered their box, with a solicitude dismal to behold, and the irrepressible quivering of his upper lip indicated mortal agitation. The verdict, however, was—Not Guilty; on which the prisoner heaved a heavy sigh, passed his hand slowly over his damp forehead, bowed slightly, but rather sternly to the jury, and was then removed from the bar and released from custody. When the verdict was a few minutes afterwards communicated to Baron Bayley, who had remained in attendance in an adjoining room, he remarked gravely, "I did my duty! It is well for Captain Helsham that the verdict is as it is; had it been the other way, I should certainly have left him for execution." In that case, the duellist would have died on the gallows on the ensuing Monday morning.
It is now, however, time to return to Mr Townsend's volumes, where we find two trials for duelling. One is that of the late Mr Stuart, who killed Sir Alexander Boswell, in Scotland, on the 26th March 1822, in a duel conducted with undisputed regularity and fairness. The other is that of the Earl of Cardigan, who fought and wounded Captain Harvey Tuckett, but not mortally, in a duel, on the 12th September 1840. This trial is one of remarkable interest, in every point of view; and we shall take some pains in bringing it distinctly and intelligibly before our readers.
About five o'clock on the afternoon of Saturday, the 12th September 1840, a person named Daun, a miller, together with his wife and son, observed from the stage of their mill, on Wimbledon Common, two carriages approaching it from opposite directions, and at once suspected what was about to take place. Two gentlemen first quitted the carriages—each with a pistol-case—duly loaded a brace of pistols, and stepped out twelve paces; on which two other gentlemen, the Earl of Cardigan and Captain Tuckett, came up, and took their stations at the points indicated. To each was given a pistol; the other two withdrew to a little distance; the word to fire was uttered, and immediately followed by an ineffectual discharge of both pistols. The principals remained at their posts; a second brace of pistols was given them; again both fired and Captain Tuckett fell, wounded in the small of the back—bleeding profusely, but, as it proved, not from a mortal, or even dangerous wound. Thus the aristocratic affair of honour was more fortunate in its issue than that plebeian one in which, two or three years before, the young linendraper Mirfin had received his mortal "satisfaction." Lord Cardigan's second was Captain Douglas, and Captain Wainwright was that of Captain Tuckett. The whole affair of the duel had been witnessed by the miller, (who was also a constable,) and his wife and son, standing on the stage of the windmill. The moment that Captain Tuckett fell, the miller and his son quitted their post of observation, ran up to the scene of action, and intimated to all the parties that they must consider themselves in his custody. Lord Cardigan still held in his right hand the pistol with which he had fired; and there lay on the ground two pistol-cases, one of them bearing the Earl's coronet. Captain Tuckett lay on the ground, his second Captain Wainwright kneeling beside him, supporting him; while Sir James Anderson, a surgeon, who had attended them to the field, was examining the wound. One of these three entreated the constable to allow the wounded gentleman to be removed to his own house, giving a solemn pledge that, on his recovery, he should attend before the magistrate. At the same time one of them took out a card, on which was printed—"Captain Harvey Tuckett, No. 13 Hamilton Place, New Road," and wrote in pencil, on the back of the card, the words, "Captain H. Wainwright." Who gave this card remains, in the evidence, a mystery; nor did it appear whether Lord Cardigan saw the card given, or knew what was printed or written on it, or heard what was said. As almost the whole interest of the trial, and also its unexpected issue, turned upon the identity of the wounded duellist, and the requisite adroitness and vigilance of the late Sir William Follett, the Earl's counsel, in dealing with this card, and the circumstances attending its delivery to the constable, the reader will find his account in remarking these circumstances accurately. On the constable's receiving the card, and the pledge above mentioned, he allowed those who had given it to depart. The conduct of the Earl of Cardigan was undoubtedly distinguished by soldierly straight-forwardness and frankness. He went direct, with Captain Douglas, to the Wandsworth police station, and, tapping at the door, the inspector presented himself, and asked what was wanted. "I am a prisoner, I believe," said Lord Cardigan. "Indeed, sir!—on what account?" asked the surprised inspector, as Lord Cardigan entered the station-house. "I have been fighting a duel," said his Lordship, "and hit my man—but not seriously, I believe—slightly—merely a graze across the back"—drawing his hand across his own back, to indicate the region where he believed his ball had struck Captain Tuckett. Lord Cardigan then turned to Captain Douglas, and said, "This gentleman, also, is a prisoner—my second, Captain Douglas." He then took several cards out of his right breast pocket, and handed one of them to the inspector. It bore the words, "The Earl of Cardigan, 11th Dragoons." On reading the name, the inspector said, "I hope the duel was not with Captain Reynolds?"—alluding to the notorious disputes between his Lordship and that officer, and which led to a court-martial on the latter. Lord Cardigan "stood up erect," said the inspector in giving his evidence, and seemed to reject the notion with the utmost disdain: saying, "Oh no, by no means!—do you suppose I would fight with one of my own officers?"[47] He duly appeared before the magistrates, and was bound over in heavy recognisances to appear whenever his presence should be required. He did so from time to time. As soon as Captain Tuckett had sufficiently recovered, he also made his appearance at the police office, and gave his name. The affair had by this time attracted much public attention, chiefly, there can be little doubt, from the unpopularity of the Earl of Cardigan; the newspapers teeming with accounts of his alleged discourteous and oppressive treatment of the officers under his command. The prosecution of Lord Cardigan was loudly called for; it being alleged that the high rank of the offender imperiously demanded that evenhanded justice should be dealt to him. Mr Townsend speaks of this demand for prosecution as "a very pitiful manifestation of popular rancour and spleen."[48] "As the duel," he adds, "had been fairly fought, and the code of honour satisfied, without loss of life, it seemed strange that the first unsheathing of the statute should be directed against a high-spirited and gallant nobleman, who had been exposed to violent prejudice and popular clamour; and the prosecution seemed justly obnoxious to the supposition that it originated in party malevolence, and not in respect to the law." We never shared in the hostility here spoken of as existing towards the gallant nobleman in question. Our political opinions are also his; and we are disposed to believe that he has been the victim of much misrepresentation and injustice. We desire, nevertheless, to be understood as vindicating the call for judicial inquiry into the transaction to which Lord Cardigan and his opponent, with their seconds, were parties, if that transaction had been of a criminal character. Only three or four years previously, two young men had been tried and convicted of wilful murder, for having only been present at the duel which cost one of the principals (Mirfin) his life. If Captain Tuckett had been killed, Lord Cardigan would clearly have been guilty of wilful murder—that is beyond all question, if the law of England be not a dead letter, and those who affect to set it in motion be not guilty of a vile mockery of justice. If, therefore, a peer of the realm, a member of the supreme judicature in the kingdom, had really been guilty of a conspicuous and grave violation of the law, which all are required to obey with implicit reverence, those who demanded inquiry ought to have been given credit for acting on public grounds. The peer should not escape, where the plebeian would be condemned. Let us see, then, how stood, and how stands the law on this momentous subject—for momentous it is.
In the first place, let it be understood that the mere challenging to fight a duel, whether verbally or in writing, and the mere carrying any such challenge, is a high misdemeanour, punishable by fine and imprisonment, according to the circumstances of the particular case. This offence consists in the provoking or inciting others to commit a breach of the peace; but may also be regarded in a much more serious light—namely, as an attempt to commit or provoke others to commit a felony,—and even wilful murder. In the present case, a challenge had been sent and accepted: those who had done so, met, and fired deliberately at each other with deadly weapons, at only a few paces distance—they fired twice; the first time innocuously; the second time, one of them was wounded. Every single step was here highly criminal; the earlier ones as misdemeanours, the later ones as felonies; the last indeed a capital felony, for which, beyond all question, the life of Lord Cardigan had become forfeited to the outraged law of the land. This we will shortly show, for the consolation of all future duellists. By the common law of the land, no personal violence, unattended by death, amounted to more than a misdemeanour. In the year 1722, was passed "the Black Act,"[49] which, amongst various enactments levelled at the class of offenders who caused the passing of the statute, contains this brief general one. "If any person shall wilfully and maliciously shoot at any person, in any dwelling-house, or other place, he shall be adjudged guilty of felony, and suffer death." This was the first statute which made the mere act of shooting wilfully and maliciously at another—without reference to the result—felony. Subsequent statutes, respectively known as Lord Ellenborough's and Lord Lansdowne's Acts, made it a capital offence to shoot at another with intent to murder, or do grievous bodily harm, provided the death which might be occasioned would amount to murder. Though the matter had never become the subject of judicial decision, it had been suggested by a late eminent writer on the criminal law,[50] that, where an ineffectual interchange of shots took place in a duel, both parties might be deemed guilty of the offence of maliciously shooting, within one of these acts, passed in the year 1803, (43 Geo. III. c. 58,) and the seconds also, as principals in the second degree. In the year 1837, however, was passed the Statute of the 1st Victoria, c. 85, which we advise every intending duellist to consult very deliberately, before committing himself to its meshes. It enacts first, (§ 2,) that "whoever shall wound any person, or by any means whatsoever cause to any person any bodily injury dangerous to life, with intent to commit murder, shall be guilty of felony, and suffer death." Again, secondly, (by § 3,) "whosoever shall shoot at any person, or, by drawing a trigger, or in any other manner, attempt to discharge any kind of loaded arms at any person, with intent to commit the crime of murder, shall, although no bodily injury be inflicted, be guilty of FELONY, and liable to be transported for life, or for any term not less than fifteen years, or imprisoned for any term not exceeding three years, at the discretion of the court." Lastly, thirdly, (by § 4,) "Whoever shall maliciously shoot at any person, or, by drawing a trigger, or in any other manner, attempt to discharge any kind of loaded arms at any person, or wound any person, with intent to maim, disfigure, or disable, or to do some other grievous bodily harm to such person, shall be guilty of felony, and liable to the same punishment contained in the previous section."
Blackstone, following Hawkins, thus lays down the law in the case of duelling: "Express malice is, where one, with a sedate deliberate mind, and formed design, doth kill another,—which formed design is evidenced by external circumstances, discovering that inward intention,—as lying in wait, antecedent menaces, former grudges, and concerted schemes to do him some grievous bodily harm. This takes in the case of deliberate duelling, where both parties meet avowedly with an intent to murder; thinking it their duty as gentlemen, and claiming it as their right, to wanton with their own lives and those of their fellow creatures, without any warrant or authority from any power either divine or human, but in direct contradiction to the laws of both God and man; and therefore the law has justly fixed the crime and punishment of murder on them, and on their seconds also."[51] This passage may be said to reflect a somewhat ghastly light on the three sections of the statute law given above, such as must have startled the Earl of Cardigan and his advisers, as soon as they found that he had been made the subject of bonâ fide prosecution under that statute. We affirm unhesitatingly, and no one will deny, that the facts relating to the duel, as they appear above stated, brought Lord Cardigan's case within every one of these three sections—as clearly within the first, rendering the offence capital, as within the other two, declaring it felony punishable with transportation. This the Attorney-General himself stated to the House of Lords, in opening the case against the prisoner: "The present indictment might have been framed on the capital charge." A wound had been inflicted, which constituted one branch of the capital offence; but "the prosecutor had, very properly, restricted the charge to firing with an intent, without alleging that a bodily injury dangerous to life had been inflicted."[52] The indictment was founded on the third and fourth sections alone; charging, in the first count, a shooting with intent to murder; in the second, to maim and disable; in the third, to do some grievous bodily harm. Indictments were preferred before the grand jury, at the Central Criminal Court, against both principals, and both seconds. The grand jury ignored those against Captain Tuckett and his second, but "found" those against Lord Cardigan and his second. As probably the same evidence, precisely, was laid before the grand jury in both cases, it is certainly difficult to account for the totally different results, except on the supposition that the grand jury weakly suffered themselves to be hurried into a forgetfulness of their sworn duty, by feelings of commiseration for the party who had been wounded by one who had escaped unhurt. Lord Cardigan was reputed to be "a dead shot," and was certainly very unpopular; but there was no pretence whatever for saying that he had acted otherwise than with rigorous fairness in his encounter with Captain Tuckett, who, for all the grand jury could tell, was as "dead a shot" as the Earl. We would, however, fain hope that this secret-sworn inquest were not obnoxious to the censures which Mr Townsend[53] and others have levelled at them in this matter. On the bill being found, Lord Cardigan, of course, claimed his right to be tried by his peers—(i. e. pares, æquales)—a right which he possessed in common with every fellow-subject; and the indictment was removed by certiorari, to be tried before the House of Peers in full Parliament. The court of the Lord High Steward of Great Britain is one instituted for the trial of a Peer indicted for treason, or felony, or misprision of either;[54] but when the trial take place during the session of Parliament, as was the case on the present occasion it is before the High Court of Parliament. A Lord High Steward is appointed in either case; but in the latter he officiates, not as the supreme judge in matters of law—as he would be in a trial during the recess—but as speaker, or chairman, having an equal voice with his brother peers, in matters both of law and fact.
This was the first time that duelling had been made the subject of prosecution under the statutes against shooting with intent to kill, maim, disable, or do grievous bodily harm; and the position of the Earl of Cardigan had suddenly become perilous in the extreme, and doubtless occasioned most serious apprehensions to himself and his advisers. If his case should be held to fall within the statute in question, not only was he liable to transportation for life,—and he knew that the House of Peers would firmly do its duty, especially conscious as it was that upon it were fixed the eyes of the whole country,—but what would be the effect of a conviction of felony on his property? Four days after the trial, it was stated in the Times newspaper,[55] and has not been, as far as we know, contradicted, that "such had been the doubts as to the issue of the trial, entertained by Lord Cardigan and his legal advisers, that his lordship, to prevent the whole of his property being forfeited to the crown, executed, some time before, a deed of gift, assigning over the whole of his valuable possessions to Viscount Curzon, the eldest son of Earl Howe, who had married a sister of the Earl of Cardigan. It is stated that the legal expenses of this transfer of property, arising from fines on copy-holds and the enormous stamp-duties, amounted to about £10,000; and as the deed of transfer was said to have been enrolled in due form, in the event of an acquittal the immense expenditure would have to be again incurred, in order to effect a re-transfer." So serious a matter, even in a pecuniary point of view, has now become the fighting a duel, to a nobleman or gentleman of fortune, who are recommended, consequently, not to fight in a hurry—at all events, till they shall have had an opportunity of taking the best advice of counsel learned in the law. The deed of transfer in question, if executed at all, had probably been executed before it was known to Lord Cardigan and his advisers, that it was not intended to indict him for a capital offence, under the second section of stat. 1 Vict. c. 85, and that he could not, consequently, be attainted. Even, however, as the case stood, if he had been convicted of the felony with which he was charged, the validity of his expensive attempt to obviate the legal effect of that conviction upon his large property would have been gravely questionable, had the law advisers of the crown felt it their duty to impugn the transaction.
The House of Lords presented, on the morning of Tuesday the 16th February 1841, a most imposing appearance. Lord Denman, the Lord Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench had been appointed by commission from the Queen, pro hâc vice, Lord High Steward.[56] The judges were in attendance in their state robes, and took their seats on the woolsack. The peers were attired in their robes, such of them as were knights also wearing the collars of their respective orders. The Lord Chancellor (Lord Cottenham) was absent through illness; but there were, independently of the Lord High Steward, no fewer than five law lords present—Lords Lyndhurst, Brougham, Wynford, Abinger, and Langdale. The side galleries were covered with ladies; and the scene was one of great solemnity and magnificence. The Lord High Steward having made reverences to the throne, to which he had been conducted by the state officer—the Garter King-at-Arms bearing the sceptre, and the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod the Lord Steward's staff—took his seat on the chair of state placed on the upper step but one of the throne. The necessary formalities of reading the commission, the writ of certiorari, and indictment, having been gone through, the Lord High Steward ordered proclamation to be made to the Yeoman Usher of the Black Rod "to bring James Thomas, Earl of Cardigan, to the bar." This was quickly complied with—the Earl, accompanied by the officer above mentioned, appearing at the bar, dressed in plain clothes. As he approached, he made three "reverences," and knelt, till directed by the Lord High Steward to rise. He again made three reverences, respectively to the Lord High Steward, and his brother peers on each side of the house, they returning his courtesy. He was then conducted to a stool within the bar near his counsel. His demeanour was calm and dignified, and he had a very soldierly bearing. He was then in his forty-fourth year. The Lord High Steward's deep impressive tones were then heard, as he thus addressed the noble prisoner: "My Lord Cardigan, your lordship stands at the bar charged with the offence of firing with a loaded pistol at Harvey Garnett Phipps Tuckett, with intent to murder him; in a second count, you are charged with firing with intent to maim and disable him; and in a third count, you are charged with firing with intent to do him some grievous bodily harm. Your lordship will now be arraigned on that indictment." The Earl was then arraigned in the usual manner, by the Deputy Clerk of the Crown, in the Queen's Bench, who thus proceeded:—
"How say you, my Lord, are you guilty of the felony with which you stand charged, or not guilty?"
Earl of Cardigan.—Not guilty, my lords.
Deputy Clerk of the Crown.—How will your lordship be tried?
Earl of Cardigan.—By my peers.
Deputy Clerk of the Crown.—God send your lordship a good deliverance.
The Earl then, by leave of the House, sate down uncovered: and after the usual proclamation had been made for all persons to come forward and give evidence, the Lord Steward, with the leave of the House, descended from his seat on the throne, and took his seat at the table. The counsel for the Crown were the Attorney-General (the present Lord Campbell), and Mr Waddington, (now Under Secretary of State); and for the prisoner, Sir William Follett, Mr Serjeant Wrangham, and the late Mr Adolphus. It has been said, and is indeed intimated by Mr Townsend, that, imperturbable as was the self-possession of Sir William Follett, on this occasion he exhibited unusual indication of an oppressive sense of responsibility. Both facts, indeed, and law were so dead against his noble client, and the consequences of conviction so exceedingly serious, that nothing was left for him but to watch with lynx-eyed acuteness, in order to see that nothing but rigorously exact legal proof was adduced against his client.
