Part IV.
FROM THE BEGINNING OF MR. CANNING’S POPULARITY AS FOREIGN MINISTER TO HIS DEATH.
Mr. Canning’s position.—Altered tone of opposition.—Favour of King.—Death of Duke of York and of Lord Liverpool.—Struggle for the Premiership.—Nomination of Mr. Canning.—Secession of Duke of Wellington and Anti-Catholic party.—Junction with Whigs.—Formation of Cabinet.—Effect of Canning on the men of his time, and their effect on a subsequent one.—Eastern affairs.—Treaty concerning Greece with Russia and France.—Sickness.—Death.
I.
It is needless to say that a policy which raised England so high in the world’s consideration was popular with Englishmen; they were proud of their country and of their minister. The Whig opposition, moreover, which at first depreciated that minister and praised his colleagues, soon began to depreciate his colleagues and to praise him. But Mr. Canning’s most extraordinary and unexpected triumph was at court. From being the man in the Cabinet the most odious to the King, he had become the King’s pet minister, and one of the most intimate of his chosen circle.
The leader of the House of Commons had one peculiar mode of obtaining his Majesty’s confidence, and cultivating his intimacy. It was his arduous duty to send to the Sovereign every night a written account of that night’s proceedings in the assembly to which he belonged. It is easy to see the advantage which this established custom may give to a writer who expresses himself with tact and clearness. A minister of foreign affairs has also more opportunities than any other minister of captivating the Royal attention. Foreign politics, which constitute the arena in which kings are pitted against kings, are the politics which most interest royal personages. A monarch there represents before other monarchs the fame, the power, the character of the nation he rules; he rises as it rises, he falls as it falls.
George IV., whatever his faults, was not without talent or ambition. In early life he wished to distinguish himself in military service abroad, and when, on this being denied him, he entered more deeply than discreetly into politics at home, it was the desire for popularity which connected him with the Opposition. He still remembered the high position which after the battle of Waterloo he held, as Regent of England, amongst the great potentates of the earth; and though personally attached to Lord Castlereagh, and unwilling to sever himself altogether from the sovereigns who had formerly been his allies, and who now in confounding Liberty with Anarchy came forward as the champions of Royalty and order, still he was not insensible to the fact that he had become, little by little, a nonentity in the councils of his peers, and that his advice and opinions, even when expressed by the great warrior who had vanquished Napoleon, were treated with a disregard which was galling to his pride as a monarch, and painful to his feelings as an Englishman. He experienced no small exultation, then, when he saw this state of things reversed, and that the King of England was once more a personage whose policy created hope and alarm. He had, moreover, a singular propensity, which was in fact a sort of madness, for conceiving that he had played a personal part in all the events which had passed in his reign. Amongst other fancies of this kind, he believed, or at least often spoke as if he believed, that he had been on the great battle-field which had terminated the war in 1815; and I have been told by two persons who were present, that one day at dinner, after relating his achievements on this occasion, he turned round to the Iron Duke and said:
“Was it not so, Duke?”
“I have heard your Majesty often say so,” replied the Duke, drily.[122] It was easy, then, for Mr. Canning to make George IV. consider Mr. Canning’s policy his policy, Mr. Canning’s successes his successes, and indeed Mr. Canning always spoke to his Majesty, when the popularity of his administration became apparent, as if he had only followed the inspiration of a prescient and intelligent master.
I should omit more trifling causes of favour, if I did not think them necessary to illustrate the character of the parties, and of the times of which I am speaking, and to show the attention which Mr. Canning, once engaged in the task of recasting our foreign policy, gave to the smallest circumstances which might facilitate it. In the ordinary acceptation of the word, he was not a courtier, or a man of the world. Living, as I have already stated, in the midst of a small clique of admirers, and little with society at large, he confined his remarkable powers of pleasing to his own set. He had determined, however, on gaining George IV.’s goodwill, or, at all events, on vanquishing his dislike, and he saw at once that this was to be done rather indirectly than directly, and that it could best be done by gaining the favour of those ladies of the court whom the King saw most frequently, and spoke to most unreservedly. These were Lady Conyngham and Madame de Lieven. For Lady Conyngham George IV. had a sort of chivalric devotion or attachment; Madame de Lieven he liked and appreciated as the lady who had the greatest knack of seizing and understanding his wishes, and making his court agreeable. She was a musician, and he was fond of music; she had correspondents at every capital in Europe, and knew all the small gossip as well as the most important affairs that agitated Paris, St. Petersburg, and Vienna, and he was amused by foreign gossip and interested in foreign affairs. Her opinion, moreover, as to the position of any one in the world of fashion was law, and George IV. piqued himself especially on being the man of fashion. Mr. Canning resolved, then, on pleasing this remarkable lady, and completely succeeded. She became, as she afterwards often stated, subjugated by the influence of his natural manner and brilliant talents; and the favour of Madame de Lieven went the further in this instance with the King, since he had previously a sort of prejudice against Canning, as being too much the man of letters, and not sufficiently the fine gentleman. This prejudice once removed, a man of wit, genius, and information, had no inconsiderable hold on a prince whose youth had been passed in the most brilliant society of his time, and who was still alive to the memory of the sparkling wit of Sheridan and the easy and copious eloquence of Fox. Lady Conyngham’s alliance was still more important than that of Madame de Lieven, and one of Mr. Canning’s first acts was to name Lord Francis Conyngham Under Secretary of State, it is said at the King’s desire. At all events, Lord Francis’s appointment, which was in every respect a good one, pleased the Marchioness, and satisfied his Majesty, who saw in it the willingness of his Minister to bring even the most private acts of his administration under the Royal cognisance.