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

by Baron Henry Lytton Bulwer Dalling and Bulwer

XI.

The vessel of the state in these sudden squalls requires that those at the helm should govern it with a calm heart and a steady hand. Anger and fear are equally to be avoided, for they lead equally to violent measures, and the excitement of one party only feeds the excitement of the other.

Lord Castlereagh, the leading spirit at this time in the Cabinet, vapid and incorrect as an orator, inefficient as an administrator, was still, as I have elsewhere said, not without qualities as a statesman—for he was cool and he was courageous; and, therefore, if we now see him acting as if under the influence of the most slavish apprehension, we must look for some reasonable motive for his appearing to entertain fears which he could not have really felt.

Now, the fact is, that he had but two things to do—to satisfy the discontented as aggrieved, or to rally the majority of the country against them as disaffected. The first policy would not keep his party in power; the second, therefore, was the one he preferred. The terrors of the timid were to be awakened; the passions of the haughty were to be aroused; the designs of the malcontents were to be darkened—their strength increased—in short, to save the Ministry, it was essential that the State should be declared in danger. This is an old course; it has been tried often: it was tried now.

Thus Government opened the Session of 1817 with a “green bag.” This bag, a true Pandora’s box, contained threats of every mischief—assassination, incendiarism, insurrection, in their most formidable and infuriated shapes. One conspiracy, indeed, was a model that deserves to be set apart for the use of future conspirators or—statesmen. It comprehended the storming of the Bank and the Tower, the firing the different barracks, the overthrow of everybody and everything, even the great and massive bridges which cross the Thames, and which were to be blown up as a matter of course; but the traitors were pious and brave men, relying almost wholly on Providence and their courage, so that only two hundred and fifty pikes and some powder in an old stocking had been provided to secure the success of their undertaking.

XII.

Many schemes equally plausible were attributed to, and perhaps entertained by, a few unhappy men in the manufacturing districts; while the well-known doctrines of an enthusiast named Spence[120]—doctrines which inculcate the necessity of property being held in common, and which under different names have been continually put forward at every period of the world—found amongst the poor and starving, as they will ever find in times of distress and difficulty, a ready reception. “These doctrines,” said Lord Castlereagh, “contain in themselves a principle of contradiction;” but he was not willing to trust to this principle alone!

Various laws were passed, tending to limit the right of discussion: men were forbidden to co-operate or correspond for the purpose of amending the existing constitution. Public meetings were placed at the disposal of a magistrate, who could prevent or disperse them as he thought proper. Finally, the “Habeas Corpus” Act was suspended.

Nothing could be more wanton or absurd than this last outrage on public freedom. The Ministers who were calling upon the country to defend our institutions, were for sweeping away their very foundations. In vain did Lord Grey, with even more than his usual eloquence, exclaim, “We are warned not to let any anxiety for the security of liberty lead to a compromise of the security of the State; for my part, I cannot separate these two things; the safety of the State can only be found in the protection of the liberties of the people.”

Having entered upon a career of terror, a new violence is daily necessary in order to guard against the consequences of the last; nor was the addition of 3,000,000l. of taxes, imposed at the close of 1819, well adapted to soothe popular irritation. In the meantime the meeting at Manchester, foolishly got up, and foolishly and barbarously put down, aroused a cry which only the utmost severity could hope to quell. Such severity was adopted in the Acts which prevented public and parish meetings; which punished offences of the press with transportation; which exposed the houses of peaceable inhabitants to midnight search, and deprived an Englishman of what was once considered his birthright—the right of keeping arms for his own defence. At the same time the bulk of the nation was declared to be sound and loyal, the country prosperous; and as a note which may perhaps be considered somewhat explanatory of these different declarations, came a demand for 10,000 additional troops. It was of no use to argue that the nation was quiet, and resolved only on constitutional means of redress. “Yes, sir,” said the figurative seconder of the Address (1819)—“yes, sir, there has undoubtedly been an appearance of tranquillity, but it is the tranquillity of a lion waiting for his prey. There has been the apparent absence of danger, but it is that of a fire half-smothered by the weight of its own combustible materials.” “The meeting at Manchester,” argued Lord Lansdowne (Nov. 30, 1819), “if it had not been disturbed by the magistrates, would have gone off quietly.” “Perhaps,” replied an orator who defended the Government, “that might have been the case; but why? in the contemplation of things to come, the peaceable and quiet demeanour of the disaffected, instead of lessening the danger, ought to aggravate the alarm—ipsa silentia terrent.”