THE 'RUNNING REIN' CASE.
On Monday and Tuesday last I was in the Court of Exchequer, to hear our great cause of 'Orlando' and 'Running Rein,'[81] which ended very triumphantly by their withdrawing the record early on the second morning. Our case was admirably got up, owing in great measure to the indefatigable activity and the intelligence and penetration of George Bentinck, who played the part both of attorney and policeman in hunting out and getting up the evidence. The opposite party had no idea we had got up our case so perfectly; but the trial was over before we had half developed it in evidence. The whole circumstances from the beginning to the end are very curious, and it has been equally interesting and amusing to all concerned in it. We have all worked hard in different ways, palmam qui meruit ferat; and though there is a feud between George Bentinck and myself, and we do not speak to each other, I must acknowledge all his great services on this occasion. The counsel on the other side, Cockburn, made a very violent attack on him in his speech, and accused him of being party, attorney, policeman; that he had tampered with the witnesses, clothed, fed, and paid them. This he was specifically instructed to say, and a great deal of it was true; but I think he said more than he need or ought to have done, though the Judge (Alderson) said he had only done his duty. On this occasion George Bentinck did no more than he was justified in doing, and he certainly did not tamper with any witnesses, or employ any unfair means to procure testimony. He wrote on the evening of the first day a letter of indignant but courteous remonstrance to Cockburn, to which he alluded in Court on the second. The object of it was to entreat him to put him in the box, and give him an opportunity of vindicating himself and telling all he had done in the matter. Some explanatory civilities were bandied about between George Bentinck, Cockburn, and the Judge, and it ended amicably.
Brougham has withdrawn the obnoxious clauses of his Privy Council Bill, making at the same time an asseveration that the judicial appointment in it was never intended for himself; and he appealed to his 'noble friends,' who nodded or remained silent, three of whom at least (the Duke, the Chancellor, and Wharncliffe) knew the contrary, but they think it worth while to humour him, and to allow him to play his antics in the House of Lords ad libitum. The Duke of Wellington has lent himself to the sort of tacit compact which exists between him and the Government, to a degree I never thought he could have done; but he does not seem to hold the House of Lords in hand in the way he used to do.
Bretby, September 8th.—Considerably more than two months have elapsed since I have written anything in this book. When I have taken up my pen it has always been occupied in the thing I am writing on Ireland. But I am reluctant altogether to forsake my old companion of so many years, and to give up noticing public events; so I have brought this book down here with me, for the purpose of bringing up the arrear (briefly and cursorily indeed) to the present time. The session of Parliament was suspended, though for all active purposes virtually closed, when the Judges went on the circuit, with, an understanding that it was to assemble again for the judgement in O'Connell's case, and then to be prorogued. It ended very differently for the Government from the last; notwithstanding the severe shock they had in the middle of it, they left off strong, and with more of reputation than last year. A good deal had been done, and some of it well done; and, what is of still greater importance, the country is peaceful and flourishing.
DISPUTE WITH FRANCE.
During the recess, however, the dispute which had some time before begun between us and France took a threatening aspect, and for some time it was a toss-up whether we went to war or not. Peel had announced to the House of Commons in very lofty language that Government would exact an ample reparation for the outrage perpetrated on Pritchard at Tahiti, while Guizot evinced no disposition to make any. A long series of semi-diplomatic negotiations ensued. Aberdeen very prudently did not demand anything specific, but laid the case before the French Government, expressing his conviction that they would do everything that justice and propriety demanded. The press in both countries blew the coals with all their might and main, and for a long time Guizot refused to make any such amende as we could possibly take. What we wanted (not demanded) was that some act should be done to mark the sense of the French Government of what was due to us,—the recall of D'Aubigny or of Bruat, or of both; but Guizot said, 'Je ne rappellerai personne,' and all he offered was to express 'regrets et improbation.' This, which was a mere scintilla of apology, we could not accept as a sufficient reparation for so gross an outrage, and at one moment up to the day, Tuesday last, when the Council was held for the prorogation, it looked very bad. That day Aberdeen told me he thought Guizot's Ministry was on its last legs, that he did not despair of an amicable settlement, but that he thought Guizot must fall, and he looked for an arrangement being made by Molé or Thiers, whichever of them might succeed him. But when matters appeared nearly desperate, a suggestion was thrown out (I believe by Jarnac),[82] but in conversation between Jarnac and Aberdeen, and therefore either made by him or accepted by him, that, besides the verbal apology, a compensation in money should be made to Pritchard. On Wednesday the Cabinet met to decide whether they should accept the final offers of France to the above effect or refuse them; and the result was that they agreed to accept them. They were very anxious to be able to announce the pacification in the Queen's Speech, and they felt that it would be preposterous and absurd to go to war for so small a matter, and when the principle of making an apology was on the other side admitted, to haggle about the words of it; and therefore, though it was slender, they thought it better to take it. It is, I think, not impossible that the decision of this Cabinet was in some degree quickened by the reversal of O'Connell's judgement, which took place the same morning, much to their disgust.[83] I think they were right, especially as we have certainly done enough to make the French Government see that we do not intend to submit to any more impertinence on their part. Our case, too, was one of much complexity and difficulty, for Pritchard had been turbulent and mischievous, and had, with the sectarian zeal of a missionary, given all the trouble and embarrassment he could to the French; they, therefore, had a case against him, though the French officers were by no means justified in the violence they exercised. I called one day at Apsley House, saw the Duke, and found him in a talkative humour on this affair. He has been for some time urging the Government to make themselves stronger; and very much in consequence of his advice, measures had been in rapid progress for equipping ships and preparing a formidable force at sea. The Duke said that the disposition of the French was to insult us whenever and wherever they thought they could do so with impunity, and that the only way to keep at peace with them was to be stronger in every quarter of the globe than they were; that he had told Lord Melbourne so when he was in office, and that this was his opinion now. Wherever they had ships we ought to have a naval force superior to theirs; and we might rely on it, that as long as that was the case we should find them perfectly civil and peaceable; and wherever it was not the case, we should find them insolent and troublesome.
