Sir Richard, longing to be at ’em,
Stood waiting for the Earl of Chatham;”
an expedition equally disgraceful to ministers and commanders—fell chiefly on his colleague, who had originated and presided over it, having himself been present at the embarkation.
It is necessary here to say a word or two concerning that statesman, who, though agreeing with Mr. Canning upon the principal question of their time, was never cordially united with him. Lord Castlereagh joined to great boldness in action,—great calm and courtesy of manner, long habits of official routine, and a considerable acquaintance with men collectively and individually. He lived in the world, and was more essentially a man of the world than his eloquent contemporary; but, on the other hand, he was singularly deficient in literary accomplishments, and this deficiency was not easily pardoned in an assembly, the leading members of which had received a classical education, and were as intolerant to an ungrammatical phrase as to a political blunder. His language—inelegant, diffuse, and mingling every variety of metaphorical expression—was the ridicule of the scholar. Still the great air with which he rose from the Treasury Bench, threw back his blue coat, and showed his broad chest and white waistcoat, looking defiance on the ranks of the Opposition, won him the hearts of the rank and file of the government adherents. In affairs, he got through the details of office so as to satisfy forms, but not so as to produce results: for if the official men who can manufacture plans on paper are numerous, the statesmen who can give them vitality in action are rare; and Lord Castlereagh was not one of them.
There was never, as I have just said, any great cordiality or intimacy between two persons belonging to the same party and aspiring equally to play the principal part in it. The defects of each, moreover, were just of that kind that would be most irritating to the eye of the other; but they would probably have gone on rising side by side, if they had not now been thrown together and almost identified in common action. The success of most of Mr. Canning’s schemes as Minister of Foreign Affairs depended greatly upon the skill with which Lord Castlereagh, as Minister of War, carried them into execution; any error of the latter affected the reputation of the former; thus the first difficulty was sure to produce a quarrel. Mr. Canning indeed was constantly complaining that every project that was conceived by the Foreign Office miscarried when it fell under the care of the War Office; that all the gold which he put into his colleague’s crucible came out, somehow or other, brass; and these complaints were the more bitter, since, involuntarily influenced by his rhetorical predilections, he could not help exaggerating the consequences of mistakes in conduct, which were aggravated by mistakes in grammar.
Nevertheless, wishing, very probably, to avoid a public scandal, he merely told the head of the Government privately that a change must take place in the Foreign or in the War Department, and, after some little hesitation, the removal of Lord Castlereagh was determined on; but some persons from whom, perhaps, that statesman had no right to expect desertion, anxious to keep their abandonment of him concealed as long as possible, requested delay; and the Duke of Portland, a man of no resolution, not daring to consent to the resignation of one of the haughty gentlemen with whom he had to deal, was glad to defer the affront that it was intended to put on to the other. Such being the state of things, Mr. Canning was prevailed upon to allow the matter to stand over for a while, receiving at the same time the most positive assurances as to his request being finally complied with. At the end of the session and the conclusion of the enterprise (against Flushing) already undertaken, some arrangement was to be proposed, “satisfactory, it was hoped, to all parties.” Such is the usual hope of temporising politicians. But, in the meantime, the Secretary of War was allowed to suppose that he carried into the discharge of the duties of his high post, all the confidence and approbation of the Cabinet.
This was not a pleasant state of things to discover in the moment of adversity; when the whole nation felt itself disgraced at the pitiful termination of an enterprise which had been very lavishly prepared and very ostentatiously paraded. Yet such was the moment when Mr. Canning, fatigued at the Premier’s procrastination, disgusted by the calamity which he attributed to it, and resolved to escape, if possible, from a charge of incapacity, beneath which the whole Ministry was likely to be crushed, threw up his appointment, and the unfortunate Secretary of War learnt that for months his abilities had been distrusted by a majority of the Cabinet in which he sat, and his situation only provisionally held on the ill-extorted acquiescence of a man he did not like, and who underrated and disliked him. His irritation vented itself in a letter which produced a duel—a duel that Mr. Canning was not justly called upon to fight; for all that he had done was to postpone a decision he had a perfect right to adopt, and which he deferred expressly in order to spare Lord Castlereagh’s feelings and at the request of Lord Castlereagh’s friends. But the one of these gentlemen was quite as peppery and combative as the other, though it appeared he was not quite so good a shot, for Mr. Canning missed his opponent and received a disagreeable wound, though not a dangerous one; the final result of the whole affair being the resignation of the Premier and of the two Secretaries of State, the country paying twenty millions (the cost of the late barren attempt at glory) because the friends of a minister had shrunk from saying anything unpleasant to him until he was prostrate.