The opening address of the Attorney-General was temperate, clear, and able; most faithfully stating the law which he charged Lord Cardigan with having violated, and the facts constituting the violation. He reminded the House that sixty-four years had elapsed since a similar trial had taken place—that of Lord Byron, for killing his opponent in a duel. "I am rejoiced, my Lords, to think," continued the Attorney-General, in terms which immediately occasioned great observation, "that the charge against the noble prisoner at the bar does not imply any degree of moral turpitude; and that, if he should be found guilty, the conviction will reflect no discredit upon the illustrious order to which he belongs. But, my Lords, it seems to me that he has been clearly guilty of a breach of the statute law of the realm, which this and all other courts of justice are bound to respect and enforce. Your lordships are not sitting here as a court of honour, or as a branch of the legislature, but as a court of justice, bound by the rules of law, and under a sanction as sacred as that of an oath.... Your lordships are aware that the noble Earl is in the army—Lieutenant-colonel of the 11th Hussars; and I have no doubt that, on this occasion, he only complied with what he thought necessary to the usages of society. But, under these circumstances, though it would have been considered, if death had ensued, a great calamity, and not a great crime—though moralists of the highest authority have defended duelling—it remains for your lordships to consider what duelling is by the law of England." After quoting from the known great authorities, Hale, Hawkins, Foster, and Blackstone, proving that a death by duelling was wilful murder, the Attorney-General correctly observed—"It necessarily follows, from this definition of murder, that the first count of the indictment is [that is, he expected that it would be] completely proved. The only supposition, my Lords, by which the case can be reduced to one of manslaughter would be, that Lord Cardigan and Captain Tuckett casually met at Wimbledon Common—that they suddenly quarrelled—and that, while their blood was up, they fought. But your lordships can hardly strain the facts so far as to suppose that this was a casual meeting, when you find that each was supplied with his second—that each had a brace of pistols—and that the whole affair was conducted according to the forms and solemnities observed when a deliberate duel is fought." Could anything be more clear and cogent? "Then, my Lords, with regard to the second and third counts of the indictment, I know not what defence can possibly be suggested; because, even if there had been this casual meeting, contrary to all probability and all the circumstances of the case—if it would only, had death ensued, have amounted to the crime of manslaughter—that would be no defence to the second and third counts of the indictment, as has been expressly decided (in the case of Anonymous, 2 Moody's Crim. Cases, p. 40) by the fifteen Judges of England."
Such was the opening of the Attorney-General—such as must have left not a single crevice through which a glimpse of hope could be caught. The words of the Act of Parliament could not have applied more exactly to the facts of the case, as our readers must see, even if the act had been expressly framed to meet these particular facts! The miller of Wimbledon, his wife and son, had witnessed the whole affair—the arrival of the parties on the ground, and the double interchange of shots. Lord Cardigan, on the spot, and at the police office, in plain terms avowed who he was, and what he had done, and who had been his second—the inspector of the police-station being present to prove such avowal. Sir James Anderson, the surgeon, who had also seen the duel, and accompanied Captain Tuckett home, was in attendance as a witness. The miller, who had received Captain Tuckett's card, went, a week afterwards, to the residence mentioned in the card, and asked for, and saw, Captain Tuckett. It would seem as though the wit of man could not suggest how these facts could be evaded, or how they could fail of being proved! Yet the case totally broke down; the whole prosecution crumbled into pieces, under the subtle and watchful dexterity of the consummate advocate to whom Lord Cardigan had committed his almost hopeless case. What does the reader suppose to have been the fatal flaw? The prosecution could not prove the identity of Captain Tuckett! Each of the three counts in the indictment charged Lord Cardigan with having fired at—Harvey Garnett Phipps Tuckett. That was his real name, but it became impossible to prove the fact; and, without such proof, the prisoner was, beyond all question, entitled to an acquittal. A man cannot be indicted for firing at A B, and convicted of firing at C D. If Captain Tuckett had been called, he could, of course, have instantly disposed of the difficulty; and it is said that that gentleman was actually in, or near, the House of Lords; but the Attorney-General explained that he could not call that gentleman, nor his second, because, though the bill against them had been ignored by the grand jury, "they were still liable to be tried," and therefore "it would not be decorous to summon them to give evidence which might afterwards be turned against themselves." And as for Captain Wainwright, he was in the situation of his noble fellow prisoner, as a true bill had been found against him at the Central Criminal Court. What, then, shall be said against calling Sir James Anderson? Fortunately for himself and for Lord Cardigan, he was in a position to be tried himself on a charge of having been present, aiding and assisting at the commission of a felony. On this gentleman being sworn, the Lord High Steward thus cautioned him, as he was bound to do in the case of any witness similarly situated:—
"Sir James Anderson,—With the permission of the House, I think it my duty to inform you, after the opening we have heard made by the Attorney-General of the facts of the case, that you are not bound to answer any question which may tend to criminate yourself." Doubtless, Sir James Anderson expected nothing less, and had come to the House of Lords perfectly at his ease. Therefore he came like a shadow, and so departed. Thus "had he his entrance and his exit."
"Attorney-General.—Of what profession are you?
"A.—I am a physician.
"Q.—Where do you live?
"A.—New Burlington Street.
"Q.—Are you acquainted with Captain Tuckett?
"A.—I must decline answering that.
"Q.—Were you on Wimbledon Common on the 12th September last?
"A.—I must decline answering that also!
"Q.—Were you on that day called in to attend any gentleman that was wounded?
"A.—I am sorry to decline that again!
"Q.—Can you tell me where Captain Tuckett lives?
"A.—I must decline answering the question!
"Q.—Has he a house in London?
"Sir William Follett.—He 'declines to answer the question.'
"A.—I have already said that I decline answering the question.
"Attorney-General.—Where did you last see Captain Tuckett?
"Sir William Follett.—We [the counsel for the prisoner] have no right, my Lords, to interfere in this case;[57] but, the witness having several times declined to answer the question, I apprehend that it is not regular for the Attorney-General, by circuitous questions, to endeavour to get him to answer.
"Attorney-General.—I have never pressed him in any question I have put. [To Sir James Anderson.]—Do you decline answering any question whatever respecting Captain Tuckett?
"A.—Any question which may 'tend to criminate' myself.
"Q.—And you consider that answering any question respecting Captain Tuckett may tend to criminate yourself?
"A.—It is possible that it would.
"Q.—And on that ground you decline?
"A.—Yes.
"Attorney-General, [to the House.]—Then, unless your Lordships wish to ask any question of the witness, he may withdraw.
"The witness was directed to withdraw."
Here, then, were four avenues through which light might have been thrown on a transaction which was the subject of such solemn and dignified inquiry by the most illustrious judicial assembly in the world, carefully closed: Sir James Anderson, Captain Tuckett, Captain Douglas, and Captain Wainwright. It will be further observed that Lord Cardigan, in his frank avowal at the police station, had happened not to mention the name of the gentleman whom he had fought and wounded—an omission probably altogether accidental, for his Lordship seems to have been in a humour of signal yet becoming and characteristic frankness.
The sole question in this celebrated case thus became one of identity—the indictment charging Lord Cardigan with having fired at one Harvey Garnett Phipps Tuckett—it being the duty of the prosecutors to prove that the prisoner fired at a person bearing these names. There was abundant evidence that Lord Cardigan had fired at and wounded a Captain Harvey Tuckett; but this might be a person totally different from him named in the indictment. The skill and vigilance of the prisoner's counsel were visible in tripping up his opponents whenever they approached inconveniently near his client. There is no reason to believe that Lord Cardigan's counsel were aware of there being the slightest difficulty, on the part of the prosecution, in proving the identity of the wounded man with the one specified in the indictment; but at the very first start, Sir William Follett perceived a faint possible advantage, and never for one instant lost sight of it.
"You tell us," said the counsel for the prosecution, examining the first witness—the miller, "that you saw the pistols fired a second time: did you observe whether either of the shots took effect?
"A.—I thought Captain Tuckett was wounded—or, at least, the other gentleman: I did not know who it was.
"Q.—You thought that the gentleman, whom you afterwards knew to be Captain Tuckett, was wounded?
"A.—Yes.
"Q.—Did you see what that gentleman did with his pistol, after the second shots were fired?
"A.—No.
"Q.—You did not see whether he held it in his hand, or what he did with it?
"A.—Which are you alluding to?
"Q.—I am speaking of Captain Tuckett.
"Sir William Follett.—He has said he did not know who it was!"
Here was a stumble by the prosecutors, which their wary adversary never allowed them to recover. The miller then stated the giving of the card of address of "Captain Harvey Tuckett, 13 Hamilton Place, New Road," and produced it; but Sir William Follett would not allow it to be read in evidence against Lord Cardigan, without evidence that Lord Cardigan had seen it given, and was aware of what it was: and such evidence was not forthcoming. The Attorney-General then withdrew the card for the present, and asked the miller whether, on receiving it, he allowed the wounded gentleman to go; to which the answer was "Yes."—"In consequence of receiving this card, did you afterwards call at a particular house?" (meaning the house mentioned on the card, but which Sir William Follett had succeeded in excluding, for the present, from evidence.) Sir William Follett objected that the question was a leading one, and it was not pressed. The witness then stated that, a week afterwards, he called at No. 13 Hamilton Place; asked for "Captain Harvey Tuckett."
"Q.—Whom did you see?
"A.—Captain Harvey Tuckett.
"Q.—Did you speak to him?
"A.—I did.
"Sir William Follett.—I wish you would put your questions differently!
"Attorney-General.—We ask him whom he saw.
"Sir William Follett.—He does not know Captain Harvey Tuckett, I suppose.
"Q.—Did you speak to him?
"A.—I did."
The Attorney-General then tendered the card in evidence: and Sir William Follett, ignorant of what was written in it, (for the Attorney-General had not specified in stating the case,) objected to its being received. On this a very ingenious and elaborate argument ensued between him and the Attorney-General, whether this card was or was not admissible in evidence, at all events in that stage of the case. The latter insisted on the affirmative, on the ground that the card had been given to the constable in Lord Cardigan's presence, and the constable had afterwards gone to the address specified in the card. It was therefore a part of the res gestæ. "No," answered Sir William Follett; "it does not appear who it was that gave this card, or that Lord Cardigan saw it, nor that he knew what was written on it. The Attorney-General is trying to prove an important fact in the case, by an apparent admission of Lord Cardigan; whereas he is not shown to have had any cognisance whatever of the fact which he is supposed to have admitted!" The Lord High Steward said that, at all events, the House would postpone for the present its decision as to the admissibility of the card. "Whether the Attorney-General," said Sir William Follett, "will have any other evidence to prove who it was that had given the card, or to connect the card with the Earl, is another question"—which doubtless occasioned no little anxiety to the Earl and his astute counsel.
The next witnesses were the miller's wife and son, who were cross-examined by Sir William Follett irritably and severely, but ineffectually. They did not, nevertheless, appear to carry the case much farther than had the miller. Then came Mr Busain, the police inspector, who gave evidence of the facts already stated in connection with his name, in the Earl's avowal that he had just fought a duel, and hit his man. On his being asked a very critical question, viz., as to Captain Tuckett's having called at the magistrate's office and given his name, Sir William Follett anxiously and hastily interposed—"Was Lord Cardigan present then and there?" to which the answer was, "No, he was not." Sir William Follett therefore succeeded in excluding what Captain Tuckett had said on calling at the magistrate's office, and thus again "averted the decisive stroke."[58]
Then the Attorney-General called a Mr Matthew, a chemist in the Poultry, in whose house "Captain Tuckett" occupied rooms for business. Mr Matthew said that Captain Tuckett lived at "No. 13, Hamilton Place, New Road." He was then asked the Christian names of Captain Tuckett. On this Sir William Follett interposed, and having elicited the fact that the witness had never been at the house No. 13, Hamilton Place, New Road, objected to the witness being asked the Christian names of the gentleman who had lodged with the witness in the Poultry! This objection, however, was overruled; but on the question being put, it turned out that the only names by which the witness knew his lodger were "Harvey Tuckett!" As a last resource, the Attorney-General called Mr Codd, an army agent, who paid "Captain Tuckett," of the "11th Light Dragoons," his half-pay, and knew his name to be "Harvey Garnet Phipps Tuckett!!" But the witness added that he used to pay the money at his own house in Fludyer Street, Westminster, and had never seen Captain Tuckett except there, and at an insurance office! Again was the Earl of Cardigan's star in the ascendant. How could the prosecutor connect the half-pay officer spoken of by this witness, with the Captain Tuckett shot by Lord Cardigan, and afterwards seen wounded in Hamilton Place?
The case was brought, at length, pretty nearly to a stand-still. "Is that your case, Mr Attorney?" inquired Lord Brougham; on which the Attorney-General pressed for the decision of the House as to the admissibility in evidence of the card which had been delivered by one of the parties on the ground to the constable.
"Lord High Steward.—You object to its being received, Sir William Follett?
"Sir William Follett.—Certainly, my lord: and I should wish to address your lordships, if any doubt is entertained on the subject.
"Lord High Steward.—Their lordships are ready to hear your objection.
"Sir William Follett, (to the Attorney-General.)—Will you let me look at the card?"
The card was handed to Sir William Follett, who, on examining it, addressing the Lord High Steward, said calmly and resolutely—"My lord, I do not think it necessary to object to this card being read." And, indeed, he had no need to do so; for, as the reader must see, it did not advance the case a single hair's-breadth.
"Is that your case, Mr Attorney?" inquired Sir William Follett, with mingled anxiety and hope. "That, my lords, is the case on the part of the prosecution," said the Attorney-General:—on which, turning to the High Steward with a confident exulting air, Sir William Follett "submitted to their lordships that no case had been made out, requiring an answer from the prisoner at the bar."
Into what a minute point this great case had dwindled! "There is no evidence whatever to prove," said Sir William Follett, "that the person at whom the noble Earl is charged to have shot, on the 12th September last, was Harvey Garnett Phipps Tuckett—the name contained in every count of the indictment. The evidence would rather lead to a contrary presumption, if presumption could be entertained in such a case; but it is incumbent on the prosecutor to give positive evidence of the identity of the person named in the indictment with the person against whom the offence is alleged to have been committed.... Is there anything before your lordships to identify the Captain Tuckett spoken of by the army agent, Mr Codd, with the person who is said to have been at Wimbledon Common on the 12th September last? There is nothing whatever."—"If there be the smallest scintilla of evidence," answered the Attorney-General, "the prosecution cannot be stopped on this ground; and there is abundant evidence from which it may be inferred that the person wounded in this duel was—Harvey Garnett Phipps Tuckett. We prove that the wounded gentleman was a 'Captain Tuckett;'—that it was 'Captain Harvey Tuckett:' that the wounded Captain Tuckett lived at 13 Hamilton Place, New Road. Is there any doubt that it was that Captain Tuckett who had taken the premises in the Poultry? When he did so, he gave a reference to No. 13 Hamilton Place, New Road. Is it not an irresistible evidence, then, that the Captain Tuckett of the Poultry and of Hamilton Place, and who fought with Lord Cardigan, was one and the same person? There is only one other stage—that this Captain Tuckett is the Captain Tuckett of whom Mr Codd speaks. Is there not cogent evidence to prove the identity here? Would any person, out of a court of justice, for a moment doubt the identity here? If not, can this House undertake to say that there is not a scintilla of evidence of identity before it?" "What we object," said Sir William Follett, in reply, "is this—that Mr Codd, who says he knows a Captain Tuckett who bears the names mentioned in the indictment, gave no scintilla of evidence to connect that individual with the gentleman who was on Wimbledon Common on the 12th September last. It depended altogether on Mr Codd to give such proof—and that proof he wholly failed to give. Your Lordships are now sitting as judges, to decide solely on the evidence which has been laid before you. The Attorney-General says that the card afforded one of the Christian names—'Harvey Tuckett;' but is that proof that the person mentioned in that card is the 'Harvey Garnett Phipps Tuckett' mentioned in this indictment? There may be two, or ten, or fifty persons named 'Harvey Tuckett.' I ask your Lordships, sitting as judges on a criminal case, and looking at the evidence alone—disregarding surmise, conjecture, and what you may have heard out of doors—whether there is any evidence to prove that the gentleman wounded on Wimbledon Common bears the name and surname of 'Harvey Garnett Phipps Tuckett?'"
The Lord High Steward, during the deliberation of the House with closed doors, delivered a luminous and convincing exposition of the legal merits of the case before the House:—
"There is an absolute want of circumstances to connect the individual at whom the pistol was fired, and who afterwards was seen wounded in Hamilton Place, with the half-pay officer known to Mr Codd as bearing the names set forth in the indictment on which your Lordships are sitting in judgment; for the mere fact of the wounded person bearing some of the names used by the half-pay officer, is no proof that the former and the latter are the same; and the representation by that officer of his having held a commission in the same regiment of which Lord Cardigan told the policeman that he himself was colonel, (which, coupled with the actual receipt of half-pay, may sufficiently prove that fact,) cannot, I apprehend, be turned into a presumption that those two individuals would meet in hostile array. Here are two distinct lines of testimony, and they never meet in the same point."
"No fact (i. e. of identity) is easier of proof in its own nature; and numerous witnesses are always at hand to establish it, with respect to any person conversant with society. In the present case, the simplest means were accessible. If those who conduct the prosecution had obtained your Lordships' order for the appearance at your bar of Captain Tuckett, and if the witnesses of the duel had deposed to his being the man who left the field after receiving Lord Cardigan's shot, Mr Codd might have been asked whether that was the gentleman whom he knew by the four names set forth in the indictment. His answer in the affirmative would have been too conclusive on the point to admit of the present objection being taken.
