The town was startled in the month of August by a terrible incident. The Marquis of Londonderry, on the 12th of the month, terminated his existence by his own hand, at one of his residences, North Cray Farm, near Bexley, Kent, in the fifty-third year of his age. The elevated position he had filled for many years in the Government of this great empire, had made him a prominent mark for the malicious shafts of those who had, or fancied they had, an interest in opposing his policy. During his long and most honourable career, no statesman had accomplished such a series of important services. The Legislative Union of Great Britain and Ireland, had it been suffered to bear the fruit which only came to perfection thirty years later, was a measure of such vital importance to the State, that its successful settlement under the extraordinary circumstances which attended its discussion, entitled him to rank with the ablest ministers of his time; but eminently sagacious and beneficial as was this measure, it was thrown into the shade by the success of subsequent calculations of Lord Castlereagh, first as Secretary-at-War, and then as Foreign Secretary, which effected the overthrow of that brilliant genius by whom his country had so long been menaced. These services appear to have called into existence hosts of political enemies, imbued with the vindictive spirit that prevailed at this period, from whose attacks he was rarely free. They included in their ranks many of a younger generation of adventurers—quite as depreciatory in their opinions, if not as malicious—who regarded his downfall as affording an opening in the direction of place and power. Nothing could exceed the manliness of his bearing in the unequal conflict in which every session he found himself engaged, unless it is to be looked for in the inexhaustible amiability that characterized his relations with the most implacable of his foes. It is, however, evident that as his health began to fail from the long course of exhausting labours which his office imposed upon him, he became more sensitive to such provocations, and though he carefully concealed it from outward view, an increasing irritability affected his whole nervous system.
The melancholy result, though unfortunately too easily explained, excited reports as ingenious as malevolent, to account for its suddenness, but like the injustice to his memory he has received from rivals or successors, who sought to raise a reputation by advocating an adverse policy, they had but a brief existence. As a statesman, as a gentleman, as a man, the Marquis of Londonderry was the Bayard of political chivalry, sans peur et sans reproche, and it reflects no slight disgrace on this monument-rearing age, that neither in the land of his nativity nor in that of his adoption has any memorial been raised worthy of his fame.
The characters of few public men have been so unfairly treated; his political opponents, numbering among them many writers of great ability and influence, have allowed their judgments to be warped by party animosity, and have descended to misrepresentation to an extent truly pitiable. Thus his countrymen have received impressions of his policy and administrative capacity during his long and arduous career, totally at variance with the truth.[88] ] One writer of eminence has, however, recently stepped forward to uphold his fame with emphatic earnestness, and we make no apology for inserting here his estimate of this distinguished and much-maligned statesman:
"His whole life was a continual struggle with the majority of his own or foreign lands: he combated to subdue or to bless them. He began his career by strenuous efforts to effect the Irish Union, and rescue his native country from the incapable Legislature by which its energies had so long been repressed. His mature strength was exerted in a long and desperate conflict with the despotism of revolutionary France, which his firmness as much as the arm of Wellington brought to a triumphant issue; his latter days in a ceaseless conflict with the revolutionary spirit in his own country, and an anxious effort to uphold the dignity of Great Britain and the independence of lesser States abroad. The uncompromising antagonist of Radicalism at home, he was at the same time the resolute opponent of despotism abroad. If Poland retained after the overthrow of Napoleon any remnant of nationality, it was owing to his persevering and almost unaided efforts, and at the very time when the savage wretches who raised a shout at his funeral were rejoicing at his death, he had been preparing to assert at Verona, as he had done to the Congresses of Laybach and Troppau, the independent action of Great Britain, and her non-accordance in the policy of the Continental sovereigns against the efforts of human freedom.
"His policy in domestic affairs was marked by the same far-seeing wisdom, the same intrepid resistance to the blindness of present clamour. He made the most strenuous efforts to uphold the Sinking Fund—that noble monument of Mr. Pitt's patriotic foresight; had those efforts been successful, the whole National Debt would have been paid off by the year 1845, and the nation for ever have been freed from the payment of thirty millions a-year for its interest. He resisted with a firm hand, and at the expense of present popularity with the multitude, the efforts of faction during the seven trying years which followed the close of the war, and bequeathed the constitution, after a season of peculiar danger, unshaken to his successors. The firm friend of freedom, he was on that very account the resolute opponent of democracy, the insidious enemy which, under the guise of a friend, has in every age blasted its progress and destroyed its substance. Discerning the principal cause of the distress which had occasioned these convulsions, his last act was one that bequeathed to his country a currency adequate to its necessities, and which he alone of his Cabinet had the honesty to admit was a departure from former error. Elegant and courteous in his manners, with a noble figure and finely chiselled countenance, he was beloved in his family circle and by all his friends, not less than respected by the wide circle of sovereigns and statesmen with whom he had so worthily upheld the honour and dignity of England."[89] ]
Lord Londonderry's colleagues entertained a similar opinion:—"Our own country and Europe," writes one of the most sagacious of them, "have suffered a loss, in my opinion irreparable. I had a great affection for him, and he deserved it from me, for to me he showed an uniform kindness, of which no other colleague's conduct furnished an example."[90] ]
The King had proceeded a few days before, on a visit to his Scottish dominions, and the startling news reached him soon after the Royal George had dropped her anchor at the termination of the voyage. His Majesty, fully impressed with the irreparable nature of his loss, hastily wrote to the most influential members of the Cabinet, to deprecate any hasty arrangement. We quote the following:—
THE KING TO LORD ELDON.
Royal George Yacht, Leith Roads,
Aug. 15th, half-past eight p.m., 1822.
My dear Friend,