It was at this crisis of European affairs that Canning died. His Ministry, Death of Canning brief as it was, marked an epoch for England. Unlike his predecessors, George Canning was called to the Ministry by a king who disliked him. What he accomplished was done amid the peculiar embarrassments and difficulties of such a situation. On the other hand, it freed him from certain concessions to the personal prejudices of his sovereign that hampered other Ministers. Thus he was able to introduce in Parliament his great measure for the removal of the political disabilities of the Catholics, a reform on which so great a Prime Minister as the younger Pitt came to grief. Had this Canning's policy measure passed the House of Lords it would stand as the crowning act of Canning's administration. By an irony of fate the same Canning that so bitterly opposed the French Revolution and the claims of America achieved highest fame by his latter day recognition of the rights of revolution in the New World.
William Blake, the English poet and artist, died at Fountain Court inWilliam Blake London on August 12. While Blake's poems and paintings belonged to the Eighteenth Century, chronologically, the spirit of his works, with its extraordinary independence of contemporary fashions, make him a herald of the poetic dawn of the Nineteenth Century. An engraver by profession and training, Blake began while still very young to apply his technical knowledge to his wholly original system of literary publication. As a poet Artist and poet he was not only his own illustrator, but his own printer and publisher as well. Beginning with the "Poetical Sketches" and his delightful "Songs of Innocence," down to the fantastic "Marriage of Heaven and Hell," all of Blake's books, with the exception of his "Jerusalem" and "Milton," were issued during the Eighteenth Century. Blake's artistic faculties seemed to strengthen with advancing life, but his literary powers waned. He produced few more satisfying illustrations than those to the Book of Job, executed late in life. His artistic work also was left comparatively untainted by the morbid strain of mysticism that runs through his so-called "prophetic Blake's mysticism writings." The charm of Blake's poetry, as well as of his drawings, was not fully appreciated until late in the Nineteenth Century. Charles Lamb, to be sure, declared, "I must look upon him as one of the extraordinary persons of the age," but his full worth was not recognized until Swinburne and Rossetti took up his cause. In America, Charles Eliot Norton, at Harvard, was Blake's ablest expounder. Famous are James Thomson's lines on William Blake:
In this year Dr. Richard Bright of London published his famous "Reports of Richard Bright medical cases with a view to illustrate the symptoms and cure of diseases by a reference to morbid anatomy." A special feature of the book was a full description of Bright's discoveries in the pathology of the peculiar disease of the kidneys which bears his name. Bright, in response to urgent demands, lectured more fully on his great discovery before the London College of Physicians and Surgeons.
Eugene Delacroix, the great exponent of French romantic art, and a pupil of Delacroix Guerin, exhibited this year his "Christ in the Garden of Olives." He had previously exhibited "Dante and Virgil," which created a sensation by its rich coloring. This was followed by his "Massacre of Scio," "The Death of the Doge," "Marino Faliero," "Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi" and "Death of Sardanapalus." Not until some time after his death was he recognized as the greatest early master of the French art after David. The great majority of his works, embracing mural paintings and pictures of immense size, are to be found in the principal churches and galleries of France.
After the brief interregnum of Goderich's administration in England, Wellington Prime Minister Canning was succeeded by his rival, the Duke of Wellington. The good sense and great renown of this distinguished soldier promised strength and prestige to his administration. For a while the change of Ministry brought no avowed change in Canning's plans. Huskisson and Palmerston were retained in the Cabinet, and Canning's policy of active intervention in Greece was upheld. In consequence of the Turkish refusal of mediation, the war continued on both sides. The Turks got heavy reinforcements from Egypt, and a strong expedition was on the point of leaving Navarino to make a descent Powers intervene in Greece upon Hydra, the last stronghold of the insurrection. An Anglo-French fleet under Admirals Codrington and Regnier made a demonstration in Greek waters. The foreign admirals exacted a promise from Ibrahim that he would make no movement until further orders should arrive from Constantinople. An oral agreement to this effect was reached late in September. A few days later Greek Naval victory the Greeks in free continuance of hostilities won a brilliant naval victory in the Gulf of Corinth. The hero on this occasion was Captain Hastings, an English volunteer. Ibrahim was so incensed that he sailed out of Navarino and made for Patras. Codrington threw his British squadron across the track of the Egyptian ships and forced them to turn back by a threat to sink them. It was regretted at the time that Codrington did not compel Turkish warships stopped Ibrahim to take his expedition out of Greek waters back to Alexandria. As it was, Ibrahim returned to Navarino, and there found orders from the Sultan to carry on the war without regard to Western intermeddling. Another Turkish column was forthwith despatched into the Morea and devastated that country with fire and sword. Clouds of smoke revealed to the European naval officers how the Turks had met their proposals for peace. Admiral Codrington sent messages to Ibrahim, calling for instant cessation of The Morea ravaged hostilities, for the evacuation of the Morea, and the return of his fleet to Constantinople and Alexandria. The answer to this message was that Ibrahim had marched into the Morea and could not be reached. The three squadrons of England, Russia and France cruising off Zante immediately came together. They consisted of twenty-nine vessels, ten ships of the line, ten An international demonstration frigates, four brigs and five schooners. United in one column, under command of Codrington as senior admiral, they sailed for Navarino.
Codrington was unhampered by instructions. He could feel sure of the support of his government, however, for in his pocket was a confidential note from the Duke of Clarence, the royal commander of the navy, encouraging him to "find" a quarrel with the Turkish admiral.
On October 20, the three squadrons sailed into Navarino harbor in battle array, and came to anchor within pistol shot of the Turkish fleet, composed of seventy warships, forty transports and four fire-ships, Navarino anchored under cover of the land batteries. To windward of the British corvette "Dartmouth" lay a Turkish brulote or fire-ship. A gig was sent to demand the withdrawal of this dangerous vessel. The Turks fired on the boat with cannon-shot and musketry. When Codrington sent a boat to the Egyptian flagship, Moharem Bey, the admiral, opened with his guns. One shot struck the "Asia," Codrington's flagship, and his pilot was killed. Codrington opened with all his guns. The British broadsides soon reduced the Egyptian flagship on one side, and a Turkish man-o'-war on the other side to mere wrecks. The French and Russians joined in. The Moslem ships, which had a superiority of 800 guns, replied with spirit. At close range they fought the combined fleets of their hated Christian adversaries. From the surrounding shores 20,000 Moslem soldiers discharged their guns into the land-locked harbor. The fight lasted from three in the afternoon until seven in the evening. All bravery was in vain when pitted against Western seamanship and gunnery. In the course of a short afternoon one Turkish ship after another was sunk or blown to pieces. By sundown little was left of the Turkish fleet but a mass of wreckage. Only fifteen ships escaped, to be scuttled by their own sailors. Four thousand Moslem seamen lost their lives. All night long the Turkish gunners on shore kept up their fire. On the morrow, when Ibrahim returned to Navarino, he found the waters of the harbor strewn with wreckage and the floating bodies of his sailors. One of the best accounts of the battle of Navarino has been given by Eugène Sue, the novelist, who then served as surgeon on one of the French vessels.
The island of Hydra and with it all Greece was saved. The subsequent course Greece saved of Sultan Mahmoud was that of blind infatuation and fury. So far from accepting the European demands for an armistice, he put forward a peremptory request for an indemnity for the losses inflicted upon him. The Ambassadors of the Powers quitted Constantinople. It was then that the loss of Canning was felt in England. Instead of pursuing the vigorous policy to which it stood committed by the battle of Navarino, Great Britain hung back. Further intervention, with the profits accruing therefrom, was left to Russia.