"Several other methods of proof will readily suggest themselves to your Lordships' minds. Even if obstacles had been imposed by distance of time and place, by the poverty of those seeking to enforce the law, by the death of witnesses, or other casualties, it cannot be doubted that the accused must have had the benefit of the failure of proof, however occasioned; and here, where none of those causes can account for the deficiency, it seems too much to require that your Lordships should volunteer the presumption of a fact which, if true, might have been made clear and manifest to every man's understanding by the shortest process. Your Lordships were informed that no persons out of doors could hesitate, on the proof now given, to decide that the identity is well made out. Permit me, my Lords, to say that you are to decide for yourselves upon the proofs brought before you, and that nothing can be conceived more dangerous to the interests of justice, than for a judicial body to indulge in any speculations on what may possibly be said or thought by others who have not heard the same evidence, nor act with the same responsibility, nor (possibly) confine their attention to the evidence actually adduced. Your lordships," continued the Lord High Steward, "sitting in this High Court of Parliament, with the functions of a judge and a jury, I have stated my own views, as an individual member of the court, of the question by you to be considered, discussed, and decided. Though I have commenced the debate, it cannot be necessary for me to disclaim the purpose of dictating my own opinion, which is respectfully laid before you with the hope of eliciting those of the House at large. If any other duty be cast upon me, or if there be any more convenient course to be pursued, I shall be greatly indebted to any of your lordships who will be so kind as to instruct me in it. In the absence," concluded the noble Lord, "of any other suggestion, I venture to declare my own judgment, grounded on the reasons briefly submitted, that the Earl of Cardigan is entitled to be declared NOT GUILTY."[59] This was followed by the unanimous declaration of "Not Guilty,"—pronounced successively "upon my honour"—by every peer present, beginning with the junior baron. The only variation of the form occurred in the case of the Duke of Cleveland, who said—instead of not guilty, upon my honour"—not guilty, legally, upon my honour." The white staff of the Lord High Steward was then broken in two; and so was dissolved the first—may it be the last—commission, during the present century, for the trial of a peer on a charge of felony.
Lord Denman's reasons for recommending an acquittal were unanswerable; and by special direction of the House of Lords, though not in conformity with precedent,[60] were published, to enable the country to judge of the grounds on which the House had proceeded. The result, however, so contrary to that which had been expected, excited no little indignation; and the bonâ fides, even of those who conducted the prosecution, was very sternly questioned. It was insinuated by some of the most powerful organs of public opinion, that the prosecution had been taken up unwillingly, and with not even ordinary precautions to secure the ends of justice. "We ask," said the Times, "whether the law officers of the Crown had no foresight to anticipate, or no disposition to provide against, a conclusion so unsatisfactory? Is any man capable of believing that if some tailor, or linendraper, had been indicted at the Old Bailey for the crime of stealing—or that he, having an honour to vindicate equally with noble lords, pistolled and wounded one of his companions—does any man believe that, in such a case, we should have heard of any miscarriage, or of any name that could not be proved? Oh no! there would then have been precautions in abundance—there would have been no loophole left—there would have been no lack of friends and relatives carefully subpœnaed to prove all the Christian names of the necessary party."
We ourselves have reflected frequently on the result of this trial; and the points which have occurred to us are two. First, Why was not Captain Tuckett summoned to the bar of the House of Lords—if merely to be asked his name[61]—or even only to be pointed out to the witnesses to see if they could identify him? The miller could have been required to look at him, and been then asked—"Is that the person whom you saw lying wounded on the common?"—and Mr Codd could then have been also required to look at Captain Tuckett, and say—"Is that the gentleman to whom you used to pay half-pay as Captain Tuckett of the 11th Light Dragoons, and whose name you knew to be Harvey Garnett Phipps Tuckett?" On both these witnesses answering these questions in the affirmative, it would have required a thousand times even Sir William Follett's ingenuity to suggest a further doubt on the point of identity. This was the course which the Lord High Steward plainly pointed at, in his address to his brother peers, as that which might have been adopted. Secondly, Why was not the name of Captain Tuckett varied in various counts of the indictment, so as to meet not every probable, but every possible doubt and difficulty? If in one count he had been called "Harvey Tuckett," it would have sufficed to meet the evidence actually adduced; and the other counts might have, respectively described him as "Harvey Garnett Phipps Tuckett"—"Harvey Garnett Tuckett"—"Harvey Phipps Tuckett"—"Garnett Tuckett"—"Phipps Tuckett"—even adding to these other combinations of the four names in which Captain Tuckett rejoiced. To dispose first of this latter point—we verily believe that, up to the moment when the question of identity was started, the counsel for the prosecution, and their clients, believed that the proof of identity was a matter of course. The indictment had been preferred before the Grand Jury at the Central Criminal Court; and was doubtless framed, in the ordinary course, by the clerk of indictments, from the depositions—in which might have appeared all the four names of Captain Tuckett, without any intimation of doubt or difficulty as to the fact of those being his names, or as to proof that they were. Possibly the clerk had before him a positive statement that Mr Codd, the army agent, who paid Captain Tuckett his half-pay, could clearly prove that his name was "Harvey Garnett Phipps Tuckett;" and that, if so, it was a needless and expensive encumbering of the record to insert counts aimed at only imaginary difficulties. The indictment having once gone before the Grand Jury, and been returned a true bill, no alteration could have been made in it, especially after it had been removed by certiorari.... Doubtless the brief of the counsel for the prosecution would contain the evidence of Mr Codd, in as direct and positive a form as could be imagined; and they would regard him, as the army-agent of Captain Tuckett, as peculiarly qualified to prove his real names. When the difficulty had been started, we know of no degree of ingenuity that could have been exhibited by counsel, exceeding that of the Attorney-General, in his contests on the point with Sir William Follett. All experienced practical lawyers will acknowledge the probability that the solution of the question here proposed is the true one. It is easy to be wise after the result. A blot is not a blot, until it has been hit.
Secondly, Why was not Captain Tuckett brought to the bar, to be asked his names, or identified by Mr Codd? There is no evidence that he was in attendance, or that he could have been met with, at the exact moment when his presence was required. It may have been that no order of the House had been obtained for his attendance, only because it had not been thought necessary—that no difficulty would arise which his attendance could solve; and in the absence of direct legal compulsion, Captain Tuckett may have felt it a point of honour not to volunteer himself as a witness against his brother duellist. We can also readily believe that the counsel for the prosecution were anxious to conduct a perfectly novel case—the first instance on record of an attempt to bring an abortive duel under the category of felony, with its alarming incidents and consequences—with unusual liberality, and not to exhibit anything like a vindictive pressure upon the accused. They also knew that Captain Tuckett was himself liable, at that very moment, to be placed in the same situation as Lord Cardigan, and that it would have been idle to call before the House of Lords a witness who would come armed with a right to decline answering any single question—possibly even that above suggested as to his name—which he believed might even tend to criminate himself. It must also be borne in mind that the Attorney-General boldly avowed, before the House of Lords, that he regarded the act with which Lord Cardigan stood charged as one devoid of "any degree of moral turpitude," and that "a conviction would effect no discredit on the illustrious order to which he belonged." These observations, proceeding from an Attorney-General on a solemn official occasion, became, a few days afterwards, the subject of grave discussion and censure in the House of Lords. But even the excellent Earl of Mountcashel thus pointed at the practical hardship of Lord Cardigan's position,—"An officer in the army receives an affront. His brother officers expect he shall go out. If he do, he encounters the pains and penalties of the statute 1 Victoria c. 85; if he refuse, he is obnoxious to the contempt of his brother officers."[62] It was, certainly, not to be expected that an Attorney-General, entertaining and averring the views of duelling which he did—and having to deal with a nobleman bearing her Majesty's commission, who was placed in the dilemma indicated by Lord Mountcashel, and had fought his duel fairly, and unattended by fatal consequences—should have been as eagle-eyed a prosecutor as if he had had to deal with a man, gentle or simple, military or civil, who had shamefully provoked, and as disgracefully fought, a fatal duel.
Had Lord Cardigan been convicted, he had still a chance of escaping the serious personal consequences by claiming that absurd and unjust privilege of the peerage of which Lords Mohun, Warwick, and Byron in past times had respectively availed themselves, immediately on their having been convicted, in cases of fatal duels, of manslaughter. This privilege had been confirmed by statute, 1st Edward VI. c. 12, § 14, which was passed in the year 1547, and consisted in enabling a lord of parliament and peer of the realm to have benefit of clergy for a first conviction of felony,—that is to say, to escape the penal consequences of conviction, on simply alleging that he was a peer, and praying the benefit of that act! In 1827, however, by one of the statutes which effected so salutary a reform of our criminal law, (statute 7th and 8th Geo. IV. c. 28, § 6,) it was enacted as follows,—that "benefit of clergy, with respect to persons convicted of felony, shall be abolished." It had been intended, by this section, to repeal that of the 1st Edward VI. c. 12, § 14; but serious doubts were entertained, during the pendency of Lord Cardigan's trial, whether that intention had been effectuated. We offer no opinion on the point, which would have been argued, of course, with desperate pertinacity, and consummate learning and ingenuity, had the occasion for such an exhibition arisen. To extinguish, however, all possible doubt, and prevent any future failure of justice, an act was passed in the same session during which Lord Cardigan was tried, (statute 4th and 5th Vict. c. 22, 2d June 1841,) asserting that "doubts had been entertained" whether, notwithstanding the statute of 1827, that of 1547 "might not, for some purposes, still remain in force." The statute of 1841 had but one section, which declared the 1st Edward VI. c. 12, § 14, to be "thenceforth repealed, and utterly void, and no longer of any effect;" and enacted that "every lord of parliament, or peer of the realm having place in parliament, against whom any indictment for felony may be found, shall plead to such indictment, and shall, upon conviction, be liable to the same punishment as any other of her Majesty's subjects are, or may be, liable upon conviction for such felony."
Here stands the law of duelling, alike for lord and commoner, whom we trust we have satisfied of the really alarming responsibilities entailed upon those who may choose to perpetuate these outrages upon the laws of their country.
In closing this paper, and taking leave of a painfully interesting topic, we would fain express a hope and a belief, that a better feeling on the subject of duelling is gaining ground, in this country, than has existed for centuries. There is growing up a spirit of dignified submission to the law of man, based as it is on the law of God, which totally prohibits these unholy exhibitions of murderous malevolence. A truer estimate is formed of the nature of HONOUR—one which forbids alike the offering and the resenting of insults. The following noble paragraph, recently introduced into the Articles of War, is worthy of being written in letters of gold—of being exhibited (with suitable variation of expression) in every place of public resort, and in every possible manner brought under the notice of men of the world, and the youths in our public schools:—
"We hereby declare our approbation," says her most gracious Majesty,[63] "of the conduct of all those who, having had the misfortune of giving offence to, or of injuring, or of insulting others, shall frankly explain, apologise, or offer redress for the same; or who, having had the misfortune of receiving offence, injury, or insult from another, shall cordially accept frank explanation, apology, or redress for the same; or who, if such explanations, apology, or redress, are refused to be made or accepted, and the friends of the parties shall have failed to adjust the difference, shall intrust the matter to be dealt with by the commanding officer of the regiment or detachment, fort or garrison; and we accordingly acquit of disgrace, or opinion of disadvantage, all officers who, being willing to make or accept such redress, refuse to accept challenges, as they will only have acted as is suitable to the character of honourable men, and have done their duty as good soldiers, who subject themselves to discipline."
There speaks the Queen of England!
The following is the stringent Article of War (Art. 101) on the subject of duelling:—
"Every officer who shall give, send, convey, or promote a challenge; or who shall accept any challenge to fight a duel with another officer; or who shall assist as a second at a duel; or who, being privy to an intention to fight a duel, shall not take active measures to prevent such duel; or who shall upbraid another for refusing or for not giving a challenge; or who shall reject, or advise the rejection of, a reasonable proposition made for the honourable adjustment of a difference, shall be liable, if convicted by a general court-martial, to be cashiered, or suffer such other punishment as the court may award.
"In the event of an officer being brought to a court-martial for having assisted as a second in a duel, if it shall appear that such officer had strenuously exerted himself to effect an adjustment of the difference, on terms consistent with the honour of both the parties, and shall have failed, through the unwillingness of the adverse parties to accept terms of honourable accommodation, then our will and pleasure is, that such officer shall suffer such punishment, other than cashiering, as the court may award."
[THE DEFENCES OF BRITAIN.][64]
Sir Francis Head is a bold man. When the cry for economy and retrenchment, arising out of the straightened circumstances of the nation, is at its loudest, he has ventured to argue the proposition—once admitted as a truism, but now apparently denied by many—that there are national duties, of surpassing magnitude, which must be undertaken and fulfilled irrespective of pecuniary considerations, if we intend to preserve this country, not simply from a diminution of its greatness, but from the imminent danger of invasion and of hostile occupation. His courage is not lessened by the fact that, in maintaining that axiom, he is fortified by the practical testimony, without any exception whatever, of all our greatest living military and naval authorities; his boldness is not less notable because the Duke of Wellington, Sir John Burgoyne, Admiral Bowes, Admiral Sir Thomas Cochrane, Sir Charles Napier, Captain Plunkett, and others, have year after year protested against the insufficiency of our national defences; and demonstrated that, under the present system, and with the inadequate force at our disposal, we could not, in the event of a rupture with France, calculate on maintaining the inviolability of the British coast, or the security of our capital, London. He is a bold man, and a man of moral courage, because he has ventured once more to stem the tide of popular prejudice and clamour; to expose himself to the sneers of the unthinking, the foolish, and the ignorant, and to the insolent imputations of the professional agitator and demagogue. The individual who was base enough to insult the gray hairs and honoured age of the first soldier of the world, was not likely to refrain from vituperation in the case of a humbler antagonist; and, accordingly, we are not in the least degree surprised to observe, that, at a late meeting in Wrexham, this person, Cobden, who three years ago insinuated that the Duke of Wellington was a dotard, has now turned his battery of coarse abuse against Sir Francis Head.[65]
We have, fortunately, something else to do than to answer the wretched calumniator. We consider it our bounden duty, in so far as we can, to recommend to our readers the exceedingly able and temperate work of Sir Francis Head, which not only embraces all that can be said upon the topic in the way of abstract argument, but exhibits in the clearest form, and from the most authentic sources, the amount of foreign military and naval preparation, at the present moment, as contrasted with our own. It is, we think, a most timely and needful warning, which every one will do well to consider, not in a rash or hasty manner, but calmly, deliberately, and dispassionately, with reference to his own individual interests, and to those of the nation at large. The question, as it now presents itself to our notice, is not one of peace or war. The most zealous peace-monger alive need not be ashamed of adopting the conclusions or seconding the suggestions of the writer. The question, as put by Sir Francis Head, is simply this,—Are we, or are we not, supposing us to become involved in hostilities with France, in a condition successfully to resist all attempts at invasion?
Of course there are several considerations collateral and connected with this. Military and naval establishments being, in effect, the insurance which we pay against the risk of invasion, the risk must be calculated in order to ascertain the amount. Only in one respect the parallel does not hold good between national and private insurance. A man may insure his premises or his life inadequately, and yet he or his representatives will be entitled to recover something. In the case of a nation, inadequate insurance is really equivalent to none. Either the insurance is good altogether, and fully adequate to the risk, or it need not have been effected at all. Therefore, in estimating this matter of sufficiency of defence, we must attempt to ascertain, as clearly as can be done by human foresight, aided by past experience, the amount of possible danger. This is unquestionably a most intricate consideration, yet no one can deny its importance.
It is a very simple matter for those who have never turned their attention to the state of Great Britain, as one great military and naval power surrounded by others, to treat with entire contempt the idea of any possibility of invasion. We have no doubt that a large proportion of the British nation consider themselves at this moment invincible. It is quite natural that this should be the case. We have accustomed ourselves, in consequence of the result of the last war, to look upon British prowess as something absolutely indomitable. The issue of Waterloo has wiped away all memory of the disastrous retreat to Corunna. We remember Trafalgar with pride, and forget that even in naval matters we found our match in the American. The flag of England has not always been supreme on the seas, or even in her own estuaries. Little more than a century and a half has elapsed since a Dutch fleet entered the Thames without resistance, burned the shipping in the Medway, and held Chatham at its mercy. But the present generation knows little about those things, and is disposed to limit its recollections to comparatively recent events. Nor are even these viewed fairly and fully. We are content to take the catastrophe as the measure of the whole. We overlook the disasters, loss, misery, and bloodshed, which our former state of bad preparation entailed upon the nation, and we will not listen to the testimony of the great living witness—still happily spared to us—when he raises his voice to warn us against wilfully incurring a repetition of the same, or the infliction of worse calamities. Not even by tradition do our common people know anything of the horrors of foreign and invasive war. Of all the European nations we are incomparably the least warlike in our ideas and our habits. Our population knows nothing of military training, is wholly unaccustomed to the use of arms. A few muskets in the hands of a few old pensioners have been found sufficient to overawe and disperse the most infuriated mob. And yet we are told to consider ourselves, and do in part believe it, as capable of resisting any attempt at organised military invasion, at a moment's notice, notwithstanding the enormous numerical inferiority of the whole disciplined troops which we could summon from all parts of the kingdom, to even a fractional part of the force which could easily be brought against us!