The judgement on O'Connell's case came on the world like a clap of thunder; though Ministers were aware of it, for Lyndhurst told them it would be so. Wharncliffe had the greatest difficulty in preventing the Tory Peers from voting; Redesdale and Stradbroke were especially anxious, and the former in the highest possible dudgeon. If they had voted it would have been most injurious to the House of Lords, and Government must have immediately let O'Connell out of prison.
O'CONNELL RELEASED BY THE LORDS.
The Grange, September 14th.—O'Connell, as soon as he got out of prison, made a long speech, full of sound and fury, threatening and abusing everybody, but evidently desirous of finding plausible pretences for suspending all active movements, and for abstaining from doing anything that may bring him again into collision with the law or the Government. The high Tories and their press are exceedingly indignant with Wharncliffe for having interposed to prevent the lay Lords voting and overruling the law Lords; and much to my surprise I found Lord Ashburton rather leaning to that opinion, and talking a great deal of nonsense on the subject; but it is still more curious that this notion of his has been either produced or confirmed by a letter from 'that indescribable wretch Brougham,' as O'Connell calls him. In the House of Lords he backed up Wharncliffe, as it seemed, with great propriety and good sense, and now he writes to Lord Ashburton that for the first time in his life he lost his presence of mind, and takes blame to himself for not having opposed Wharncliffe, indeed for having supported him. If he had opposed him, unless the Chancellor had had the good sense and prudence to desire these Lords not to vote, they infallibly would have voted; indeed, I do not know if Brougham had urged them on, if they would not have done so even if the Chancellor had dissuaded them; and if they had, what a clamour would have been raised in Ireland, and what disgrace would have fallen on the House of Lords! This has certainly been a most unfortunate business from the beginning to the end, between the blunders and the accidents, the various untoward circumstances in the course of the trial, the unavoidable fact of a wholly Protestant jury, the undoubted partiality of the Chief Justice; then the division of opinion among the Judges, and the political character which the judgement itself displays, all ending with the triumph of the criminals and the mortification of the Government. But, in spite of all this, the great end of arresting agitation was accomplished; and in all probability, notwithstanding his escape, O'Connell has had a lesson sufficiently severe to deter him from renewing the system of monster meetings. It is pretty evident that he does not know what to do next, and the Government is much in the same predicament; nor am I sure that what has occurred will not prove favourable for an attempt at conciliation and a reasonable settlement. He has seen the danger of agitation, and they have seen the difficulty of coping with it; nor are there wanting some indications of a disposition on his part to pause, and conditionally to give up Repeal. He makes advances for a reconciliation with the Whigs, who, he knows, are opposed firmly to Repeal, and he talks of going round England to make an appeal to the people, and if this fails, then to work Repeal all the more strenuously. However, everybody goes on lamenting the state of things, and saying they don't see what is to be done.
The last day of the session a writ was moved for Stanley, who is going to the House of Peers; they found they could not go on there any longer, and Stanley would stay no longer in the House of Commons. He had taken a disgust to it, and fancied his health was breaking down, and he gave notice that he would rather resign than remain there. Brougham was disgusted at Stanley's translation. Graham told me this about Stanley, and said what a weight it cast on himself and Peel, and what a loss he was to them there. Ripon is done up; the Duke of Wellington is grown so much deafer lately that he can no longer lead the House; Wharncliffe does but moderately; the Chancellor does nothing at all; and Aberdeen confines himself to his own business. The Government was therefore left in the degrading position of being constantly nursed and dandled by Brougham, who sat on the Woolsack and volunteered to speak for them on all occasions. This position of his, which was sufficiently anomalous, placed them in one which they now feel to be very humiliating and ridiculous, and it is to cure this evil that Stanley has been translated to the other House. He said to me it was high time somebody should go there, and when he was there he should make the Chancellor take a more active part. Brougham will be highly disgusted at his advent because his own occupation will be gone. Stanley will fight the Government battles himself, and not suffer Brougham to take the Ministerial bench under his dangerous and discreditable protection.