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

by Baron Henry Lytton Bulwer Dalling and Bulwer

“The honourable gentleman,” Mr. Canning says of Mr. Calcraft (March 14, 1817), “attempts to ridicule these proceedings. He is in truth rather hard to be satisfied on the score of rebellion; to him it is not sufficient that the town had been summoned [N.B. it had been summoned by one man], it ought to have been taken; the metropolis should not merely have been attacked, but in flames. He is so difficult in regard to proof that he would continue to doubt until all the mischief was not only certain but irreparable. For my part, however, I am satisfied when I hear the trumpet of rebellion sounded; I do not think it necessary to wait the actual onset before I put myself on my guard. I am content to take my precautions when I see the torch of the incendiary lighted, without waiting till the Bank and the Mansion House are blazing to the sky.”

XV.

But if there was much of eloquence, there was more of sophistry, in these pointed and painted harangues. The designs on foot were represented as so formidable that they required the utmost rigour to suppress them; and yet they were the designs of a few, of a very few, against whom millions were arrayed. These few were to be struck down at all hazards and by all means, in order that the millions might be in security. The anti-revolutionary statesman was simply borrowing from the revolutionary apostle. “What are a few aristocrats,” would Danton say, “to the safety of a nation? Strike! strike! It is only terror that can save the Republic!” For such principles, destructive of all liberty, peace, and order, every just man must entertain the deepest horror; and the dark shadow of those days still hangs over the party to whose excesses they are attributable, and obscures this part of the career of the statesman who defended them.

I do not, however, think that Mr. Canning acted on the cool systematic calculation by which I do think Lord Castlereagh might have been guided. Looking at all affairs with the excitable disposition of the poet and the orator, and having his attention more called by his office to the affairs of India than to those at home, it is not improbable that he allowed himself to be carried into the belief of dangers which the Government he belonged to had in a certain degree created, and in an enormous degree exaggerated; whilst the manner in which even calm and sensible men had their heads confused and their judgment biassed by the alarming reports put in circulation, and the constant arrests that were taking place, reacted upon the Government itself, and made it fancy that the fictions reflected from its fear were truths established by facts. At all events, whatever were the real opinions and convictions of Mr. Canning, as he was the most eloquent supporter of the policy in vogue, he gathered round himself the greatest portion of the unpopularity that attended it. Nor, though he assumed the air of defying this unpopularity, was he pleased with it.

XVI.

The very bitterness, indeed, which he manifested towards his opponents at this time, shows that he was ill at ease with himself. Linked with a set of men whom in general he despised, and by whom he was in a certain degree mistrusted, and accused, as he well knew, of accepting this alliance merely for the love of “office,” which the vulgar made to signify the mere “emoluments of place;”—possessing a mind, which, elevated by education, was inclined to liberality; careless of the praise of the fanatics of his own party, and careless also of the applause of those timorous spirits amongst the nation with whom he could feel no sympathy;—knowing he was detested by the great masses of the people, whose applause he could not with his temperament refrain from coveting;—knowing also that though supported by the love and admiration of a few able friends, he was confided in by no great political party, and that even if his duties imposed on him the necessity of struggling against existing difficulties, those difficulties might have been avoided or palliated by a more conciliatory and prudent policy; writhing under all these circumstances and agitated by all these feelings,—this able, ambitious, and excitable man may now be seen listening with ears almost greedy of a quarrel, for reproaches he could retort, and insults he could avenge. Mr. Hume, not very cautious in these matters, was called to account: Sir Francis Burdett, who had spoken disrespectfully, was made to explain; while to the author of an anonymous libel, in which the style and invectives of “Junius” were copied with doubtful success, was sent a note, eminently characteristic of the galled feelings and gallant spirit of the writer:

“Sir,

“I received early in the last week the copy of your pamphlet, which you, I take for granted, had the attention to have forwarded to me. Soon after I was informed, on the authority of your publisher, that you have withdrawn the whole impression from him, with the view (as was supposed) of suppressing the publication. I since learn, however, that the pamphlet, though not sold, is circulated under blank covers. I learn this from (among others) the gentleman to whom the pamphlet is industriously attributed, but who has voluntarily and absolutely denied to me that he has any knowledge of it or its author.

“To you, sir, whoever you may be, I address myself thus directly for the purpose of expressing my opinion that you are a liar and a slanderer, and want courage only to be an assassin. I have only to add that no man knows of my writing to you, and that I shall maintain the same reserve as long as I have an expectation of hearing from you in your own name.”