Assuredly we have no reason or wish to undervalue the greatness of English courage. That quality alone will turn the scale when the match is otherwise equal. Our wild and rude ancestors, who opposed the landing of the legions of Cæsar, were certainly not one whit inferior in courage or in strength to their descendants, and yet those qualities could not save them from being utterly routed by the discipline of the Italian invaders. It may be questioned whether, in the case of a sudden emergency, the British population at the present day could offer so formidable a resistance to a regularly disciplined force. The odds are that they could not. The aboriginal British tribes, like our Highlanders in last century, were trained to the use of arms, however simple, and versed in some kind of tactics, however rude. They knew how to stand by each other, and they were not terrified by the sight of blood. Whereas the modern operative, suddenly summoned from the factory to take his place as a national defender, would be of all creatures the most incompetent and helpless. To mount a horse, or rather, to guide a horse when he had mounted it, would be to him a thing impossible. He would as lieve thrust his hand into the flames as attempt to fire a cannon. His ideas as to the distinction between the but-end and the muzzle of a musket are so extremely indefinite, that you might as well arm him at once with a boomerang; and the odds are, that, in masticating a cartridge, he would consider it part of his duty to swallow the ball. Or, supposing that his piece is adequately loaded and primed, what is the betting that he does not bring down a comrade instead of disabling an enemy? A random shot strikes the midriff of Higgins, who has just patriotically rushed from the manufacture of domestics to do his duty on the battle-field. He falls gasping in his gore; and Simpkins, who is his right-hand man, grows pale as death, and is off in the twinkling of a billy-roller. A single bivouac, on a frosty night, would send half the awkward squad to the hospital shivering with ague. Those who had previously pinned their faith on Hogarth's caricature of the spindle-shanked Frenchman toasting frogs on the point of his rapier, would speedily discover their mistake at the apparition of the grim, bearded, and bronzed veterans of Algeria, armed to the teeth, and inflamed with that creditable "morale," of which so much has been said, but which resolves itself simply into a burning desire for vengeance on "perfidious Albion." They would then begin, though rather late, to perceive the advantages of preparation, discipline, and science, and bitterly to regret that they had turned a deaf ear so long to the warnings of wisdom and experience. Discipline is as powerful now, in strategy, as it was nineteen hundred years ago. The cotton-clad Briton would not be one whit more able to repel invasion than his remote skin-clad progenitor. And as for a leader, are we liable to the charge of prejudice when we aver that we would rather march to combat under the guidance of a Caractacus than that of a Cobden?
But is there any chance of an invasion? We reply—that depends in a great measure upon the extent of our actual preparation. If it is known abroad, and notorious, that we have made our citadel impregnable, the probabilities of any such attempt are extremely lessened. If, on the contrary, we are manifestly unable to resist aggression, we do unquestionably increase our risk to an enormous degree. Which of us can calculate on our escaping from the embroilment of war, in the present distracted state of European politics, for a year, or even for a month? The last time we approached this subject of the national defences was towards the commencement of the year 1848, when Cobden was attempting to preach down military establishments. Our readers may recollect the arguments which he used at that time. He represented that the whole world was at profound peace and tranquillity; that the nations were thinking of nothing else but relaxation of tariffs, and the interchange of calicoes and corn; that men were a great deal too wise ever again to appeal to the rude arbitration of the sword—and much more trash of a similar nature, which seemed to give intense delight to his cultivated Manchester audience. We considered it necessary to tie him up to the halberts, and gave him a castigation which to this hour he writhingly remembers. We pointed out then the utter absurdity of his notion, that Free-trade was to supersede Christianity as a controller of the passions of mankind; and we insisted that, so far from real tranquillity being established on the Continent, it was "quite possible that France may yet have to undergo another dynastic convulsion." What followed? Before the number of the Magazine which contains that paper was published, the Revolution broke out in France, and extended itself over more than half the Continent. It is not yet completed, or anything like completed—it is resolving itself into war, the natural and inevitable sequence of all such revolutions. Hitherto we have kept out of it by good fortune, if not by dexterous management. But our escape was a very narrow one. Once we were so very near a rupture, that the French ambassador was recalled from St James's, and the Russian ambassador just about to retire. Was there no danger then? Who that regards the political aspects abroad, will give us a guarantee that some new emergency may not arise, involving a casus belli, from some circumstance almost as trivial and insignificant as the claims of Don Pacifico? His Holiness the Pope, in return for Mintonian advice and Whig support, has been pleased to prefer a spiritual claim over the British dominions—how if France, rather at a loss for some enterprise abroad to sustain her government at home, should take a fancy for a new crusade, and determine on backing, by temporal artillery, the less dangerous thunders of the Vatican?
But France, say Cobden and his crew, does not desire war. Cobden is a precious expositor of the cabinet councils of France! What took the French to Rome? What is taking them at this moment to the eastern frontier? Not the dread of invasion, we may be sure; for the unhappy states of Germany have quite enough business on hand to settle among themselves, without attempting to push westward. France may not, indeed, desire war in the abstract, but war may become a political necessity for France; and we think that we can discern symptoms which indicate that the necessity must soon arrive. Once unsettle a nation, as France has been unsettled, and there is no security for its neighbours. France is at this time nominally a republic, practically a military despotism. Military despotism is always, sooner or later, compelled to support itself by aggression. It gets rid of the contending elements within by giving them a foreign outlet; for, if it did not do so, it must in the end inevitably succumb to anarchy. These things may not be known in the mills, or familiar to men whose intellect is beneath that of the aggregate average of ganders; but they are nevertheless true, and all history confirms them.
We therefore think that—looking to the present state of the Continent and its political relations, the hostile jealousy of some states, and the extreme instability of others—there is anything but reason to predict the return of a settled European peace. The first act of the drama may have been played, but the whole piece is not yet nearly concluded. If we are right in this, what are the chances that we escape, whilst the other nations are contending? Extremely small. Now, is there any man (except Cobden) silly enough to suppose, that, in the event of further and more serious hostilities occurring on the Continent, we should be able to escape from embroilment, on the ground that we have not sufficient forces in Great Britain to protect the integrity of our shores? If there exist any such individual, let him go back to his Æsop, and he will find various illustrations bearing strongly upon the subject. It is no difficult matter for the strong to pick a quarrel with the weak. Our monstrous and almost insane position is this, that, with all the elements of strength existing abundantly among ourselves, we have obstinately resolved not to call them forth, so as to prepare for any emergency, or for any contingency whatever.
Cobden's opinion is, that the governments cannot go to war, because the people will not let them. Does the prophet of Baal allude to Russia, Austria, Prussia, or France? We presume it will not be held that these states fortify that opinion. If not, to what governments and what people does he allude? The truth is, that he is possessed by the most monstrous hallucination which ever beset a human brain. He believes that the population of Europe are so enamoured of his flimsy rags as to be ready to sacrifice everything for the privilege of putting them next their skins, and that no government dare interpose between them and that most inestimable luxury. Whereas, in reality, Manchester and its products are detested, both by governments and people, from one end of Europe to the other. Why it should be so is not in the least degree perplexing. Every nation (except perhaps our own, which is for the present labouring under a most miserable delusion) has the natural wish to protect and foster its internal industry. A purely agricultural state is necessarily a very poor one—it is the mixture of agriculture and manufactures which tends to create wealth. Our neighbours on the Continent are doing all in their power to promote manufactures, and we have helped them to attain their object by allowing a free export of machinery. They have not the slightest intention of permitting that portion of their capital, which is already invested in manufactures, to be destroyed by submitting to the operation of Free Trade; so, very wisely, they take advantage of our open ports to get rid of their superfluous agricultural produce, whilst they continue or augment their duties upon the articles of manufacture which we export. Not a man of them would break his heart if every mill in Manchester were burned to the ground to-morrow, nor would they subscribe one kreutzer for the benefit of the afflicted sufferers. Such is their feeling and their policy even in time of peace; in time of war they are somewhat apt to clap on an entire embargo.
The governments, however, are going to war, and at war, notwithstanding all that can be said or written to the contrary; nor have we been able to discover that the people—at least that portion of the people which, in time of tumult, is the most influential—has manifested the slightest indisposition to push matters to extremity. The small still voice of Elihu Burritt has failed to tranquillise the roar of conflict in Denmark and the Holstein Duchies. It may possibly be matter of wonder to some folks that all national quarrels are not instantly submitted to the arbitration of a peripatetic blacksmith, or an equally ubiquitous cotton-spinner. Oliver Dain, more popularly designated Le Diable, had once a good deal to say in matters of state, though his avowed function was only that of a barber, and it may be that the Peace Congress set considerable store by that notable precedent. We, however, are not ashamed to confess that our faith is small in the efficacy of the Columbian Vulcan. Mars, we suspect, will prove too much for him in the present instance, and escape the entanglement of the net. Seriously, we apprehend that there is less to fear from the deliberate intentions of governments, than from the inflamed passions of the people. At all events the two co-operate, and must co-operate in producing war; and public opinion in this country, as to the propriety of maintaining peace, is of as little effect or practical use, owing to our notorious weakness, as the sighing of the summer wind.
Such being the signs of conflict abroad, the next consideration is, how are we affected by them—or rather, what course ought we to pursue in the present distracted state of European politics? We think that common-sense dictates the answer—we ought to prepare ourselves against every possible emergency. We do not know from what quarter the danger may come, or how soon; but the horizon is murky enough around us to give warning of no common peril. What should we think of the commander of a vessel who, at the evident approach of a storm, made no preparation for it? Yet such is, in truth, at the present time, the fatuous conduct of our rulers. They have been advised by the best and most experienced pilot of their danger, and yet they will do nothing. They are drifting on as heedlessly as if the breeze were moderate, no reefs ahead, and no scud visible in the sky.
We have said that we do not know from what quarter the danger may come. There is, however, one quarter from which we may, legitimately enough, apprehend danger; and that not only on the score of most tempting opportunity, but because from it we have, ere now, been threatened under circumstances of greater difficulty. The meditated invasion of England by France, under Napoleon, ought not to be effaced from the recollection of the British people. We were then infinitely better prepared to resist such an attempt than we are now. We had troops and levies in abundance, a large and powerful navy, manned by experienced sailors, and full intimation of the design; whilst, on the other hand, the French were deficient in shipping, and, what is even more material, unassisted by that wonderful agent steam, which has made the crossing of the Channel in a few hours, despite of contrary winds, a matter of absolute certainty. Because that expedition failed, is it a fair conclusion—as we have seen it argued in the public journals—that another expedition, aided by that science which has reduced the intervening arm of the sea to a mere ditch or moat, must also necessarily fail? We cannot understand such reasoning. It is allowed by all military and naval men who have studied the subject, or written upon it—and we confess that, in a matter of this kind, we should prefer eminent professional opinions to the mere dicta of a journalist, or the sweeping assertions of a civilian—that a French army could now, by the aid of steam, be ferried across the Channel without encountering the tremendous opposition of a fleet. If that be admitted, then invasion becomes clearly practicable, and the next consideration is its probability.
It is always instructive to know what is going on on the other side of the Channel. It is no Paul Pry curiosity which prompts us to inquire into the proceedings of our eccentric neighbours; for, somehow or other, we very frequently find them swayed in their actions either by our example or our position. And, in order to prosecute this inquiry, we shall make room for Sir Francis Head, and accept such information as he can give us:—
"There is often so much empty bluster in mere words, that, if there existed no more positive proof of danger than the statements, arguments and threats above quoted, we might perhaps, in the name of 'economy,' reasonably dismiss them to the winds. The following evidence will, however, show that the French nation, notwithstanding the violence of the political storms which have lately assailed them, and notwithstanding the difference of opinion that has convulsed them, have throughout the whole period of their afflictions, and under almost every description of government, steadily, unceasingly, and at vast cost, been making preparations for performing what for more than half a century they have THREATENED—namely, the invasion of England.
"Extracts from the correspondence of the Times, described as from 'an Officer of Experience in our own Service.'—(See Times, September 10, 1850.)
"'Cherbourg, Saturday night.
"'The spectacle of to-day was perhaps one of the most splendid of its kind that has been ever witnessed. Nothing short of the terrible glories of actual warfare could have exceeded it; and, without being an alarmist, I may safely say that the effect made on the mind of an Englishman by such a display of force and power on the part of an ally who has been our bitterest foe in times gone by, in a port almost impregnable, and within a few hours' sail of the shores of Great Britain, was not calculated to put him at ease.'
"'Cherbourg, Monday, Sept. 10.
"'There are not many Englishmen who know that, within less than sixty-six miles of Portsmouth, there is a French port in which the most extensive works have been for years carried on, till nature has given way to the resources of skill and infinite art, and the sea and land, alike overcome, have yielded to our ancient foe one great naval entrepot,—placed in a direct line with our greatest dockyards, fortified at an enormous cost, till it is impregnable to everything but desperate daring and lucky hardihood, increasing day after day in force and power, accessible from every point of the compass and at all states of the tide to a friendly fleet, capable of crushing beneath an almost irresistible fire the most formidable of hostile armaments—in a word, "the eye to watch and the arm to strike the ancient enemy." There is no geographical necessity for such a port opposite to our coast. The commerce of France does not need it. Our neighbours may well remark that they are justified in protecting a place which has already felt the force of our arms, and that they are bound to protect Cherbourg from such a contingency as that which occurred in the last century, when Admiral Bligh laid it in ruins. But Admiral Bligh would not have attacked Cherbourg had it not been a menacing warlike station; and, talk as they may, there can be no doubt that the whole of these immense works are prepared for a war with England, and with England alone. When I say this, of course I do not mean to say that France will take any unjust advantage of her position; but we ought not to shut our eyes to the fact that such a place is within seven or eight hours' sail of England; and that a French fleet leaving it in the evening with a leading wind could be off Portsmouth next morning, and could bombard any of our towns on the southern coast.
"On the above graphic description, the editor of the Times offered to the country the following just remarks:—
"'It is impossible to forget—perhaps, without the slightest imputation on our neighbours' good-will, we may say it was not intended we should forget—that the fleet which issued, in such magnificent style, from behind the Cherbourg breakwater, might some day sail straight across the Channel; that those heavy guns might all be pointed in anger; and that each of the black rakish-looking steamers might throw a thousand men on a hostile shore without warning given or suspicion raised. Such a suggestion cannot be thought out of place or ill-timed, for doings of this kind are the very vocation of the vessels paraded before us. If guns were not meant to be fired, or steamers to be employed for transport, there would be no use in manufacturing either one or the other. From the extent of our liabilities we may measure our precautions; and it is undoubtedly not advisable that we should be without the wherewithal to receive such visitors as might possibly be some day despatched from Cherbourg. The point is certainly a brave one for the economists, who will appeal to the folly thus probably exemplified of nations urging each other forward in the ruinous race of public expenditure. The argument sounds very plausible, but it is, in plain truth, impractical.'
"Lastly, during England's late disagreement with France and Russia on the subject of Greece, after the French Ambassador had left this country, and while the Russian Ambassador was ready to leave it also, the Times, without creating the smallest excitement throughout the country, informed its readers of two ominous facts, namely—
"1st, That, during the said discussion, France was increasing her number of seamen.
"2d, That, as soon as the foresaid discussion ended, they were dismissed."
We regret to observe that, since then, the Times seems to have changed its tone on this very important subject, and it now regards the preparation necessary to insure the security of England as too costly for the object proposed. This is a novel view, even in ethics. We have been taught that it was our duty, in case of necessity, to expose even our lives in defence of our country; and we do hope that there are some among us who still adhere to that noble lesson. No such sacrifice is required just now. All that is demanded—and demanded it ought to be, not by isolated writers, or even high and competent authorities, but by the general voice of the nation—is, that our navy should be put upon an efficient footing—that the Admiralty should be reformed, and no chief of it appointed who is not conversant with the details of the service of which he is selected as the head—that no other Minto should be allowed to make his high maritime office the source of family patronage—that a ready and constant supply of skilled and experienced seamen should be secured—and that the vast expenditure lavished on our ships should not be rendered nugatory for want of hands to man them adequately when launched. Furthermore, we require that the standing force of our army at home should be so augmented as to render it certain that, in any sudden emergency, we may not have to depend upon the voluntary efforts of a panic-stricken and undisciplined mob. We have already spoken of the chances of our being involved in war, and also of the possibility of an invasion: let us now examine what amount of disposable forces we have ready, in the event of such a terrible emergency. Our muster-roll, inferior certainly to the Homeric catalogue, is as follows:—In Great Britain and Ireland we have precisely 61,848 regular enlisted soldiers of all departments of the service! Of these, 24,000 are stationed in Ireland alone, whence, in the event of the occurrence of any disturbance, they could scarcely be withdrawn; so that the whole defensible force of England and of Scotland is reduced to rather less than 38,000 soldiers! That number would hardly be doubled were we to add the whole of the pensioners, more or less worn out, the corps of yeomanry, and the half-drilled workmen of the dockyards: and with this force some of us are content to await invasion; whilst others, more reckless still, are even clamouring for its reduction! Farther, as if we were resolved to push on folly to the furthest extreme, the drawing of the militia has been, by Act of Parliament, suspended; so that even that slender thread, which in some degree connected the civilian with the military service, has been broken. This is the bare naked truth, with which foreigners are perfectly well acquainted, and which they will continue to bear in mind, notwithstanding our attempts to amuse them, with glass-houses and gigantic toy-shops.
What would not the elder Buonaparte have given to find us in such a state! Very far, indeed, are we from imagining that the present President of the French Republic bears any personal ill-will to this country, wherein he has met with much hospitality; but, giving him the utmost credit for amicable dispositions and pacific intentions, we cannot forget the peculiarity of the position which he occupies, or the varied influences which control him. However we may wish to believe the contrary, it is certain that France regards herself rather as the rival than as the ally of England. It cannot, indeed, be otherwise. France has recollections, not of the most soothing kind, which no lapse of time has been able to efface; and these will infallibly, when an opportunity occurs, regulate her future conduct.
And how stands France at this moment with regard to military preparation? Observe—there is no enemy threatening her from without. Of all states in Europe she is the least likely to be attacked. Yet we find her available force as follows:—
| Regular troops. | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Staff, | 3,826 | ||
| Cavalry, | 58,932 | ||
| Infantry, &c., | 301,224 | ||
| Artillery, | 30,166 | ||
| Engineers, | 8,727 | ||
| Pontoon train, &c., | 5,755 | ||
| Total, | 408,630 | ||
| Garde Nationale. | |||
| 82 | battalions | of 1500 men, | 123,000 |
| 2378 | do. | of 1000 men, | 2,378,000 |
| 2,501,000 | |||
| Of whom 2,000,000 are armed with firelocks. | |||
| To the above are to be added:— | |||
| Garde Nationale of Paris, | 129,800 | ||
| Total, | 2,630,800 | ||
| Together, more than three millions of trained men! | |||
We need not dwell on the disproportion which is apparent here; indeed, our whole task is one from which we would most willingly have been held excused. It is not pleasant either to note or to reiterate the undoubted fact of our weakness; and yet what help is there, when purblind demagogues are allowed by senseless clamour to drown the accents of a voice still speaking to us from the verge of the grave? Let Sir Francis Head illustrate this point, and may his words sink deep in the heart of an unwise generation.
