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

by Baron Henry Lytton Bulwer Dalling and Bulwer

On his return from Portugal he entered the Cabinet at the head of the Board of Control.

During his absence many events had occurred to characterize the Administration he joined. Peace finally established on the prostrate armies of France, which at Waterloo had made their last struggle, left the war which we had pursued with so lavish an expenditure, and so desperate a determination, to be estimated by its results. Whatever the necessity of this war at its commencement, the cause under which it had been continued for the last fourteen years was sacred.

A military chief at the head of a valorous soldiery, had during this time trampled on the rights and feelings of almost every people in Europe. The long-established barriers of independent states had been shifted or pulled down like hurdles, to make them fit the increasing or diminishing drove of cattle which it suited the caprices of the French ruler that they should contain. The inhabitants of such states, treated little better than mere cattle, had been seized, sold, bartered, given away. It was no marvel, then, that the conquerors became in the end the conquered; for the struggle was one which commenced by all the kings marching against one people, and concluded by every people marching against one warrior. They invoked—these new assailants—what is best in philosophy, morality, policy; they conquered, and what did philosophy, morality, policy gain? Were rights and natural sympathies respected? Were old landmarks restored?

The peace alluded to was said to be a peace founded on justice, and justice never deserts the weak; yet Genoa was gone; Venice was no more; Poland remained partitioned; Saxony had been plundered by Prussia with as unsparing a hand as that by which she herself had been despoiled during the conquests of France. Norway, by a treaty, which Mr. Canning had said, in 1813, when still unshackled by office, “filled him with shame, regret, and indignation,” was become the unwilling recompense to Sweden for the loss of a province of which a mightier power had taken possession. A struggle of the fiercest nature had been steadily maintained merely for the sake of restoring things to their old condition; and no nation not pre-eminent in power got back its own, except Spain, which recovered the Inquisition.[119] Even Holland was not re-invested with her ancient liberties, her old noble republican name. Stripped of her glorious history, and weakened by the addition of four millions of discontented subjects, the statesmen of the day fancied her more august and more secure. The errors committed at this time were those of a system; for there were two courses to pursue in the re-settlement of Europe. Had it appeared that, after a conflict of nearly thirty years, during which violence had held unlimited sway, everything which was dear to the people it concerned, and which still stood forth vivid in history, was endowed with a new reality; that at the overthrow of wrongful power, the right of the meanest was everywhere weighed, and the right of the weakest everywhere established: had it appeared that the mightiest captain of modern times had only been vanquished by a principle—which, if the general interest could predominate, would regulate the destinies of the world—then indeed a lesson, of which it is impossible to calculate the effects, would have been given to all future ambitious disturbers of mankind: while the lovers of peace and virtue in every portion of the globe, even in France, would have seen something holy in the triumph which had been gained, and gathered round the cause of the allies. But if this was one policy, there was also another, and that other was adopted.

IX.

As Bonaparte had cut up and parcelled out nations for the purpose of enlarging the boundaries and strengthening the dominions of France, so the conquerors of Bonaparte spoiled and partitioned with equal zeal, in order to control the boundaries and restrain the dominion of the warlike people they had defeated. The limits imposed by right, justice, antiquity, custom, were all disregarded, and an attempt, by preference, made to throw up against all future schemes of conquest the patchwork barrier of ill-united and discordant populations.

Such had been the termination of affairs in Europe; but our contest with America was also over. We had made a treaty with that Power—a treaty so contrived that it did not settle a single one of those questions for which we had engaged in war. Nor were the circumstances under which this singular arrangement was completed such as compelled us to accede to it. The whole force of the British empire was disengaged; we could no longer say that our fleets were not invincible in one quarter of the world because their strength was exerted in another; whilst, if we meant to keep the dominion of the seas—more important to us than the whole of that continent we had been subsidizing and contending upon—there was every peril to apprehend from leaving unchecked the spirit of a rising rival, who had lately fought and frequently vanquished us on our own element, and who during a long peace would have the opportunity to mature that strength of which she was already conscious and proud. In short, the peace of Europe affected our character for morality, that of America weakened the belief in our power.

Mr. Canning would hardly have joined an Administration which had so mismanaged our foreign affairs, if the glory of our arms had not gilded in some degree the faults of our diplomacy. But the part which that diplomacy had played on the Continent was not without its effect upon things at home. We had become each year more and more alienated from our military allies, who having triumphed by the enthusiasm of their people, seemed disposed to govern by the bayonets of their troops. The Holy Alliance—that singular compact, invented partly by the superstition, partly by the policy of the Emperor Alexander—an alliance by which three sovereigns, at the head of conquering armies, swore in very mystical language to govern according to the doctrines of Christian charity, swearing also (which was more important) to lend each other assistance on all occasions, and in all places—this alliance, which no one could clearly understand, and which our Government refused to join, excited all the suspicion and all the apprehension which mystery never fails to produce, and made Englishmen, while they were rejoicing at having subdued an overgrown and despotic tyranny in one quarter of the world, doubt whether they might not have created as dangerous a one in another.

X.

Nor was this all. They who begin to be dissatisfied with the fruits of victory, soon grow more and more dissatisfied with what victory has cost. Moreover, this period, from a variety of circumstances, some of them inseparable from the sudden transition from active war to profound peace, was one of great uncertainty and distress; whilst the public mind, no longer excited by military conflict, was the more disposed to political agitation. A demand for diminished imposts, and a demand for political reform, are always to be expected at such moments. Our form of government led more naturally to these demands, for the theory of the constitution was at variance with its practice; the one saying that Englishmen should be taxed by their representatives, the other proving that they were in many instances taxed by persons who represented a powerful patron or a petty constituency, and not the people of England. The evils complained of were exaggerated; there were exaggerations also as to the remedies for which the most violent of the clamorous called. But the thoughts of the nation were directed to economy as a relief from taxation, and to parliamentary reform as a means of economy. Public meetings in favour of parliamentary reform were held; resolutions in favour of parliamentary reform were passed; petitions praying for it were presented; the energies of a free people, who thought themselves wronged, were aroused: great excitement prevailed.