Historical Characters: Mackintosh, Talleyrand, Canning, Cobbett, Peel

by Baron Henry Lytton Bulwer Dalling and Bulwer

France, in the meanwhile, distracted at home, had, notwithstanding, enlarged her empire by Belgium, Luxemburg, Nice, Savoy, Piedmont, Genoa, Milan, and Holland. There were many arguments to use in favour of abandoning the struggle we had entered upon: the uncertain friendship of our allies; the increased force of our enemy; and the exhausting drain we were maintaining upon our own resources. In six years we had added one hundred and fifty millions to our debt, by which had been created the necessity of adding to our annual burdens eight millions, a sum equal to the whole of our expenditure when George III. came to the throne.

But the misfortunes which attend an expensive contest, though they necessarily irritate and dissatisfy a people with war, are not always to be considered irrefutable arguments in favour of peace. This formed the substance of the speech which Mr. Canning delivered on Mr. Tierney’s motion. Defective in argument, it was effective in delivery, and added considerably to his reputation as a speaker.

In the meantime, our sworn enmity to France and to French principles, encouraged an ardent inclination to both in those whom we had offended or misgoverned. The Directory in Paris and the discontented in Ireland had, therefore, formed a natural if not a legitimate league. The result was an Irish rebellion, artfully planned, for a long time unbetrayed, and which, but for late treachery and singular accidents, would not have been easily overcome.

Mr. Pitt, taking advantage of the fears of a separation between Great Britain and the sister kingdom, which this rebellion, notwithstanding its prompt and fortunate suppression, had created, announced, in a message from the Crown, a desire still further to incorporate and consolidate the two kingdoms. Whatever may have been the result of the Irish Union, the promises under which it was passed having been so long denied, so unhappily broken, there was certainly at this period reason to suppose that it would afford the means of instituting a fairer and less partial system of government than that under which Ireland had long been suffering.

As for the wail which was then set up, and which has since been re-awakened, for the independent Legislature which was merged into that of Great Britain, the facility with which it was purchased is the best answer which can be given to the assertions made of its value.

The part, therefore, that Mr. Canning adopted on this question (if with sincere and honest views of conferring the rights of citizenship on our Irish Catholic fellow-subjects, and not with the intention, which there is no reason to presume, of gaining their goodwill and then betraying their confidence) is one highly honourable to an English statesman. But another question now arose. That Catholic Emancipation was frequently promised as the natural result of the Union, has never been disputed. As such promises were made plainly and openly in Parliament, the King could not be supposed ignorant of them. Why, then, if his Majesty had such insuperable objections to their fulfilment, did he allow of their being made? And, on the other hand, how could his Ministers compromise their characters by holding out as a lure to a large majority of the Irish people a benefit which they had no security for being able to concede? Mr. Canning’s language is not ambiguous:

“Here, then, are two parties in opposition to each other, who agree in one common opinion; and surely if any middle term can be found to assuage their animosities, and to heal their discords, and to reconcile their jarring interests, it should be eagerly and instantly seized and applied. That an union is that middle term, appears the more probable when we recollect that the Popery code took its rise after a proposal for an union, which proposal came from Ireland, but which was rejected by the British government. This rejection produced the Popery code. If an union were therefore acceded to, the Popery code would be unnecessary. I say, if it was in consequence of the rejection of an union at a former period that the laws against Popery were enacted, it is fair to conclude that an union would render a similar code unnecessary—that an union would satisfy the friends of the Protestant ascendency, without passing new laws against the Catholics, and without maintaining those which are yet in force.”[113]

The Union, nevertheless, was carried; the mention of Catholic Emancipation, in spite of the language just quoted, forbidden. Mr. Pitt (in 1801) retired.

IX.

There will always be a mystery hanging over the transaction to which I have just referred,—a mystery difficult to explain in a manner entirely satisfactory to the character of the King and his minister. One can only presume that the King was willing to let the Union be carried, on the strength of the Premier’s promises, which he did not think it necessary to gainsay until he was asked to carry them into effect; and that the Minister counted upon the important service he would have rendered if the great measure he was bringing forward became law, for the influence that would be necessary to make his promises valid. It cannot be denied that each acted with a certain want of candour towards the other unbecoming their respective positions, and that both behaved unfairly towards Ireland. Mr. Pitt sought to give consistency to his conduct by resigning; but he failed in convincing the public of his sincerity, because he was supposed to have recommended Mr. Addington, then Speaker of the House of Commons, and the son of a Doctor Addington, who had been the King’s physician (to which circumstance the son owed a nickname he could never shake off), as his successor; and Mr. Addington was only remarkable for not being remarkable either for his qualities or for his defects, being just that staid, sober sort of man who, respectable in the chair of the House of Commons, would be almost ridiculous in leading its debates.