"Why, we ask, have the Duke of Wellington's repeated prayers, supplications, admonitions, and warnings "to various Administrations," and through the press to the British people, been so utterly disregarded? Without offering one word of adulation—we have personally no reason to do so—we cannot but observe, that no problem in science, no theory, important or unimportant, has ever been more, thoroughly investigated than the character of the Duke of Wellington by his fellow-countrymen.
"During the spring and summer of his life, the attention of the British nation followed consecutively each movement of his career in India, Portugal, Spain, Denmark, the Low Countries, France, and latterly in the senate. In the autumn of his life, the secret springs which had caused his principal military movements, as well as his diplomatic arrangements, were unveiled by the publication of despatches, letters, and notes, official as well as private, which without palliation or comment developed the reasons,—naked as they were born,—upon which he had acted, on the spur of the moment, in the various predicaments in which he had been placed. In the winter of his life, bent by age, but with faculties matured rather than impaired by time, it has been his well-known practice, almost at the striking of the clock, to appear in his place in the House of Lords, ready not only to give any reasonable explanations that might be required of him, but to disclose his opinions and divulge his counsel on subjects of the highest importance. Every word he has uttered in public has been recorded; many of his private observations have been repeated; his answers to applications of every sort have usually appeared in print; even his "F.M." epigrammatic notes to tradesmen and others, almost as rapidly as they were written, have not only been published, but in one or two instances have actually been sold by auction. Wherever he walks, rides, or travels, he is observed; in short, there never has existed in any country a public servant whose conduct throughout his whole life has been more scrupulously watched, or whose sayings and doings have by himself been more guilelessly submitted to investigation. The result has been that monuments and inscriptions in various parts of London, of the United Kingdom, and throughout our colonial empire, testify the opinion entertained in his favour; and yet although in the Royal Palace, in both Houses of Parliament, at public meetings, and in private society, every opportunity seems to be taken to express unbounded confidence in his military judgment, sagacity, experience, integrity and simplicity of character, yet in our Legislature, in the Queen's Government, as well as throughout the country, there has for many years existed, and there still exists, an anomaly which foreigners observe with utter astonishment, and which history will not fail to record—viz., that his opinion of the defenceless state of Great Britain has, by statesmen, and by a nation who almost pride themselves on their total ignorance of the requirements of war, been utterly disregarded!"
We have but little space left for further comment. We do not consider it necessary to follow Sir Francis Head through almost any portion of his masterly details, or to sketch, even in outline, the picture which he has drawn of the possible consequences of our supineness. On these points the book must speak for itself. We venture to think that it will not be without some effect, however it may be assailed by vulgar abuse, or depreciated by contemptible flippancy. It speaks home to the feelings of Englishmen, has the merit of great perspicuity, and deals prominently with facts which can neither be gainsaid nor denied.
Even to the apostles of peace—the fanatics, as we think, of the present age—Sir Francis holds out the olive branch. He represents to them, what they probably cannot see, that the only method of realising their cherished idea of voluntary arbitration and reduction of armaments, is by maintaining at a crisis like the present the true balance of power. And certainly he is right, if there be anything at all in their scheme. For our own part, we hold it to be absolutely and entirely chimerical. It is a mere phase or fiction of that wretched notion of cosmopolitanism, which some years ago was preached by Cobden—a notion to which the events and experiences of each successive month have given the practical lie, and which never could have been hatched except in the addled brain of some ignorant and vainglorious egotist. By herself, Britain must stand or fall. The good and the evil she has done—the influence which she has exerted, one way or the other, over the destinies of the human race, is written in the everlasting chronicle; and her fate is in the hand of Him who raises or crushes empires. What trials we may have to undergo—what calamities to suffer—what moral triumphs to achieve—are known to Omnipotence alone. But as a high rank in the scale of nations has been given us, let us, at all events, be true to ourselves, in so far as human prudence and manly foresight can avail. Let us not, for the sake of miserable mammon—or, still worse, for the crude theories of a pragmatical upstart—imperil the large liberties which have been left to us, as the best legacy of our forefathers. Our duty is to uphold, by all the means in our power, the honour and the integrity of our native land: nor dare we hope for the blessing or the countenance of the all-controlling Power, one moment after we have proved ourselves false to the country which gave us birth.
[THE POPISH PARTITION OF ENGLAND.]
If a religious Revolution consists in a powerful change in the religious feelings of a country, then are we at this moment in the midst of a religious Revolution! If a spirit of ardour suddenly starting forth in a period of apathy, if public zeal superseding public indifference, and if popular fidelity to a great forgotten cause, pledging itself to make that cause national once more, exhibit an approach to a miracle, then there has been made on the mind of England an impression not born of man. But if those high interpositions have always had a purpose worthy of the source from which they descend, we must regard the present change of the general mind as only a precaution against some mighty peril of England, or a preparation for some comprehensive and continued triumph of principle in Europe. That England is a tolerant country has never been questioned. Though the whole frame of its constitution is actually founded on the supremacy of the sovereign, and, of course, on the derivation of ecclesiastical power, as well as of every other, from the throne; though therefore the high appointments of the Church have been vested in the Crown, and the subordination of the great body of the clergy has necessarily connected them with the throne, the principle of toleration shapes all things. The ecclesiastical constitution excludes all violence to other disciplines; allows every division of religious opinion to take its own way; and even suffers Popery, with all its hostility, to take its own way—to have its churches and chapels, its public services, its discipline, and all the formalities, however alien and obnoxious, which it deems important to its existence.
None familiar with the history of Popery can doubt that its principle is directly the reverse—that it tolerates no other religion; that it suffers no other religious constitution; that where the tree of Popery lifts its trunk and spreads its branches, all freedom of opinion withers within its shade.
Rome, by an usurpation unexampled even in the wildest periods of heathenism, insists on seizing that which is wholly beyond human seizure—the conscience; demands that uniformity of opinion which it was never within the competency of man to enforce on man; and punishes man by the dungeon, confiscation, and death, for feelings which he can no more control, and for truths which he can no more controvert, than he can the movements of the stars.
If it has been argued that Protestantism is equally condemnatory of those who dissent from its doctrine, the obvious answer is, that it simply declares the condemnation annexed by Scripture to vice. But it attempts no execution of that punishment, leaving the future wholly to the mercy or the justice of the Judge of the quick and dead. Popery not merely passes the sentence, but executes it, as far as can be done by man. Thus the distinction is, that Protestantism goes no further than to declare what the welfare of mankind requires to be declared. But Popery takes the judgment into its own hands; and, where it has power, punishes by confiscation and chains, by the dungeon and the grave. And the especial evil of this usurpation is, that this punishment may exist, not for notorious vice, but for conspicuous virtue; not only that it takes God's office into its grasp, but that it insults the whole character of God's law. It goes farther still, and gathers within its circle of reprobation things which are wholly beyond the limit of crime—the exercise of knowledge, the right of conscience, and the sincerity of decision.
Yet, by this violent assumption of divine right, and lawless comprehension of crime, Popery has slain millions!
This distinction draws the broad line between Popery and Protestantism. The Protestant never persecutes; he is barred by his religion. The Papist never tolerates; he is stimulated by his creed. When Protestant worship is tolerated in Popish countries, the toleration is either compelled by Protestant superiority, or purchased by Popish necessities. But the claim of supremacy corrupts the whole combination. Where it is not extorted from the hands of Government, it still remains in the mind of the priesthood. Where it is blotted from the statute book, it is still registered in the breviary. Where it is extinguished by policy, it is revived by priestcraft. Like the pestilence, disappearing from the higher orders, it lurks in the rags of the populace, and waits only some new chance of earth or air, to ravage the land again. Or, like the housebreaker, hiding his head while day shines, but waiting only for nightfall to sally forth, and gather his plunder when men are vigilant no more.
The Papal Bull which has aroused such a storm of wrath in England, gives the full exemplification of this undying spirit of usurpation in Popery.
Beaten down in field and council three centuries and a half since—baffled in every attempt to domineer over England from the Reformation—in every instance sinking from depth to depth—wholly excluded from legislative power by the greatest of British kings, William III., for a hundred years of the most memorable triumphs of the constitution—Popery has now, before our eyes, to the astonishment of our understandings, and to the resistless evidence of its own passion for power, returned to all its old demands, and to more than its old demands; and, as if to make the evidence more glaring, returned at the moment when England is at the height of power, and Rome in the depth of debasement; when England is in her meridian of intelligence, and Rome in her midnight; when England is the great influential power of peace and war to all nations, and when Rome is a garrison of foreign hirelings, and her monarch the menial of their master's will.
If those demands are made, with Popery living in an actual paralysis of all the functions of sovereignty, what would be their execution with Popery lording it over the land? If Popery can issue these proclamations from the floor of its dungeon, what would be the sway of its sword when it strode over the neck of the empire? If, stript and manacled, it can thus rage against Protestantism, what would be its fury when, with new strength and unrestrained daring, its march headed by treachery in the higher orders, and followed by fanaticism in the lower, it should take possession of the Constitution?
While England was in a state of drowsy tranquillity, a Papal Bull appeared, under the signature of Cardinal Lambruschini, the Papal Secretary. A more daring document never was fabricated in the haughtiest days of Papal tyranny. It divided England into twelve Dioceses of the Popedom; it appointed twelve bishops, and appropriated to them all the rights and privileges of Episcopacy in England; and it called on all the Papists to contribute to the new pomp of the Popish worship, and the subsistence of the Diocesans.
This document is long and desultory; but as it is of importance to lay the case authentically before the reader, it shall be given in its own words, abbreviating only the formalities of the verbiage.
"Pius P. P. IX.—The power of ruling the Universal Church, committed by our Lord Jesus Christ to the Roman Pontiff in the person of St Peter, Prince of the Apostles, hath preserved through every age in the Apostolic See this remarkable solicitude, by which it consulteth for the advantage of the Catholic religion in all parts of the world, and studiously provideth for its extension. And this correspondeth with the design of its Divine founder, who, when he ordained a head to the Church, looked forward to the consummation of the world. Among other nations, the famous realm of England hath experienced the effects of this solicitude on the part of the Sovereign Pontiff."
After referring to the agency sustained by the Papacy in England from 1623, by nominal bishops, the Bull declares that, from the commencement of his pontificate, Pius had his attention fixed on the "promotion of the Church's advantage in that kingdom. Wherefore, having taken into consideration the present state of Catholic affairs in that kingdom, and reflecting on the very large and everywhere increasing number of Catholics there; considering also that the impediments which principally stood in the way of the spread of Catholicity were daily being removed, we judged that the time had arrived when the form of Ecclesiastical Government in England might be brought back to that model in which it exists freely among other nations." It seemed good to the Pope to establish his Bishops among us, as they were in Popish countries. The result is, "that in the kingdom of England, according to the common rule of the Church, we constitute and decree that there be restored the hierarchy of ordinary bishops."
Before we proceed, we must observe the quantity of assumption, even in this fragment. 1st, That Christ gave the Headship of the Universal Church, (he himself being the only Head); 2d, That St Peter was the head of the apostles, (which is contradicted by the whole apostolic history;) and 3d, That this right has always and everywhere belonged to Rome!—(a right resisted by the Greek Church, by a large portion of even the Latin Church, by the early British Church, and by the Syrian.)
It is further admitted, that a change has lately taken place in the relative conditions of English Protestantism and Popery, and that the appointment of bishops is for the purpose "of extending that change"—in other words, of acquiring power, and urging proselytism, in a Protestant state, where the Papist is tolerated only on the promise of peace.
But all disguise is now thrown aside, as if it was no longer necessary. The movement is acknowledged to be one of national conversion; religious conquest is declared to be the object; the Pope, in planting twelve new bishops in British sees, declares that he is resuming the old supremacy of Rome—thus, holding out reconciliation in one hand, and retaliation in the other, he is prepared at once to supersede the national religion.
In conformity with this declaration, he has taken the map of England into his hand; and, surrounded by his cardinals, has dissected it into dioceses in the following style:—
All England and Wales shall henceforth form one Archiepiscopal Province.
In the district of London there shall be an Archbishopric of Westminster, comprising Middlesex, Essex, and Hertfordshire.
The See of Southwark is to be suffragan to that of Westminster, and is to comprehend the counties of Berks, Southampton, Surrey, Sussex, and Kent, with the isles of Wight, Jersey, Guernsey, and the adjacent isles.
In the north there is to be the Diocese of Hexham.
The Diocese of York will be established at Beverley.
In the west, the See of Liverpool, comprehending the Isle of Man, Lonsdale, Amounderness, (?) and West Derby.
The See of Salford, comprising Blackburn and Leyland.
In Wales, there shall be the Diocese of Shrewsbury, comprising Anglesea, Caernarvon, Denbighshire, Flintshire, Merionethshire, Montgomeryshire, Cheshire, and Salop.
And the Diocese of Newport, comprising Brecknockshire, Glamorganshire, Carmarthenshire, Pembrokeshire, Monmouthshire, and Herefordshire.
The West is divided into two Bishoprics:—
Clifton, comprising Gloucestershire, Somersetshire, and Wiltshire; And Plymouth, comprising Devonshire, Dorsetshire, and Cornwall.
In the Central District, the Diocese of Nottingham shall comprise Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, and Rutlandshire.
The Diocese of Birmingham, comprising the counties of Stafford, Warwick, Worcester, and Oxford.
The Eastern district shall form one Diocese, under the name of Northampton.
Thus England shall form one Ecclesiastical Province, under one Archbishop and twelve Bishops.
They are to correspond with the College de Propagandâ Fide.
The new Bishops are to be unshackled by any previous customs of the Romish Church in England, and to have full Episcopal powers.
The Papal letter concludes by a recommendation to the Roman Catholics of England "to contribute, so far as in their power," by their pecuniary means, to the dignity of their Prelates and the "splendour of their worship," &c.
To prevent all idea that this division is merely nominal or spiritual, or unconnected with penalties on Protestantism, the principal Popish journal in England has added the following comment:—
"Rome has more than spoken; she has spoken and acted. She has again divided our land into dioceses, and has placed over each a pastor, to whom all baptized persons (!) without exception (!) within that district, are openly commanded to submit themselves in all ecclesiastical matters, under pain of damnation (!) And the Anglican Sees—those ghosts of realities long past away—are utterly ignored."
The bull proceeds: "Thus, then, in the most flourishing kingdom of England, there will be established one Ecclesiastical Province, consisting of an Archbishop or metropolitan head, and twelve Bishops, his suffragans, by whose exertions and pastoral cares we trust God will give to Catholicity in that country a fruitful and daily increasing extension.
"Wherefore we now reserve to ourselves and our successors, the Pontiffs of Rome, the power of again dividing the said province into others, and of increasing the number of dioceses, as occasion shall require; and, in general, as it shall seem fitting in the land, we may freely declare new limits to them."
Thus we find that the Pope is to hold a perpetual bag of mitres in his hand, out of which every aspirant for the honours of Rome and the lucre of England is to have his dole. Every head among us that aches for honours may now know where to look for them. Professorships and parishes need no longer keep the new school lingering on the edge of Popery; their consciences (!) may be relieved without injuring their pockets; they may allow themselves to "speak out;" and after half-a-dozen years of the most stubborn denials of Popery—of paltry protests and beggarly equivocation—of defending their orthodoxy in the press, and betraying their apostacy in the pulpit—they will be enabled to turn their backs on Protestantism, probably with a very useful addition to their resources, and start up from Curates and Canons into "My Lords." England would give very comfortable room for a speculation of this kind. Sixpence a piece from twenty millions of people would be better than all the Professorships of both Universities; and a seat in the House of Lords (which would be inevitably demanded, and which would be unhesitatingly conceded by Whig flexibility) would place the obscure and the avaricious very much at their ease.
To a Roman financier the prospect might have other charms. The present budget of the Popedom is supposed to be within a couple of millions sterling, and even that paid in a manner by no means creditable to Italian punctuality. As for the old tributes from Naples, Spain, and France, we may fairly return them as nil, those powers having more use for money than they possess bullion, and none of them being secure of army, populace, or parliament. A twelvemonth, in these times, may see the monarchs of the three succeeding to the vacant apartments of the Orleans dynasty at Claremont.
But what an incomparable windfall would England be to the Papal pauperism of these times! A bishop in every county gathering the alms of the faithful! or, if one bishop were not enough, might not the "sovereign pontiff," as the little Welsh Bishop reverently names Pio Nono, make fifty? He has graciously reserved to himself the right of "increasing and multiplying them" to the extent of all exigencies. We might soon have a bishop in every city, or a bishop in every village. We might have those holy locusts coming on the wing from every corner of the Continent; those cormorants of Rome fishing in our waters, until they carried off their prey to disgorge it into the capacious maw of Rome!
And that this operation would take place, on the first opportunity, is as certain as that "Peter's pence" were once raised in England with as much regularity as the king's taxes; that every Papist in Europe paid his portion of pence to Rome; that every bishop received his mitre from Rome; and that Rome never gave anything without a sum in hand, or a handsome promissory note—and that Rome boasts of being always the same. All this traffic would be under the name of charity; the old cry of Judas, "Ought not this ointment to have been sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?" would be echoed by the new keeper of the bag; and we should establish an annual drain of our circulation, to which all the contrivances of taxation would be child's play. For what could be the limit to the demands of foreign avarice invested with domestic authority, extortion calling itself zeal? or what could be the limits of a market selling absolution here, and Paradise hereafter, to profligate men and silly women—to lives wallowing in voluptuousness, and death-beds groaning in despair? It has been distinctly stated that, at the Reformation, one-third of the whole land of England had been absorbed into the possession of the Popish priesthood!
