But besides the weakness of the Government in Ireland, it was generally weak, for it had lost by the change in its Irish policy much of its previous support, and could hardly hope to maintain itself any length of time without getting back former partisans, or drawing closer to new allies.
To regain friends whom you have once lost, owing to a violent difference on a great political principle, is an affair neither easily nor rapidly managed. It requires agreement on some question as important as that which created disagreement.
On the other hand, for the Tories, under the Duke of Wellington, to have coalesced with the Whigs, under Lord Grey, called for sacrifices on both sides too great to be accepted by either with honour or even propriety.
The Duke of Wellington and Mr. Peel tried, therefore, a moderate course. Detaching able men from the Whig ranks where they could secure them, carrying out administrative reforms, opposing constitutional changes, doing, in short, all which could be done to conciliate one party without further alienating another, and carrying on affairs, as in quiet times a despotic Government can do, even with credit and popularity. But a free Government rarely admits, for any lengthened period, of this even and tranquil course; it generates energies and passions that must be employed, and which concentrate in an opposition to the rulers who do not know how to employ them.
Some administrative improvements were nevertheless worthy of notice. The watchman’s staff was broken in the metropolis. The criminal code was still further improved, and punishment by death in cases of forgery partially abolished and generally discountenanced.
Taxes also were repealed, and savings boasted of. But the nation had become used to strong political excitement, and had a sort of instinct that the passing of the Roman Catholic Bill should be followed by some marked and general policy, analogous to the liberal spirit which had dictated that measure.
Nor was this all. Mr. Canning, when he said that he would not serve under a military premier, had expressed an English feeling. The Duke of Wellington’s treatment of Mr. Huskisson was too much like that of a general who expects implicit obedience from his inferior officers. The very determination he had displayed in disregarding and overruling George IV.’s anti-Catholic prejudices, evinced a resolve to be obeyed that seemed to many dangerous. His strong innate sense of superiority, the language, calm and decided, in which it was displayed, were not to the taste of our public in a soldier at the head of affairs, though they might have pleased in a civilian. At the same time, this undisguised and unaffected superiority lowered his colleagues in the public estimation, whilst the general tendency of many minds is to refuse one order of ability where they admit another.
An act of foreign policy, moreover, did the administration at this time an immense injury. We had cordially, though indirectly, placed Donna Maria on the throne of Portugal, and endowed that country with a constitution. Don Miguel, Donna Maria’s uncle, afterwards dispossessed her of that throne and ruled despotically. We had not, however, as yet recognized him as the Portuguese Sovereign. We still honoured the niece residing in England with that title, when accident occurred which led to grave doubts as to whether the great commander was also a great minister.
The Island of Terceira still acknowledged Donna Maria’s sway; and an expedition, consisting chiefly of her own subjects, had embarked from Portsmouth for that Island, when it was stopped and prevented from landing there by a British naval force, the pretext being that the expedition, though first bound to Terceira, was going to be sent to Portugal, and to be employed against Don Miguel.
But no sufficient proof was given of this intention; the force arrested in its passage was a Portuguese force, proceeding to a place bonâ fide in the Queen of Portugal’s possession. If it were eventually to be landed on the territory held by the usurper, it had not yet made manifest that such was its destination. Its object might be merely to defend Terceira, which had lately been attacked. Arguments might be drawn from international law both for and against our conduct. But the public did not go into these arguments; what it saw was, that Mr. Canning had favoured the constitutional cause, that the Duke of Wellington was favouring the absolute one. “He did not do this,” said people, “to please his own nation; no one suspected him of doing it to gratify a petty tyrant. He did it then to satisfy the great potentates of the Continent who were adverse to freedom.” This suspicion, not founded on fact, but justified by appearances, weighed upon the Cabinet as to its whole foreign policy, and reacted upon its policy at home.