A.D. 1800
On Christmas day of the preceding year, the first consul, Napoleon, addressed a letter from the ancient palace of the Bourbons to the King of Great Britain, indicating a desire of peace in these terms:—“How can the two most enlightened nations of Europe, powerful and strong beyond what their safety and independence require, sacrifice to ideas of vain greatness, the benefits of commerce, internal prosperity, and domestic happiness? How is it that they do not feel that peace is of the first importance as well as the first glory? These sentiments cannot be foreign to the heart of your majesty, who reign over a free people, and with the sole view of rendering them happy. France and England, by the abuse of their strength, may still, for the misfortune of all nations, long retard the period of their exhaustion, but I will venture to say, that the fate of all civilized nations is attached to the termination of a war which involves the whole world.” The answer given to this letter intimated, that the French government afforded no ground for trust; but notwithstanding this repulse, Napoleon made another attempt at negociation. Talleyrand, in a letter to the British secretary, vindicated France from the censures contained in this reply; throwing the blame of war on the league of European powers, and offering a suspension of arms, that plenipotentiaries might meet at Dunkirk or elsewhere, as might be agreed upon, for the purpose of making a treaty of peace. The reply to this communication was equally unsatisfactory as that made to the letter of the first consul. His majesty expressed his concern that the unprovoked aggressions of France were defended by her present ruler; and refused to enter into a refutation of allegations universally exploded, and, as far as his own conduct was concerned, utterly groundless. This correspondence was the first subject of importance which engaged the attention of parliament after its adjournment; and while the minority animadverted on the precipitancy by which the door was closed against all hopes of pacification, the majority approved of what had been done, and it was determined to prosecute the war with vigour.
On the 17th of February a debate took place on a royal message, in which his majesty, after stating that he was concerting such engagements with the Emperor of Germany, the Elector of Bavaria, and other powers of the empire as might be conducive to the advantage of the common cause in the course of the ensuing campaign, informed the house that he was desirous of authorising his minister to make provisionally such advances of money as might be necessary for this purpose. Pitt declared that £500,000 was all that he required at the commencement; and after some little opposition, his motion for the grant was carried by a large majority. Ministers were also equally well supported in a proposal, made by opposition, for an inquiry into the causes of the disgraces which had attended the British arms in Holland: it was quashed at once.
The total supplies voted for this year was £47,900,739. The income-tax was continued; and there was a loan of £21,000,000, including a vote of credit. For two months 120,000 seamen and 90,000 soldiers were granted, exclusive of subsidiaries; but for the rest of the year 10,000 were deducted from each number. On the annual motion for renewing the act for suspending the Habeas Corpus bill, there was a stormy debate; but the measure was carried with the usual majorities. An attempt made by a maniac named Hadfield to shoot the king in Drury-lane theatre, led to the insertion of two additional clauses in the insanity bill, by which the privilege of bail to alleged lunatics was abridged, and the personal safety of the sovereign thereby consulted. Subsequently a committee of each house was appointed to consider of the most effectual means for remedying the distress which prevailed at this time, from a scarcity of corn; and a bill was brought in and passed, prohibiting the sale of bread which had not been baked twenty-four hours, it being generally admitted that stale bread satisfied the appetite sooner than new bread. The Archbishop of Canterbury recommended a series of resolutions in the upper house, and a voluntary association, by which each of their lordships should bind himself to lessen the consumption of bread and flour in his family, by using such articles as might be conveniently substituted in the place thereof. These resolutions were passed unanimously in the upper house; and the commons, from a message sent them from the lords, fully concurred with their lordships. This example of the lords and commons was followed very generally by the upper classes throughout the kingdom; and thus effectual relief was afforded by the simple means of self-denial.
Another measure taken into consideration this session tended to morality of conduct. Of late the crime of adultery had become very prevalent; and it was thought by political moralists that intermarriage, permitted to the offending parties after a divorce, was one fertile source of crime. A bill was proposed by Lord Auckland to prevent such intermarriage; but it was rejected by a considerable majority, it being doubted whether it would prove effectual to the diminishing of the crime to which it referred.
Among other parliamentary topics discussed this session was that of the affairs of the East Indies. Mr. Dundas having investigated the state of its finances, detailed them to the commons; and on the whole, from his statements, the company’s affairs appeared to be in a flourishing condition. An act was passed, instituting a high court of judicature for that of the recorder of Madras.
UNION WITH IRELAND COMPLETED.