In all the annals of usurpation, there never was a broader grasp than in this Bull; in all the annals of effrontery there never was a more impudent assumption; but, in all the annals of infatuation, there never was an act of more headlong absurdity. It instantly roused the whole people; it reinforced every argument of the honest against Popery; it overthrew every pretence of the dishonest on behalf of Popery; and it worked the still greater wonder of forcing the loose and the lukewarm, the waverers and "waiters on the turn of things;" the "decently" knavish, the "respectably" hollow, and the "reputably" unprincipled, to acknowledge that Popery was really a "presuming kind of thing;" and that it ought to be, in some delicate way or other, if possible, put down.
But England contains other men than those smirking scandals to manhood. The nation burst out into a flame of indignation wherever man met man: in whatever occupation, in whatever rank of life, under whatever form of politics, in all hues of religious opinion, there was but one language. "Was ever insolence like this? Is a foreign friar to carve out the empire? Is a worshipper of stocks and stones to teach us religion? Is a persecutor to mutilate our laws? Is a despot to scandalise our liberties? Is the dependent of France, of Austria, or Spain, or any power that will suffer him to hang upon it, to be the actual divider of England among his dependents? Is a demand of power and possession, that would not be endured in any Popish country of the earth, to be quietly submitted to in the chief of Protestant kingdoms? And is this most insolent of all aggressions to be inflicted by the meanest of all sovereigns on the most powerful of all nations, and that nation the one which has most triumphantly abjured Popery?—England—whose fathers drove it headlong from the land, and cashiered a dynasty for daring to attempt its return; whose Constitution loathes its tyranny, whose honour abhors its artifice, whose literature exposes its deceptions, and whose religion brands its apostacy!"
That this description of the national feeling is not exaggerated, must be evident from the tone of the numberless speeches made at the parochial and provincial meetings, immediately on the publication of the atrocious Bull. The clergy of London and Westminster, as first insulted, took the lead; and their language expressed the natural feelings of offence and scorn excited by this intolerable presumption. The sentiment was unanimous.
Of course Rome is at her old work, and every trick is tried to smooth down the universal disdain. A Dr Ullathorne, who has taken time by the forelock, and bemitred himself without delay, wishes to tell the world that the Bull is a very harmless bull indeed; that the Vicars-Apostolic only wished for a change of name; and that the appointment of dioceses is merely what the Wesleyans and Sectaries effect, in marking out their preaching districts year by year.
But, do the Wesleyans give their preachers titles and badges of dignity? Do they locate them in cathedrals, build palaces for them, and enjoin the whole body of the faithful to "supply the splendour of their worship and themselves?" Do they declare that everything in religion is false but Wesleyanism; that all else have no orders, no Baptism, and no Christianity; that all other beliefs are rebels to the supremacy of John Wesley, and are liable to be punished as rebels in the coming day of Wesleyan power? That such poor evasions should be attempted is a scandal to the talents of Rome as an equivocator, but is not less a scandal to the brains of the man who attempts them, for they can deceive no one. They certainly have not deceived "Father Newman," who daily trumpets forth the triumph of the Bull; nor "Dr Wiseman," who has, by virtue of his red hat, ordered his jubilate to be chanted in every Popish chapel of London; nor the Liverpool Papists, who have actually sung Te Deum on the national victory of Popery; nor have they deceived even the English prelacy, who had gone so much farther than the winking Virgin, and seemed not inclined to use their eyes at all.
Nor will they deceive the people of Scotland, who, in the land of John Knox, are not forgotten by the Pope, but are understood to have allotted to them seven bishops by his provident bounty, seven delegates of Jesuitism, seven ambassadors of his triple-crowned highness, seven sons of the Scarlet Lady of Babylon, seven "purple and fine linen" representatives of Dives, before he was sent "to his place."
In the midst of this busy period, a letter appeared from the pen of the Premier. It was received by the multitude with a burst of acclamation; for this there were reasons of very different colours. Some were glad that Ministers could feel anything on a religious subject; some, that Lord John was on the national side; some that, after having so long raised the suspicions of one side, he had at last challenged the hostility of the other.
We must acknowledge that our gratulation was not altogether so ardent, and that we conceived this letter to be very much more the offspring of his Lordship's fears than his feelings. It was obviously unfortunate that his zeal had been kindled so late, there being no imaginable doubt that the Pope had marked out Westminster for the See of his new Archbishop several years ago. And it is clear, that the appointment of one Archbishop would have been as great an encroachment as the fixture of fifty. The principle was there, and it would evidently be prolific. Yet not a syllable of remonstrance had transpired. Wisdom was silent in the streets, and precaution slumbered within the Cabinet curtains. Whitehall was as quiet as Lambeth, and Lambeth of course was Lethe. No Minister hurried to the palace, with pallid lips and faltering nerves, like him who
"Drew Priam's curtain at the dead of night,
To tell him Troy was burned."
But the Dean and Chapter of Westminster had actually attempted to break the slumber, by an address deprecating the appointment, as utterly unconstitutional. This occurred in 1848. It was heard of no more, and silence came again.
As his Lordship's Letter is probably to be regarded as a Cabinet minute, we shall give its chief portions verbatim.
It begins by referring to a letter of the Bishop of Durham, which termed the Bull "insolent and insidious," the latter epithet appearing to us to have no other merit than that of alliteration, the measure not being insidious at all—but, by a remarkable deviation from the customary craft of the Papacy, being one of the most open and audacious insults on record.
The Letter then proceeds to say, that its writer, having "promoted to the utmost of his power the claims of the Roman Catholics to all civil rights"—a fact with which the country was fully acquainted—thought "it right, and even desirable, that the ecclesiastical system of the Roman Catholics should be the means of giving instruction to the numerous Irish immigrants in London and elsewhere, who, without such help, would be left in heathen ignorance."
The latter sentence we do not profess to understand. Does it allude to any arrangement, by which the Papacy was to change the system of simple superintendence, and adopt Dr Wiseman as archbishop, after all? Is this the preliminary to further development, and is the common rumour on the subject the reverse of a mistake? How the kind of religion imported by the legions of Irish beggary into England was to be purified by a new episcopal staff, is wholly beyond our comprehension. Or why the Protestant people of England, after feeding the pauperism of Ireland at home, should be bound to provide for its heresy here—or how, for the further allurement of the superfluous rabble of Ireland, we are to provide, for either their poverty or their pride, the pageant of twelve Popish mitres, we must leave it to his Lordship to explain.
His next sentence is more intelligible.
"There is an assumption of power in all the documents which have come from Rome—a pretension to supremacy over the realm of England, and a claim to sole and undivided sway, which is inconsistent with the Queen's supremacy, with the rights of our bishops and clergy, and with the spiritual independence of the nation, as asserted even in Roman Catholic times."
How this discovery should have been delayed till November 1850, in the apprehension of a public personage acquainted with the general facts of history, handling Popish concerns all his life, and an inveterate supporter of the Popish Bill of 1829, is not easily accounted for. But every man of common intelligence in Europe, (his Lordship excepted,) knew that Popery has existed in a perpetual struggle with all governments for temporal supremacy, under the pretence of spiritual; that it has attempted a constant usurpation of royal authority even in the Popish kingdoms; and that its restless appetite for power requires constant coercion, even by those governments, to render it compatible with any government at all. What is to be said, when Pio Nono has excommunicated the Sardinian government before our eyes? The next sentence is significant: "I confess that my alarm is not equal to my indignation."
Does his Lordship mean by this that we have been frightened by a shadow, while he has preserved his fortitude? or that the nation has been somewhat inclined to play the fool in its fright, while he has preserved his serenity through his superior knowledge? But he then proceeds to inform us what should be the true object of national alarm, and that is Tractarianism!
Without implying that his Lordship here employs that well-known species of diplomacy which substitutes conjecture for reality, we shall tell him that Tractarianism, though exciting much regret, and bringing much discredit on the laxity of discipline which has so long suffered its existence, is not the real danger; that, compared with Popery, it is but the "fly on the chariot wheel;" and that its influence is not to be named for a moment beside the systematic art, the vast extent, and the indefatigable ambition of Popery.
We are not much more reassured by his Lordship's hint of the smallness of the Pope's territorial power.
"What is the danger to be apprehended from a foreign prince of no great power, compared to the danger within the gates?" &c.
But does his Lordship conceive that we are afraid of the Pope's territorial power?—that we are alarmed at an invasion of his Hundred Swiss?—or that any man ever supposed that a minister in the Pontine Marshes was to shake the Religion and State of England? The Popedom has always been a narrow territory, and yet the Papacy has been the great disturber of Europe for a thousand years. Does his Lordship doubt that its weapon was superstition, and that superstition was once universal? But, while we can feel no terror at the sickly absurdities of a few fanatics, or the low artifices of a few hunters after vulgar popularity, who have never reckoned within their ranks any one man of name, or ability, or learning, or even of station—who owe their sole publicity to what the Bishop of London calls a "poor imitation of Popery," and whose bowings and gesticulations are actually objects of national ridicule—we see a wholly different antagonist in a system, possessed of the power of the multitude, addressing itself to every weakness and pampering every passion of man, offering every prize to avarice, and stimulating every appetite for possession; unceasing in pursuit of all its objects, and making everything an object; desperately inimical to religious liberty, and perpetually labouring to establish over every people an authority fatal to the progress of mankind. We see it now with a hundred and forty millions of souls in Popish Europe, with nearly all the Continental thrones Popish, with hundreds of thousands of monks and friars devoted to all the purposes of its ambition, with its seculars mingled through every population, and with the wealth of the whole Popish community ready to be lavished in a crusade of Monkism. We must confess that we feel as much anxiety in the issue of a contest with such a power as is consistent with a feeling of courage in the performance of our duty.
We have never doubted that England, under the protection of a higher power than man, and awakened to a sense of her peril, will triumph in the most hazardous struggle. But her safety must be grounded on her vigilance. The sleeping giant is as helpless as a child.
So fully are we convinced that Rome is the real danger, that we not merely laugh at Tractarianism, in comparison, but we look with suspicion on every attempt to set it up as the danger. To compare this dwarf with the gigantic bulk of Popery seems absurd; and we must therefore reject it as argument altogether. It is also unfortunate for this bugbear that it has been so slow in its discovery, and that the Ministerial terrors have already slept so long, Tractarianism being now a well-grown peril—its siege of the Church having already lasted some years beyond the renowned siege of Troy!
The Letter, however, closes with the spirit of an enthusiast in the "good cause,"—"I will not abate a jot of heart or hope so long as the glorious principles and the immortal martyrs of the Reformation shall be held in reverence by the great mass of a nation which looks with contempt on the mummeries of superstition."
All this is what Dominie Sampson would have pronounced "prodigious!" with his loudest and longest suspiration. And all is eminently curious, in the man whose whole career has been devotion to every Popish demand, and advocacy of every Popish measure; who has risen into office by the influence of Popish voices, and who has been in the intima concilia of the imaginary Archbishop of Westminster!
Must not Protestants ask, By whose advice was Mr Wyse planted in the Greek embassy?—by whom was Mr O'Farril planted in the government of Malta?—by whom was Mr Shiel planted in the embassy to Tuscany—or rather to the whole of western and middle Italy, and in immediate approximation to Rome? Were three Papists selected for those express, and at present most important missions, without a purpose?—were they flung up merely by the diplomatic wheel?—or were those extraordinary appointments of untried men produced by a sudden, and a Papal demand, for the support of a plan?
But this is a time of wonders, and his Lordship's conversion may rank at the summit of them all. However, there is a reason for everything in art and nature; and it is said that a very high personage had a share in this rapid operation on the Ministerial understanding; that the question was asked,—"Pray, who is to be the sovereign?" and that the answer was his Lordship's letter. It concludes by giving the coup-de-grace to the character of Popery, of whose present performances it speaks with scorn, as "laborious endeavours to confine the intellect, and enslave the soul."—(Downing Street, Nov. 4.)
In the meantime "my Lord Cardinal," who had stopped in his posthaste journey, on learning John Bull's theological opinions of his Manifesto, was comforted by an emissary despatched to inform him that the bonfires of the 5th of November had all been suffered to sink into ashes, and that he would escape any severer trial of his fortitude than being burnt in effigy. But the Doctor, now fearless of his auto-da-fé, is also said to have determined on carrying the war into the enemy's quarters, and showing that every step which he has taken has been sanctioned by his denouncers; and that, instead of being the foolish and impudent intruder which the public have believed him to be, he has been actually only the submissive follower and ready agent of councils far enough removed from the Quirinal.
We shall advert to but one matter in addition, yet the most important of all. From the accession of Pio Nono, there has been a decisive change of the old Papal plan. For the last three hundred years, Popery, smitten by the Reformation, had limited its efforts to keeping itself in existence, the stern power of the military thrones having prohibited its excitement of the people. But times changed; the power of the multitude increased, the power of the monarchs diminished, and the appeal was now to be made to the multitude. Europe then saw, with sudden astonishment, a liberal Pope, and heard the sound of popular emancipation from the recesses of the Conclave. If the rash ambition of the King of Sardinia had not thrown Italy into war, and his shallow generalship turned the war into a flight, the plan of popular appeal would probably have made Popery the head of Red Republicanism. But the whole affair was managed as everything beyond the confessional is managed by monkery—and the Pope was glad to escape from the blaze which he had kindled with his own hasty hand.
His restoration by the French sword, drawn for republicanism in France and for despotism in Rome, has set the machinery in movement again; and we now see its first manufacture in the actual claim of supremacy in England. Whether its contemptuous repulse here will check its progress abroad, who shall say? But, that a conspiracy for the extinction of Protestantism exists in Europe; that the ten foreign cardinals were appointed to propagate the plan; and that it is to be defeated only by vigilance and principle, there can be no doubt in the mind of any rational being.
But, since we began this paper, two events have occurred, which, trifling as they may be as to the individuals concerned, give too clear an evidence of the spirit of Popery and public men to be wholly passed by.
That excellent paper, the Standard, thus briefly states the first: "In May 1845 the late Lady Pennant expressed to her parish minister (the Rev. Mr Briscoe) her intention to build a church near her residence, in Wales, for the use of her poor neighbours. This she also stated to her daughter, who promised to fulfil it. This daughter married Lord Fielding, and brought him a fortune, part of which, of course, was apparently pledged to the building of the church. On Lady Pennant's death, writes the Bishop of St Asaph to Lord Fielding—'You publicly declared that you purposed to bestow a large sum of money in founding a church, and all things belonging to it. You invited me and my clergy to join in laying the foundation. You seemed to understand it so. We certainly understood it so; and we received the Lord's Supper together, with this understanding.
"'Now, I must say, that I regard this as a promise made to me, and my clergy, as solemnly as it could be made on earth.'
"Lord Fielding," says the Standard, "sets about the building,—plain proof that he perfectly understood his duty. Before the completion of the church, however, his Lordship falls into the hands of Tractarians, who, as usual, deliver him over to Romanist priests, who furnish him with the miserable arguments, which, grounded on the two extraordinary notions, that what a man promises as a Protestant he is not bound to perform as a Papist, and that, no distinct fund having been appropriated in Lady Pennant's will, he is not bound to apply any whatever—finishes by saying, 'My duty appears clear to me, to devote that church which is being built at my own cost, and which yet remains mine, to the furtherance of God's truth, as I find he himself delivered it to his Holy Catholic Church.'"
So that the result of Lady Pennant's wish, and her money, left for a Protestant church, is the building of a Popish chapel! and the result of a Protestant bishop's laying the foundation, is the erection of a place for the mass and the worship of the Virgin Mary! We disdain comment on this transaction. But it is eminently Popish.
The other instance is the attendance of Mr Hawes, the Under Secretary of State, at a congratulatory public meeting in honour of Dr Wiseman's appointment as a cardinal, and his actually subscribing money to buy him a Red Hat.
The office of Under Secretary, though not one of much public consideration, and often given to persons of none whatever, is yet regarded as extremely confidential; and, in the instance of Mr Hawes, it has unusual weight, from his being the actual representative of the Colonial Secretary in the House of Commons, Lord Grey being in the House of Lords. But Mr Hawes is also understood to possess a confidence out of his Department, and to be on the most intimate terms with the Premier. Indeed, the admiration of the Under Secretary for the noble Lord, the delicate attention of generally escorting him into the House, and seldom being able to remain in it after it has lost the light of his Lordship's countenance—his ecstasy of admiration at every sentence which slips from the Premier's lips, and the fixedness of his eye on his Lordship's features during the sitting—have often excited the surprise, and occasionally the amusement, of the members of the Legislature. But that Mr Hawes should have attended a public meeting, or done any one act on earth in which he conceived it possible to have produced a frown on the noble Lord's brow—or, indeed, should do anything without a consciousness of the most PERFECT acquiescence in the most important quarter—was among the "grand improbabilities" of the age. But Mr Hawes did go to the meeting, and subscribed for what our ancestors called a "rag of Popery," and what their sons call one of its "mummeries."
On this subject a correspondent of the Morning Chronicle writes the following queries:—
"Can Lord John Russell be sincere in his new-born zeal against what he pronounces the 'mummeries of superstition,' when he allows one of his subordinates, Mr B. Hawes, M.P., to attend a meeting of 'Catholics of the London district,' for the purpose of moving a resolution," &c. He adds: "Let me ask his Lordship, is it true that his Under Secretary for the Colonies, besides speaking at the meeting, has publicly subscribed £10 towards procuring one of those said 'mummeries'—a Cardinal's hat—for Dr Wiseman?" To this, the only answer given by Mr Hawes is, that he declined signing the Popish resolutions, but that he spoke, and offered to give his tribute, &c., from friendship to the Doctor; which this Papist, however, graciously condescended to receive.
Now, if Mr Hawes were attending to his parental trade on this occasion, there would have been nothing to say, but that it showed the smartness of an expert trafficker. But, as a fragment of the Ministry, he had another character to sustain, and he ought to have been aware of the conclusions which would be drawn, by both Papists and Protestants, as to the degree of approval under which he might have acted.
The "Cardinal's hat," too, by no means mends the matter. If his friendship for Dr Wiseman must overflow to the amount of £10, could it have taken no less official shape? Might he not have made it up to the Doctor in teacups or teaspoons, in a dozen of pocket-handkerchiefs, or in an addition to his shoes and stockings? But the hat is a badge: it has the effect of a cockade. What if it is a thing of red stuff? What is a cockade?—a thing of ribbon—which, however, makes the difference between armies!
