“Gentlemen, if I were remaining in this country, and continuing to take my part in Parliament, I should continue, in respect to the Catholic Question, to walk in the same direction that I have hitherto done. But I think (and as I may not elsewhere have an opportunity of expressing this opinion, I am desirous of expressing it here)—I think that after the experience of a fruitless struggle for more than ten years, I should, as an individual (speaking for none but myself, and not knowing whether I carry any other person’s opinion with me) be induced henceforth, or perhaps after one more general trial, to seek upon that question a liberal compromise.” Thus, when instead of going to India the Governor-General, already named, came into office at home, it was said at once that he had done so on a compromise.
The accusation was false, but there was some appearance of its being true, and those amongst the Opposition who believed it, were the more enraged, since they thought that if the Ministry had not been strengthened by the new Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, it could not have sustained itself, in which case they themselves would have been called to power.
The speeches made against Mr. Canning were consequently of the bitterest kind. One, by Lord Folkestone, on a motion for the repeal of the Foreign Enlistment Bill, delivered with extraordinary vehemence, accused him of truckling to France.
“Sir,” said Mr. Canning, in reply, “I will not follow the noble lord through a speech of which it would be impossible to convey the impression by a mere repetition of language. The Lacedæmonians, with the desire of deterring their children from the vice of intoxication, used occasionally to expose their slaves in a state of disgusting inebriety. But, sir, there is a moral as well as a physical intoxication; and never before did I behold so complete a personification of the character which I have somewhere seen described as exhibiting the contortions of the sibyl without her inspiration. I will not on this occasion reply to the noble lord’s speech, being of opinion that this is not a fit opportunity for entering into the discussion it would provoke; but let it not be supposed that I shrink from the noble lord; for he may believe me when I say that however I may have truckled to France, I will never truckle to him.”
IV.
This speech was delivered April 16, 1823. On the 17th another important discussion occurred in Parliament. Mr. Plunkett, who had joined the Administration with Mr. Canning, bringing forward on that day the claims of the Catholics, as a sort of token that he and those who thought with him had not, on taking office, abandoned the question of which they had so long been the most eminent supporters,—Sir Francis Burdett accused both the Attorney-General for Ireland and the Secretary for Foreign Affairs of seeking to make an idle parade of fine sentiments, which they knew would be practically useless. Mr. Canning defended himself, and, as he sat down, Mr. Brougham rose:
“If,” said he, “the other ministers had taken example by the single-hearted, plain, manly, and upright conduct of the right honourable Secretary for the Home Department (Mr. Peel), who has always been on the same side on this question, never swerving from his opinions, but standing uniformly up and stating them—who had never taken office on a secret understanding to abandon the question in substance while he contrived to sustain it in words—whose mouth, heart, and conduct have always been in unison; if such had been the conduct of all the friends of emancipation, I should not have found myself in a state of despair with regard to the Catholic claims. Let the conduct of the Attorney-General for Ireland (Mr. Plunkett) have been what it might—let him have deviated from his former professions or not—still, if the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs had only come forward at this critical moment, when the point was whether he should go to India into honourable exile, or take office in England and not submit to his sentence of transportation, but be condemned to hard labour in his own country—doomed to the disquiet of a divided council, sitting with his enemies, and pitied by his friends, with his hands chained and tied down on all those lines of operation which his own sentiments and wishes would have led him to adopt—if, at that critical moment, when his fate depended on Lord Chancellor Eldon, and on his sentiments with respect to the Catholic cause—if, at that critical moment, he who said the other night that he would not truckle to a noble lord, but who then exhibited the most incredible specimen of monstrous truckling for the purpose of obtaining office that the whole history of political tergiversation could furnish.…”
At these words, Mr. Canning, labouring to conceal emotion which his countenance had long betrayed, started up, and, in a calm voice, with his eye fixed on Mr. Brougham, said, “Sir, I rise to say that that is false.” A dead silence of some minutes ensued; the Speaker interfered; neither party would retract, and both gentlemen were ordered into custody; but at last the matter was arranged through Sir R. Wilson’s mediation.
V.
Without going into many details, I have thus said enough to show that Mr. Canning had, in his new post, to contend—first, against the disfavour of the Crown; secondly, against the dislike, jealousy, and suspicion of a large portion of his colleagues; thirdly, against the bitterest hostility of the most able and eloquent amongst his parliamentary opponents.