The most important act of this session was the completion of the union between Great Britain and Ireland. At first the resolutions which had passed the British parliament excited much opposition in the Irish parliament and throughout the country. When the Irish commons debated on an address proposed by ministers, in answer to the speech from the throne in January, 1799, it was carried only by one vote; but on the 15th of January, 1800, a motion made in the same house to declare their disapprobation of the union, was negatived by one hundred and thirty-eight against ninety-six. Subsequently the measure of the union was agreed to by a large majority in the Irish parliament, both in the lords and the commons. On the 27th of March, indeed, the two Irish houses agreed in a joint address, informing his majesty that they considered the resolutions of the British parliament as wisely calculated to form the basis of an incorporation of Great Britain and Ireland into one kingdom; that they adopted them as their guide; and that they now laid before his majesty certain resolutions which they had agreed to, and which, if they should be approved by the two houses of parliament of Great Britain, they were ready to confirm and ratify, in order that the same might be established for ever, by mutual consent of both parliaments. On the 2nd of April this address was made the subject of a message from his majesty to the British parliament. In addition to the resolutions adopted by the British parliament, it was proposed by the Irish parliament, that the number of Irish peers to be admitted to the house of lords of the United Kingdom should be four lords spiritual, by rotation of sessions, and twenty-eight lords temporal, elected for life by the peers of Ireland; and that the number of representatives to be admitted into the house of commons should be one hundred. Such a union as this was opposed in the upper house by Lord Holland, on the grounds that it would not remedy the discontents of the various classes of society in Ireland; that it would not insure a redress of their grievances, but would increase the influence of which they now loudly complained; that it was offensive to the great body of the Irish people; and that, if carried into effect, it would endanger the connexion between the two countries, and probably produce mischief. The measure was defended in the upper house by Lord Grenville; and on a division eighty-one peers voted with him, and only two with Lord Holland. In the commons the union was opposed from the supposition that it would injure our constitution, inasmuch as the influence of the crown, arising from places in Ireland being to be concentrated upon only one hundred members instead of three hundred, it must necessarily be augmented. Pitt denied that the union would, or that he wished it to have such an effect; and he contended that the system proposed was calculated to favour the popular interest. The members for Irish counties and principal cities, he said, would be sixty-eight, the remaning thirty-two members being to be elected by towns the most considerable in population and wealth; and that, as the proposed addition would not make any change in the internal form of representation, it would entail none of those dangers incident to innovation. If anything could counterbalance the advantages that must result from the union, he remarked, it would be the necessity of disturbing in anyway the representation of England; a necessity which happily did not exist. He continued:—“In stating this I have not forgotten what I have myself formerly said and sincerely felt upon the subject of parliamentary reform; but I know that all opinions must necessarily be subservient to times and circumstances; and that man who talks of his consistency merely because he holds the same opinion for ten or fifteen years, when the circumstances under which that opinion was originally formed are totally changed, is a slave to the most idle vanity. Seeing all that I have seen since the period to which I allude, considering how little chance there is of that species of reform to which alone I looked, and which is as different from the modern schemes of reform as the latter are from the constitution;—seeing that where the greatest changes have taken place the most dreadful consequences have ensued, and which have not been confined to the country where they originated, but have spread their malignant influence to almost every part of the globe, shaking the fabric of every government;—seeing that in this general shock the constitution of Great Britain has alone remained pure and untouched in its vital principles;—I say, when I consider all these circumstances, I should be ashamed of myself if any former opinions of mine could now induce me to think that the form of representation which, in such times as the present, has been found amply sufficient for the purpose of protecting the interests and securing the happiness of the people, should be idly and wantonly disturbed from any love of experiment or any predilection for theory. Upon this subject I think it right to state the inmost thoughts of my mind; I think it right to declare my most decided opinion that, even if the times were proper for experiments, any, even the slightest, change in such a constitution must be considered as an evil.” Pitt proposed the adoption of the resolutions voted by the Irish house of parliament; and after some opposition, especially from Mr. Grey, who moved an amendment, which was lost, they were carried without further delay. All proceedings both in England and Ireland relative to this great measure were concluded in the month of June; and on the 2nd of July the act of union received the royal assent. His majesty declared that he ever should consider this measure as the happiest of his reign. The Irish session, which had been prolonged till the bill passed in England for the purpose of ratifying it was dissolved on the 2nd of August, and with it the existence of the Irish parliament. On the subject of this union Dr. Miller remarks:—“The whole history of Ireland up to the union presents a series of events most curiously combined. Its early period, unhappy as it was, prepared that party of Roman Catholics which, in the struggles terminated by the English revolution, was opposed as an antagonist force to the Scottish Presbyterians, and thus assisted in effecting the adjustment of the English government. When this important function had been discharged, Ireland had to prepare itself for entering with advantage into the general incorporation of a united empire; the preceding period of its history, however beneficial in assisting to adjust the balance of the English constitution, having been inauspicious to the domestic interests of the country. Of that preparation it was a necessary condition that one of the two parties by which it was distracted should suffer a temporary depression, so entire that the other should not be embarrassed or obstructed in its efforts to obtain national independence. The prosperity, however, thus acquired extended its influence even to the party by whose depression it had been obtained; and the Roman Catholics, participating in the advantages of Protestants, rose again to a political importance, in which they were opposed to the ascendancy of the prevailing party. A short struggle of rebellion, the natural result of an ungoverned desire of independence among a portion of the Protestants, aided by the ancient disaffection of the adverse party, brought the country into a situation in which the minister was able to consolidate the empire by the union of Ireland.” It was hoped that this great measure would have the effect of conciliating the Irish Catholics; but experience has proved that they are still dissatisfied with the rule of England. It is evident, in fact, that ages will elapse before the Irish consider themselves to be “one and indivisible” with the English—before they are satisfied with the sway of the house of Brunswick.
GEORGE III. 1798—1801