Without any particular respect for Mr Hawes' shrewdness, we cannot believe that he was unacquainted with the natural conclusions; nor do we believe that it can be passed over, when the day comes for national inquiry into the whole course of Papal politics in England for the last half-dozen years. Meanwhile, the spirit of the people is high, their determination is decided, and the time is at hand for a great restoration to the principles of England.
[INDEX TO VOL. LXVIII.]
Abinger, lord, 563.
Adelaide, madame, and Chateaubriand, 44, 45.
Adolphus, Mr, 553.
Afghanistan, Peel's conduct on the disasters in, 359.
Africa, North, military life in, 415.
African Sporting, 231.
Agdolo, colonel, the case of, 343.
Agricultural Interest, state and prospects of the, 109.
Agricultural produce, comparative value of, 112
—amount of depreciation in it, 617
—direct and indirect burdens on it, 614.
Agriculture, capital invested in, 119
—and manufactures, comparative importance of, 115
—relations of small farming to, [675], et seq.
Alderson, baron, 553, 559, 569.
Aldossar, captain, 311, et seq., 317.
Alexander, the emperor, and his father's dethronement, 338, et seq. passim.
Alfieri, specimens of eloquence from, [649].
Algeria, sketches of the war in, 415.
Allen, rev. Mr, trial of, for duelling, [717].
Alton Locke, review of, 592.
Andelot, brother of Coligny, 18.
Anna Hammer, 573.
Ancient and Modern Eloquence, [645].
Anthony of Bourbon, 456, et seq. passim.
Antoinette de Bourbon, 2.
Architecture, mediæval, on, 219.
Aristotle, his definition of the poet, 480.
Army, errors of Louis XVIII. regarding the, 35
—the Prussian, rise of, 519.
Art, increasing taste for, in Great Britain, 77
—early, its absorption in architecture, 219.
Aumale, Francis, count d', 7
—his career, 9, et seq.
—the duke d', his power, popularity, &c. 12.
Austria, state of exports of cotton to, 127
—and of imports of corn from, 130
—the war between, and Frederick the Great, 522, et seq.
—and Hungary, conduct of Great Britain regarding, 329
—and Sardinia, 327.
Aytoun, William, the architect of Heriot's hospital, 227.
Bacon, account of, by Symonds d'Ewes, 142
—his definition of the poet, 486.
Balafré duke of Guise, 19.
Bar, the English, Ledru Rollin on, 170.
Baronial and Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Scotland, the, 217.
Bayley, baron, on duelling, [719].
Bean, the attack on the queen by, 552.
Bechuanas, sketches of the, 237.
Belgium, state of, exports of cotton to, 127
—and of imports of corn from, 129.
Bellingham, the case of, 564.
Benningsen, general, 338, 341, et seq.
Bentinck, lord George, exposure of free trade statistics by, 123.
Bèze, Theodore de, anecdote of, 460.
Billings' Antiquities of Scotland, 217.
Bisset's memoirs of sir A. Mitchell, 516.
Bodkin, Mr, counsel for Oxford, 553.
Bolza, count Joseph, 344.
Borthwick castle, ruins of, 226.
Bossuet, example of the oratory of, [656].
Bouillé's lives of the Guises, vol. i., 1
—vol. ii., 456.
Bourbon, the constable of, 4.
Bourbon and Guise, struggles between the houses of, 456.
Bourbons, difficulties of the, on the restoration, 36.
Brandenburg, the electorate of, 517.
Brantôme, account of the cardinal of Lorraine, by, 8.
Brazil, state of exports of cotton to, 133.
Brick duty, repeal of the, 612.
Britain, the defences of, [713].
British farmer, position of, compared with the foreign, 615, [682].
Brougham, lord, and the criminal law reform, 357
—his speech on the Durham clergy case, 378, [655]
—on ancient and modern eloquence, [657].
Bulau, Professor, his work on the Mysteries of History, 335.
Buller, Mr Justice, on duelling, [717].
Bullion committee, and its report, 360.
Buonaparte, Lucien, and madame Recamier, 42.
Buonaparte, Napoleon, the return of, from Elba, 37
—character of, by Chateaubriand, ib.
—Chateaubriand on his fall, 39
—persecution of madame Recamier by, 40
—and the Bourbons, Chateaubriand's pamphlet on, 34.
Burke, example of the oratory of, [654].
Burnet's landscape painting in oil, 185.
Caerlaveroc castle, ruins of, 225.
Calderon, the dramas of, 539.
Calisto y Melibœa, drama of, 536.
Cameleopard, hunting the, 238.
Campbell, sir John, at Frost's trial, 379, et seq.
—counsel on Oxford's case, 553
—and on Lord Cardigan's, [725]
—his Lives of the Chancellors, &c., 374, note.
Canada, Rollin on the conduct of England toward, 166.
Canning, political intrigue of, 211.
Capital, agricultural and manufacturing, 119
—recent legislation directed to favour, 115.
Capitalists, English, Rollin on, 168
—Peel's connection with the, 362.
Caracci, landscape style of the, 192, 193.
Cardigan, the earl of, trial of, 377, [720].
Cardonnel, Adam de, Scottish views by, 228.
Cash payments, the resumption of, in 1819, 360.
Castellane's military life in North Africa, 415.
Catherine of Medicis, 456, et seq. passim.
Catholic question, Palmerston's speech on the, 215
—Peel's conduct on the, 355, 363.
Catholic emancipation, results of, 363.
Catiline, speeches of, from Sallust, [652].
Cattle, decline in the value of, 108.
Cavaignac in Algeria, 417, 418.
Cavalry, on the use of, 531.
Caxton, Pisistratus, My Novel by, part i., 247
—part ii., 393
—part iii., 499
—part iv., [627].
Celestina, the drama of, 535.
Changarnier, general, in Algeria, 417.
Charles V., war between, and Francis I., 4
—siege of Metz by, 14.
Charles IX., notices of, 458, et seq. passim
—his death, 471.
Charles X., Chateaubriand's loyalty to, 43.
Charles, cardinal of Lorraine, character and career of, 11, 14.
Chartist outbreak, the trials for, 381.
Chateaubriand's memoirs, 33.
Chess match, the London and Edinburgh, 97.
Chess player's Chronicle, the, on the London and Edinburgh match, 100.
China, state of exports of cotton to, 127
—Peel's conduct regarding the war in, 359.
Christoval de Vines, the dramas of, 538.
Cicero, the representative of Roman oratory, [645]
—on the education of the orator, [660].
Civilisation, influence of peasant properties on, [678].
Clairvoyance, remarks on, 275.
Claude, duke of Guise, career of, 2
—his death, 13.
Claude Lorraine, the landscapes of, 192, 193.
Clergy, the English, Ledru Rollin on, 169.
Coal as a pigment, on, 187.
Cockburn, Mr, counsel for M'Naughten, 564, 565.
Cœlius, the oratory of, [658].
Coleridge, Mr Justice, 564.
Coligny, admiral, sketches of, 16, et seq., 456, et seq. passim
—his murder, 470.
Commerce, British, injury inflicted on, by intervention abroad, 324.
Commercial crisis of 1847, the, 124.
Condamine, Charles Marie de la, 352.
Condé, the prince of, 456, et seq. passim
—his death, 468.
Constant, B., sketch of Madame Recamier by, 41.
Convulsionnaires, the, 352.
Cordiner's Scottish views, on, 228.
Corn, importations of, compared with exports of cotton, 128.
Corn laws, Peel's conduct regarding the, 355
—false application of political economy shown in the repeal of, [672]
—Laing on, [682], et seq.
Corneille, the declamation of, [648].
Cosel, the countess, 348.
Cotton manufactures, relations of free trade to, 123, et seq.
—effects of free trade on, 126, et seq.
—exports of, compared with imports of corn, 128
—exports of, at various times, 124, 125
—yarn, exports of, 1845 and 1848, 126.
Courtship in the time of James I., 141.
Courvoisier, the trial of, 378
—sketch of, 545.
Cox, D., the water-colour painter, 186.
Craniology, fundamental error of, 266.
Crichton castle, architecture of, 225.
Crime, true causes of the increase of, 357.
Criminal, responsibility of the, 547, et seq., [712].
Criminal law, Peel's reform in the, 357.
Croix, madame de la, 351.
Crowe's night side of nature, review of, 265.
Crowther, lieut., the duelling case of, [719].
Cultivation, effects of peasant properties on, [675], et seq.
Cumming's South Africa, 231.
Currency measures of 1819, Peel's, 360.
Dairsie, church of, 224.
Daisy, the, by Δ, 471.
Daun, Marshal, defeat of, at Leuthen, 529.
Debt, effects of the resumption of cash payments on, 361.
Defences of Britain, the, [713].
Delta, a Wild-Flower Garland by
—The Daisy, 471
—The White Rose, 472
—The Sweetbriar, ib.
—The Wallflower, 473.
Demosthenes, the representative of Greek oratory, [645]
—example of his, [653].
Denman, Lord, Oxford tried before, 553
—and Lord Cardigan, [725].
Denmark, conduct of Britain to, 328.
Despotic governments, danger of revolutionary fervour to, 321
—oratory impossible under, [647].
D'Ewes, Symonds, the courtship of, 114.
Dewint, the water-colour painter, 186.
Diana of Poitiers, notices of, 11, 456.
Dies Boreales. No. VIII.
—Christopher under Canvass, 479
—on Dugald Stewart's ideal of the Poet, 480, et seq.
Direct taxes, distribution of the, 614.
Direct and indirect taxation, on, 623.
Doppelgangers, on, 273, 276.
Domenichino, the style of, 192, 193.
Drama, the English and Spanish, connection between, 537
—the modern, the declamation of, [648].
Dramatic art, capabilities of the French for, 415.
Dreams, on, 273.
Dresden, the Austrian siege of, 532.
Dreux, the battle of, 461.
Drummond, Mr, M'Naughten's trial for the murder of, 561.
Duelling, trials for, [712].
Dutch school of landscape, the, 191.
East, oratory unknown in the, [659].
Ecclesiastical architecture, on, 217.
Economist, the, on the American President's message, 132
—on the increased exports to the East, 134
—on the state of the home market, 135.
Edinburgh and London chess match, the, 97.
Egypt, state of exports of cotton to, 127
—and of import of corn from, 130.
Elephant, hunting the, 239.
Elgin cathedral, state of, 220.
Ellenborough, lord, on our foreign policy, 334.
Elliott, the duelling case of, [717].
Eloquence, ancient and modern, [645].
England, Ledru Rollin, on, 160
—the Popish partition of, [745]
—taste for landscape painting in, 185
—the water-colour painters of, 186
—neglect of Spanish literature in, 535
—defective training to oratory in, [662]
—modern style of it in, [666]
—extent of unimproved land in, [686].
English church, Ledru Rollin on the, 168
—drama, connection of, with the Spanish, 537.
Erskine, Mr, defence of Hadfield by, 552
—example of the oratory of, [655].
Europe, Laing's observations on, [671]
—importance of oratory in, [659]
—extent of unimproved land in, [686].
Exhibition of 1851, the, 278
—of paintings, the, 77.
Factories, number of, in the United States, 132.
Family Feud, a, 174.
Farmers, loss sustained by the, through free trade, 112
—their conduct toward their landlords, 113
—their condition as purchasers of manufactures, 135
—mode of assessing them for the income-tax, 620.
Figueroa, denunciations of the drama by, 539.
Fittler's Scotia Depicta, on, 228.
Flamboyant architecture, the, in Scotland, 224.
Flanders, the peasant proprietors of, [675], et seq.
Flemish school of landscape painting, the, 191.
Flemming, colonel, sketches of, 348.
Follett, sir W., 564, [726], et seq.
Foreign affairs, 319.
Foreign farmer, advantages of the position of the, 615, [683].
Foreign policy, Peel's, review of, 360.
Forey, major, in Africa, 417, 418.
Forsyth's Beauties of Scotland, on, 228.
Fouché, aversion of Chateaubriand to, 38.
Fouvert, fidelity of, to the duke of Guise, 3.
Fox, sketch of, by Ward, 207
—the accession and fall of, 214.
France during the sixteenth century, connection of the Guises with, 1, et seq., 456, et seq.
—impatience of repose in, 36
—state of exports of cotton to, 127
—and of imports of corn from, ib.
—moderation of England toward, 161
—defence of, by Ledru Rollin, 164
—rapid changes of property in, 168
—aggressive spirit of, 319
—English institutions unadapted to, 320
—value of Prussia as a barrier against, 516
—neglect of Spanish literature in, 535.
Francis I., sketches of, 2, et seq.
—his death, 11.
Francis II., notices of, 456, et seq. passim.
Francis of Lorraine, death of, 5.
Francis, the attack on the Queen by, 552.
Frederick the Great, career of, 520.
Frederick William I., character of, 518
—II., character, &c. of, ib. et seq.
Free-trade and our cotton manufactures, 123
—depreciation of agricultural produce under, 112
—review of Peel's conduct regarding, 365
—relations of taxation to, 617.
Free-traders, representations of, regarding the state of the country, 106
—their encomiums on sir R. Peel, 354.
Freedom, the masquerade of, 475.
French wars of religion, the, 456
—tragedy, the perfection of, [647].
French, military abilities of the, 415.
Frost, the trial of, 379.
Funds, taxation of the, 620.
Galgacus, the speech of, [651].
Game-law revolt in Saxony, 347.
Gemsbok, description of the, 234.
George III., Hadfield's attack on, 551.
Germany, courts of, sketches of, 348.
Gibbon's political economy, on, 620, note.
Gil of the green trousers, drama of, 543.
Girtin the painter, 186.
Glasgow Daily Mail, letter from the, on recent legislation, 138
—on the exhibition of 1851, 286, 288.
Glockner, a Bavarian adventurer, 429.
Gouge, rev. Mr, 142, et seq. passim.
Graham, sir James, views of, regarding the prices of grain, 107.
Grain, views of the free-traders regarding prices of, 107.
Grattan, Mr, the oratory of, [656].
Great Britain, the Defences of, [736],
—increasing taste for art in, 77
—prices at which wheat can be grown at in, 109
—her moderation toward France, 161
—Rollin on her conduct in the opening of the war, 164
—extent of her interests, 319
—effects on herself of her intervention in the Peninsula, 323
—encouragement given by her to foreign liberalism, 324
—her defenceless state, 333
—Prussia her natural ally, 516.
Great Unknown, the, [698].
Greece, conduct of Britain toward, 330.
Greek oratory, Demosthenes the representative of, [645].
Green, the dramas of, 538.
Green hand, the, a short yarn, part xi., 48
—part xii., 291
—a wind-up, 433.
Gregory, professor, his translation of Reichenbach's researches, 265, et seq.
Grose's Scottish antiquities, on, 228.
Guise, Bouillé's Lives of the House of, vol i., 1
—vol. ii., 456
—Claude, duke of, 2, et seq.
—Francis, 9, et seq.; 457, et seq. passim
—his murder, 464
—and Bourbon, struggle between the houses of, 456.
Gurney, baron, 548, 553.
Hadfield, James, the attack on George III. by, 551.
Hamilton, W., the attack on the Queen by, 553.
Hamm's campaign in Schleswig-Holstein, 308.
Hanover, exports of cotton to, 127.
Hanse Towns, exports of cotton to, 127.
Hardenberg, Prince, the territorial reforms of, [680].
Havil, the water-colour painter, 186.
Head's defenceless state of Britain, [736].
Helsham, Captain, trial of, [719].
Henry VIII., enmity of, to the Guises, 9.
Henry II. of France, notices of, 11, et seq.
—III., 467, et seq.
—IV., 468, et seq.
—V., Chateaubriand's speech for, 46.
Henry of Guise, character, &c. of, 465.
Heriot's hospital, architecture of, 227.
High treason, trial of Frost for, 379
Tindal's definition of, 380.
History, the mysteries of, 335.
Hobbima, the style of, 88, 193.
Hobert, chief-justice, 144, et seq. passim.
Hohenstein, game-law revolt at, 347.
Holland, state of exports of cotton to, 127
—and of imports of corn, 129.
Home market, value of the, 134.
Horace on the Poet, 493.
Hotham, baron, on duelling, [716].
Hours in Spain, 534.
House of Guise, the, 1, 456.
Huguenots, the wars with the, 456, et seq.
—massacre of, at Vassy, 459.
Hungarian exiles, interference of England on behalf of the, 329.
Hungary, conduct of Great Britain regarding, 329.
Imagination, Dugald Stewart on, 480.
Income-tax, renewal of the, 611
—Peel's conduct in imposing, 359
—inequalities in assessment of, 620.
India, state of exports of cotton to, 127
—of exports and imports, 134
—growth of British power in, 163
—Peel's conduct regarding, 359.
Indirect taxation, pressure of, on agricultural produce, 614
—and direct, comparison of, 623.
Industry of the people, the, 106
—mutual dependence of various branches of, 115.
Inheritance, law of, relations of small properties to, [679].
Insanity in connection with crime, on, 547, et seq., [712].
Intervention, the system of, 322, et seq.
Ireland, English institutions unadapted to, 320
—police force introduced by Peel into, 356
—results of Catholic emancipation in, 363
—exemption of, from the income-tax, 622.
Italian school of landscape painting, the, 191, 192.
Italy, the French invasion of, under Francis I., 3
—Palmerston's defence of his policy toward, 326.
Jackson, Cyril, 201.
James I., courtship in the time of, 141.
Jarnac, battle of, 468.
Jeffcott, the duelling case of, [717].
Jew bill, the, 73.
Jew, reasons against admission of, to the legislature, 73
—the modern, his character, 599.
Joinville, Henry prince of, 19.
John, cardinal of Lorraine, character and career of, 7
—his death, 13.
Johnson on duelling, [714].
Jones, Inigo, not the architect of Heriot's hospital, 227.
Jones, trial of, with Frost, 381, et seq.
