In the course of the last session ministers had proclaimed views in favour of free trade; and these were more formally developed this year by series of resolutions, proposed by Mr. Wallace, president of the board of trade, the object of which was to pave the way for a complete revisal of the navigation laws, and the removal of those restrictions which forbade the free interchange of commodities in foreign shipping. Leave was given to introduce bills for the enactment of these important measures in the ensuing session.
THE SUPPLIES, ETC.
The total amount of supplies for this year was £20,018,200; and in aid of the ways and means £13,000,000 were taken from the sinking-fund. A sum of £500,000, also, arose from the pecuniary indemnity paid by France. A preposition to repeal the malt-tax was negatived; but ministers afforded some relief to agriculturists by removing the duty from horses employed in husbandry. In the debates on the estimates of expenditure, Mr. Hume pursued his plan of sifting and disputing almost every item of supply; and though he did not succeed in effecting any reduction of expense, yet by this system ministers were compelled into the necessity of originating measures of retrenchment. Parliament was prorogued by commission on the 11th of July.
CORONATION OF GEORGE IV.
It had been intended that the king’s coronation should have taken place in August, 1820; but the queen’s appearance had set that intention aside. Her trial further delayed it; but after the storm of passion with which that was accompanied had subsided, it was announced that the coronation would take place on the 19th of July of the present year. This announcement brought the queen again into the field. On the 25th of June she preferred a claim to be crowned like her royal predecessors; and the case was argued, at the king’s request, before the privy-council. Her majesty’s claim, however, was rejected; and as soon as she received it, she stated her fixed determination to be present at the ceremony, and demanded a suitable place to be provided for her accommodation. This also was refused; and the queen then requested the Archbishop of Canterbury to crown her alone, a request with which he had not the power to comply. Thus repulsed she prepared a protest, which she determined to deliver personally into the king’s hands on the day of his coronation. This occasioned expectations that the celebration of the coronation would be interrupted, if not prevented, by some popular commotion or infraction of the peace. Every precaution, however, was taken by ministers to preserve the public tranquillity, and to draw off public attention from the queen. Shows, balloons, fireworks, and all sorts of entertainments attracted the populace from the vicinity of the abbey, while, in case any commotion should arise, every disposable regiment was brought into or near the metropolis. There needed, however, no warlike preparation; for while the queen’s popularity had abated, that of the king had so much increased as almost to fulfil Lord Castlereagh’s prediction, that, at the end of six months after the trial of the queen, his majesty would be the most popular man within his dominion. He had, in fact, from that time been courting popularity, and the goddess had greatly favoured him. On the day of the coronation, therefore, no tumult was created in favour of the queen; she, in fact, on whom the populace, almost as one man, had, but a little time before, waited with addresses, assuring her of support and commiseration, was allowed to go from door to door of the abbey seeking admittance, and to be at every door rejected with contumely and scorn, with impunity. George IV. was crowned without interruption; and a ceremony more august and imposing in all its parts, or more, calculated to make the deepest impression both on the eye and the feelings, could not be conceived. But the propriety of the pomp and magnificence displayed may be questioned, as the nation was still suffering from the effects of the late expensive war.
DEATH OF QUEEN CAROLINE.
Although Queen Caroline had borne her wrongs and injuries proudly up to the coronation of her husband, yet, by the treatment she on that day received, not only from officials, but the populace, her spirit was at length subdued. She had placed her last stake on the hazard of a day; and having totally failed in her object, sunk under the deepest humiliation. But death came to the relief of all her anxieties and all her woes. Soon afterwards she was attacked with an obstruction of the bowels, which, in her state of mind and body, brought on mortification, and terminated fatally on the 7th of August. Her ruling passion was strong in death. She directed that her remains should be interred in her own country, and that this inscription should be engraved on her tomb:—“Here lies Caroline of Brunswick, the injured Queen of England.” Her funeral procession was attended with riots of a serious description. The first stage, where it was to cross the sea, was to Romford in Essex. The road that led to that place from her residence on the banks of the Thames was through the heart of the capital, by her husband’s palace, and St. Paul’s Cathedral. Ministers unwisely sought to prevent the corpse from proceeding in this direction, and endeavoured by the military to force it up a narrow street or lane, so that it might reach the northern outskirts of London, and get into the Romford road without occasioning any popular commotion. The populace, however, whose predilection for the queen, now that she was dead, seems to have returned, were determined that the procession should proceed by the natural route. To this end the pavement was torn up, trenches made in the road, and the avenues blocked up in every other direction. The people triumphed; but at Hyde-Park upper-gate a conflict between the military and the people took place, and two of the latter were shot dead. At length the hearse was forced into the city; and here the procession was joined by the lord mayor and other authorities; the shops being closed, and the bells of the different churches tolling. It is said that his majesty, who, at the time these commotions took place, was enjoying the pleasures of conviviality in Ireland, expressed in somewhat contemptuous terms his dissatisfaction at the want of arrangement and energy on the part of ministers. But this seemed to proceed from the failure of their plans rather than from any respect to his deceased queen. She was persecuted even to the last. In the course of the procession Sir Robert Wilson remonstrated with some soldiers on duty, and this humane interference deprived him of his commission; the directing civil magistrate, also, who consulted humanity in preference to his orders, was dismissed from office. It was unmanly to persecute the departed while in the land of the living; it was unworthy of manhood to carry resentment beyond the grave.