Journalism, a lecture on, [691].
Juan de la Cueva, the dramas of, 538.
Judges, Townsend's Lives of the, 374
—decision of the, regarding insanity, 549.
Jury trial in England, Rollin on, 168.
Jutland, sketches of, 315.
Kabyles, contests of the French with the, 417.
Kelly, Mr Fitzroy, 388, et seq.
Kerr, R., letter from, on the exhibition of 1851, 286, 288.
Kinkel, Godfrey, a Family Feud by, 174.
Kolin, battle of, 526.
Kuruman, missionary station of, 237.
Labourers, effects of free trade on, 136.
La Decadence d'Angleterre, Ledru Rollin's, 160.
La Harpe and Madame Recamier, 41.
Laing's Observations on Europe, [671].
Land, unimproved, in England and the Continent, [686].
Landed interest, burdens on the, 614.
Landed property, transfer of, 168.
Landlords, prospects of the, 109
—apathy of, toward their tenantry, 113.
Landscape painting in oil, 185.
Landscape, passion for, in England, 185.
Latour Maubourg, general, 34.
Lawyers, English, Rollin on, 170.
Lecture on Journalism, a, [691].
Ledru Rollin on England, 160.
Legislature, reasons against the admission of the Jew to, 74.
Leuthen, battle of, 529.
Lewis, Mr, on the London and Edinburgh chess match, 101.
Liberal institutions, danger of forcing, on nations unprepared, 320.
Liberty, necessity of, to oratory, [646].
Lion, hunting the, 235, 236.
Litakoo, missionary station of, 237.
Lombardy, conduct of Palmerston regarding, 327.
London and Edinburgh chess match, the, 97.
London, increasing taste for pictures in, 77
—sketch of, by Ledru Rollin, 162
—police force, established by Peel, 357.
Lope de Vega, the dramas of, 539.
Lords, trial of Lord Cardigan before the, [725].
Lorraine, celebrity of the house of, 1
—Francis of, slain at Pavia, 5
—John, cardinal of, 7
—and Charles II., 456, et seq. passim, 466.
Louis XII., marriage and death of, 2.
Louis XVIII., the entry of, into Paris, 35
—his difficulties, 36
—conversation of Chateaubriand with, 38.
Louis Philippe, fall of, foreseen by Chateaubriand, 44
—remarkable interviews between them, ib. et seq.
Louvre, the exhibition in the, 77.
Ludlow, sergeant, at Frost's trial, 380.
Macaulay on the restoration of the Bourbons, 36.
Mackintosh, sir James, and the reforms in criminal law, 357.
M'Naughten, the trial of, for murder, 378, 548, 561
—interview with, 570.
Madness, degree of, necessary to exonerate from crime, 547, et seq.
Magnetism, Reichenbach's researches in, 266.
Malta, state of exports of cotton to, 127.
Manchester economists, the, 124.
Mansurow, colonel, 339, 341.
Manufacturers and agriculturists, comparative numbers of the, 115.
Manufactures, capital invested in, 119
—alleged value of the proposed exhibition to, 278
—the income tax imposed for behoof of, 612
—direct burdens on, 614.
Marignano, the battle of, 3.
Marin, lieutenant, 339, 341.
Marlow, the dramas of, 538.
Mary, the empress, wife of Paul, 343.
Masquerade of freedom, the, 475.
Massena and Madame Recamier, 41.
Maule, Mr, 383.
Maule, Mr justice, 553.
Mayenne, the marquis of, 11.
Mayo, Dr, his letters on popular superstitions, 274.
Megulp as a varnish, on, 195.
Méré, Poltrot de, the assassin of Guise, 464.
Mesmeric trance, theory &c. of the, 274.
Metz, defence of, by Guise, 14.
Mexico, exports of cotton to, 133.
Milanese, conquest of the, by Francis I., 3.
Milianah, combat at, 417
—sieges &c. of, 422.
Military Life in North Africa, 415
—art, capabilities of the French for the, ib.
Ministry, probable policy of the, regarding the income tax, 611.
Minto, lord, proceedings of, in Italy, 326.
Mirfin, the duelling case of, [717].
Mitchell, sir Andrew, the memoirs of, 516.
Modern state trials, part i., Frost, &c., 373
—part ii., Oxford and M'Naughten, 545
—part iii., Duelling, [712].
Mohamed Ould Caid Osman, adventures &c. of, 426.
Moncontour, battle of, 469.
Montesquiou, murder of Condé by, 468.
Montluc, a partisan of the Guises, 18, et seq.
Montmorency, the constable de, 17, 456, et seq. passim
—his death, 467.
Moral insanity, the modern dogma of, 558.
Mulgrave, lord, 205, et seq. passim.
My novel, by Pisistratus Caxton
—initial chapter, showing how my novel came to be written, 247
—chap. ii., 250
—chap. iii., 252
—chap. iv., 254
—chap. v., 256
—chap. vi., 257
—chap. vii., 258
—chap. viii., 260
—chap. ix., 261
—chap. x., 393
—chap. xi., 399
—chap. xii., 405
—chap. xiii., 414
—Book II., initial chapter, showing how this book came to have initial chapters, 499
—chap. ii., 500
—chap. iii., 504
—chap. iv., 507
—chap. v., 508
—chap. vi., 511
—chap. vii., [627]
—chap. viii., [630]
—chap. ix., [632]
—chap. x., [634]
—chap. xi., [638]
—chap. xii., [640].
My peninsular medal, part viii., chap. xix., 20
—chap. xx., and last, 22.
Mysteries of history, the, 335.
Naples, state of exports of cotton to, 127
—lord Minto's proceedings at, 326.
Napoleon, resistance in Spain to, 534.
National debt, objects of the radicals regarding the, 109.
National industry, probable effects of the exhibition of 1851 on, 283.
National institute, exhibition of the, 77.
Newgate chapel, a visit to, 545.
New Holland, exports of cotton to, 127.
Newport, the chartist outbreak at, 381.
Night side of nature, the, 265.
Norman architecture, remains of, in Scotland, 223.
North Africa, military life in, 415.
Oil, landscape painting in, by Burnet, 185
—and water colours, comparison between, 190.
Omars, the, an Arab tribe, 423.
Oratory, extent of powers necessary for, [645]
—ancient study of, [660].
Orleans, the duchess of, and Chateaubriand, 44, 45.
Oryx, description of the, 234.
Oued Foddha, combat of, 417.
Oxford, E., sketch of, 546
—the case of, 548, 551, 553, et seq.
—interview with, 571.
Pacifico, M., 330.
Pahlen, count, 337, et seq.
Paintings, the exhibitions of, 77.
Palmerston, lord, the first appearance of, 214
—on the probable prices of grain, 107
—defence of the Spanish intervention by, 322, et seq.
—on the state of Spain, 325
—on that of Italy, 326
—account of the Greek affair by, 330.
Panin, count, 338.
Paré, Ambrose, 10.
Paris, entry of Louis XVIII. into, 35
—removal of Napoleon's remains to, 39.
Parke, Mr Baron, at Frost's trial, 380.
Parker, admiral, his proceedings at Sicily, 326
—interference of, on behalf of Turkey, 330
—in Greece, 331.
Parliament, Peel's appearances in, 368
—the style of eloquence in, [667].
Pate, Robert, the attack on the queen by, 553, 569.
Patteson, Mr Justice, on duelling, [717].
Paul, the emperor, history of the dethronement and death of, 336.
Pavia, the battle of, 5.
Peasant properties, the advantages and disadvantages of, [675], et seq.
Peasantry, state of the, in Saxony, 347.
Peel, sir Robert, 354
—his anticipations regarding the price of grain, 107
—character of the legislation of, 115
—circumstances under which he imposed the income tax, 612
—on taxing the funds, 621.
Peninsula, intervention in the, 322.
Pennant's Scottish views, on, 228.
Perceval, Palmerston first brought forward by, 214
—Bellingham's trial for the murder of, 564.
Pericles, example of the oratory of, [653].
Peronne, relief of, by Guise, 7.
Phipps' memoirs of R. P. Ward, review of, 199.
Phrenology, fundamental error of, 266.
Physicians, the, on moral insanity, 548.
Pictures of the season, the, 77.
Pious Martha, the drama of, 542.
Pirna, Frederick the Great at, 524.
Pitt, charges of Ledru Rollin against, 164
—ancedote of, in connection with the treason trials, 203
—letter of, on the peace of Amiens, 209
—letter to R. P. Ward from, 210
—intrigue of Canning regarding, 211.
Poet, the, on Dugald Stewart's ideal of the, 480, et seq.
—Horace on the, 493, et seq.
Poland, persecution of the Protestants in, 519, 520.
Police, introduction of the system of, 356.
Political and literary biography, 199.
Political economy, misapplications of, by travellers, [671].
Pollock, sir F., 380, et seq., 553.
Popery, effects of, on Spanish literature, 534.
Popish partition of England, the, [745].
Population, classification of the, 116, 117.
Porter, misstatements of, regarding agriculturists and manufacturers, 116.
Portland gallery, exhibition of paintings in the, 77.
Portland ministry, the, 214.
Portugal, state of exports of cotton to, 127
—Palmerston on the intervention in, 322.
Poussin, Gaspar, the landscapes of, 192, 194.
Pragmatic Sanction, the, 522.
Prague, the battle of, 526.
Presentiment, on, 273.
Produce, dependence of revenue on, 614.
Propagandism, system of, 320.
Proposed exhibition of 1851, the, 278.
Protestantism, first blows at, in France, 6
—Prussia the champion of, 519.
Prussia, the rise, politics, and power of, 516
—Hardenberg's territorial reforms in, [680].
Pulpit eloquence, defects of, [668].
Purefoy, Mr, trial of, [716].
Puritans in the time of James I., the, 141.
Quarterly Review, the, on the London and Edinburgh chess match, 98, et seq.
Queen, Oxford's trial for shooting at the, 551.
Quintilian on oratory, [660]
—on training for it, [661].
Radicals, objects of the, regarding the national debt, 109.
Railway crisis, effects of the, 125
—losses, use made of, by the free-traders, 135.
Ramsay, Mr, on peasant properties, [678].
Rantzau, count, free corps under, 311.
Recamier, madame, 40.
Reform bill, Peel's conduct regarding the, 358.
Reichel, Mdlle, 268, 269.
Reichenbach's Researches, review of, 265.
Religion, French wars of, 456.
Rembrandt, the landscapes of, 192.
Renewal of the Income-tax, the, 611.
Republican spirit, aggressive character of the, 319.
Restoration, Chateaubriand at the, 34
—his account of its errors, 35
—difficulties of the government of, 36.
Revenue, dependence of, on produce, 614.
Revolution, alleged influence of, on commerce, 128, et seq.
—propagandist system of, 320
—of 1830, Chateaubriand's conduct during the, 43.
Rhinoceros, hunting the, 238, 244.
Ribain, captain, 417, 419.
Ricot, lieut., death of, 418.
Rivas, admiral, 338, 339.
Robertson on duelling, [714].
Robespierre, the oratory of, [657].
Rollin, Ledru, on England, 160.
Roman oratory, Cicero the representative of, [645].
Romantic drama, Tellez on the, 540.
Romilly and the reforms in criminal law, 357.
Rosbach, battle of, 528.
Rouen, the siege of, 460, 461.
Royal Academy, exhibition of the, 77, et seq.
Rubens, the landscapes of, 197.
Russell, lord John, on the probable prices of grain, 107.
Russia, state of exports of cotton to, 127
—history of the Revolution of 1801 in, 336
—value of Prussia as a barrier against, 516.
Rutowski, the countess, 344.
Ruysdael, the paintings of, 88, 194.
Sacken, count, Saxon minister, 344.
St André, marshal, death of, 463.
St Denis, battle of, 467.
St Helena, the removal of Napoleon's remains from, 39.
St Michael's palace, description of, 340.
St Quentin, battle of, 17.
St Vallier, the count of, 9.
Sallust, speeches of Catiline from, [652].
Salvator Rosa, the style of, 193.
Sandal wood tree, the, 238.
Sardinia, state of exports of cotton to, 127
—conduct of Palmerston toward, 327.
Saxony, sketches of court of, 344.
Science, love of the marvellous in, 265.
Schiller, examples of eloquence from, [650].
Schleswig-Holstein, sketches and episodes of campaign in, 308
—conduct of Great Britain regarding, 328.
Schwerin, marshal, death of, 526.
Scotland, Baronial and Ecclesiastical Antiquities of, 217.
Scott's provincial antiquities, on, 228.
Self-seeing, on, 273.
Shakspeare, acquaintance of, with the Spanish drama, 536
—specimens of eloquence from, [649].
Sicily, Minto's proceedings in, 326.
Sidi Embarek, the, an Arab tribe, 425.
Sidmouth, lord, intrigue of Canning against, 211.
Siquot, Alfred, sketch of, 425.
Sketching, colour-box for, 187, 190
Sleep, Reichenbach's theory of, 269.
Slezer, John, his views of Scottish castles, &c., 220, 227.
Small farms, advantages and disadvantages of, [675], et seq.
Society of British artists, exhibition of the, 77.
Somnambulism, theory of, 274.
Souaves, the, an African corps, 416.
Soubise, prince of, at Rosbach, 528.
South America, exports of cotton to, 133.
Sovereign, state of the law regarding attacks on the, 551.
Spackman, classification of the population by, 116, 117.
Spahis, the Algerian, 416
—of Mascara, 425.
Spain, hours in, 534
—exports of cotton to, 127
—Rollin on the conduct of England toward, 166
—the intervention on behalf of, 323
—heroism shown by, at various times, 534.
Spanish America, the attempt to introduce liberal institutions into, 320
—literature and drama, 534
—treasure frigates, affair of the, 212.
Sporting in South Africa, 231
—alleged inhumanity of, 241.
Springboks, migration of the, 234.
Statistics, true value of, &c., 123.
Staunton, Mr, on the London and Edinburgh chess match, 100.
Stewart, Dugald, on his ideal of the poet, 480.
Strozzi, marshal, death of, 18.
Stuart, James, the trial of, 468
—Robert, murder of, 378.
Suavey, Christoval, 599.
Sweet Briar, the, by Δ, 472.
Tacitus, the speech of Galgacus from, [651].
Tailors, the working, state of, 598.
Talbanow, colonel, 339, 341.
Talbot, Hon. J. C., at Frost's trial, 380.
Talfourd, Mr Justice, 380.
Talizin, general, 338, 340.
Talleyrand, Chateaubriand's aversion to, 38.
Tartas, colonel, 428.
Tatarinow, general, 339, 341.
Taxation, necessity for adjustment of, 613
—on direct and indirect, 623.
Taxes, present distribution of, 614.
Taylor, president, protectionist policy advocated by, 131
—Mr Sidney, counsel for Oxford, 553.
Taylor's medical jurisprudence, on insanity, 550
—on the case of M'Naughten, 567.
Telémaque, democratic character of, [647].
Tellez, Gabriel, 539.
Temple of Folly, the, 229.
Tempoure, general, 427.
Therouenne, siege of, by the Germans, 16.
Thiébault, sketch of Mitchell by, 523.
Thionville, siege of, 18.
Tindal, chief-justice, 380, 564.
Titian, the landscape style of, 192, 195.
Tirso de Molina, the dramas of, 539.
Toulon, lord Mulgrave at, 205.
Towie castle, architecture of, 225.
Townsend's state trials, Part I., 373
—Part II., 545
—Part III., [712]
—sketch of the author's career, 373.
Trees, Burnet on painting, 195.
Tschitscherin, general, 339, 341.
Tuckett, captain, the duelling case of, [720].
Turkey, exports of cotton to, 127
—interference of Britain on behalf of, 329.
Turner, paintings by, in present exhibition, 81
—the water-colour paintings of, 186.
United States, expectations of the free-traders from the, 130
—their protectionist policy, ib.
—factories in, 132
—imports of grain from, and exports of cotton to, 133
—aggressive spirit of, 319.
Universities, the English, Ledru Rollin on, 170
—value of the, 201
—defective system of, as regards oratory, [669].
Utrecht, treaty of, violation of, 323.
Valée, marshal, in Algeria, 422.
Vandervelde, the sea pieces of, 198.
Varley, John, the painter, 186.
Vassy, the massacre of, 459.
Vaughan, baron, on duelling, [718].
Vernet the painter, anecdote of, 421.
Vivonne, François de, death of, 12.
Von Ende, Saxon minister, 344.
Von Sachsen, duchess, the court of, 348.
Wages, state of, 136.
Waldgrave, Miss Jemima, 144, et seq.
—lady, 151, et seq. passim.
Wallflower, the, by Δ, 473.
Ward, R. P., memoirs of, reviewed, 199.
Water, sketching of, 188.
Water-colour painting, the English school of, 186.
Water colours and oil, comparison between, 190.
Wealth, classification of the creation of, 117
—not the greatest social good, [673].
Whately on social advancement, [673].
Wheat, loss on cultivation of, 109.
Whig ministry, attempts of the, regarding the income tax, 619.
Whigs, state of the, under Fox, 206.
White rose, the, by Δ, 472.
Who rolled the powder in? [689].
Wightman, Mr Justice, 380, 553.
Wild flower garland, a, by Δ
—The daisy, 471
—the white rose, 472
—the sweetbriar, ib.
—the wallflower, 473.
Wilde, sir T., 379, et seq., 553, 559.
Williams, Ambrose, the trial of, 378, 381 et seq.
—Mr Justice, 380, 564.
Wilson, the landscape painter, 192.
Wood carving, mediæval, 217.
Working classes, condition of the, 594, et seq. passim.
Wordsworth on the aim of poetry, 490.
Wostitz, general, death of, 529.
Wrangel, general, 313.
Year of Sorrow, the
—Ireland. Spring Song, 93
—Autumnal Dirge, 94
—Winter Dirge, 95.
Yeschwel, colonel, 339, 341.
Zehmin, baron, 345.
Zorndorf, the battle of, 531.
Zoubow, the brothers, 338, et seq.
Printed by William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh.