A Popular History of England, From the Earliest Times to the Reign of Queen Victoria; Vol. IV

by François Guizot

Mr. Canning replaced him in power, not without intrigue nor without internal difficulty. He associated with himself Mr. Huskinson, an able and honest minister of the finances, liberal like himself, and disposed likewise to favor the popular movement, that they had neither the power nor the desire to repress. The first intimation of this new attitude of the government, was the recognition by England of the South American republics: ancient Spanish colonies revolted against the yoke of the mother country. Successive shocks had agitated Spain; the Bourbons had been overthrown and replaced by a provisory government. Recalled to the throne by a royalist insurrection, Ferdinand VII. had been seconded by France; the Duke of Angoulême, eldest son of King Louis XVIII., at the head of an army had re-established the monarchy in Spain, while Austria, in her turn, interfered in the affairs of the kingdom of Naples, as confused and troubled as those of Spain. Under Mr. Canning, England remained faithful to the principle of non-intervention; nevertheless without sympathy for the sovereigns attacked, without good will to their defenders. "We have exerted all our efforts to prevent the French from entering Spain," said Mr. Canning. "We have exhausted every means but war. I admit that the entrance of a French army into Spain was a measure of disparagement to Great Britain. Do you think that for this disparagement we have not been compensated? Do you think that for the blockade of Cadiz, England has not received a full recompense? I looked at Spain by another name than Spain; I looked on that power as Spain and the Indies; and so looking at the Indies, I have there called a new world into existence and regulated the balance of power."

While Mr. Canning pursued a foreign policy, boldly independent in regard to the powers and common interests of Europe, he remained preoccupied and sad. He had reached the summit of grandeur; admired and respected by all, still young and powerful, by reason of his personal merit, he nevertheless stood alone, having parted from all the friends who had fought at his side at the outset of his career, separated from them by the attitude he had taken at the head of the liberals; and also separated from the liberals, that he commanded by the resistance that he opposed to parliamentary reform. His health was good, but the nervous state into which the trials and vexations of political life had thrown him, slowly undermined the forces that he sought in vain to repair by the pleasures and charms of society. He died on the 8th of August, 1827, at Chiswick, in the beautiful villa of the Duke of Devonshire, and in the same chamber where Mr. Fox breathed his last.

One after the other, young and old, death gathered the great actors of the long struggle sustained by England against the anarchical passions and absolute ambition from without and the contagion of fatal evils within. But few months after the death of Mr. Canning, Lord Liverpool, in his turn, old and worn out, already withdrawn from the world by an attack of paralysis, also died. It was necessary to provide for the needs of government. A cabinet of coalition slipped through the hands of Lord Goderich. The Duke of Wellington had directed victoriously the affairs of England in war, and the king now demanded of the great general that he should take charge of the political affairs of the government. The Duke, accustomed to obey the call of duty wherever it led, did not hesitate, confiding simply in the power of good sense and honest authority. The Whigs retired; the liberal Tories, Mr. Peel at their head, closed their ranks around the new chief whom fortune had sent them.

The young Lord Aberdeen, already distinguished, with Lord Castlereagh, in the most important diplomatic negotiations, now, for the first time, took part in the internal government of his country. He had the good fortune to be loved and honored by all, both at home and abroad, during his entire career. The ministry had, from the beginning, to confront a difficult and long contested question. It found itself constrained to support and defend a measure that it had previously ardently combatted. The situation in Ireland occupied all minds; the emancipation of the Catholics became, more than ever, in the eyes of some, the evident remedy for all evils; but to others, the object of lively inquietude and profound repugnance.

Commerce had developed in Ireland; industry had increased her exportations; the ministers hostile to the measures that were demanded to relieve the miseries of a neighboring and dependent kingdom, cited with pride the figures of the statistics: but the wealth was concentrated in a small number of hands; the proprietors of the soil were, for the most part, strangers to Ireland; absent or indifferent to her sufferings. The common people were engaged in agricultural pursuits of the most primitive character, without other care than to draw from the earth, with the least possible effort, the subsistence necessary from day to day. The introduction of the potato, by giving the peasants a food more economical than wheat, had increased their idleness, their improvidence, and their misery. Without money, without resources, without education, habitually separated from the higher classes, the Irish peasantry lived in a state bordering on barbarism. "The last of the animals, does not support its kind," said, in 1822, the most illustrious of their advocates, Daniel O'Connell, often most useful but many times dangerous to their cause: "Their homes should not be called houses—they have no right to that title: they are huts, built in the earth, partly thatched over, partly exposed to the elements. No furniture garnishes the interior; it is a luxury to possess a trunk; and a table is rarely to be found. All the family live in one room; they have no beds, and sleep upon straw; in the mountainous districts they scarcely have sufficient covering. Their wages are not above eight cents per day, and even at that rate, farm hands cannot find work. Their land, therefore, is their only means of support, and this land is leased to them at a price far above its real value, owing to the numerous middlemen who come between the proprietors and the peasants."

So much suffering, so long endured without effectual relief, in a situation seemingly without issue, at last brought about a violent agitation, which was used to foment religious and political passions. The Test Act was repealed, and a simple oath of allegiance was substituted for the compulsory communion with the established Church. This was the first step leading to the emancipation of the Catholics; all felt it, even the protestant dissenters, who supported the measure, although it was of more benefit to their traditional enemies, the Catholics, than to themselves.

Public opinion was at the time violent but brilliantly directed. Under Mr. Canning the Irish Catholics were careful not to obtrude their claims, as they feared to embarrass, by public alarm, the good will of the government. When they saw the power fall into the hands of the Tories, they at once engaged passionately in the contest: the Catholic associations commenced their popular assemblies, their harangues, their addresses, their pamphlets, their subscriptions, all their ardent and adroit work, as much to excite and to discipline the people in England as to encourage and recruit their partisans in Ireland. O'Connell and Moore, two men of very unequal powers, but both powerful at this time, by diverse means, marched at the head of this crusade for the emancipation of their faith and race. O'Connell, that robust and audacious wrestler, that inventive and strategic legislator, indefatigable in his eloquence, brilliant or vulgar, captivating or diverting, devoted with unscrupulous passion to the cause which made at the same time his glory and his fortune; Moore, patriotic and worldly poet, pathetic and satirical, as popular in the salons of London as O'Connell in the meetings of Ireland; singing his melodies while O'Connell breathed forth his invectives, both constant in their efforts, rallying to the service of the same cause the mass of the people and the elegant world, the impetuous passions and the elevated thoughts, the ambition of men, and the sympathy of women, the Celtic peasants and the Saxon nobles, the Catholic priests and the philosophic Whigs.

The grandeur of the purpose responded to the ardor of the effort. O'Connell was elected from the county of Clare, to that House of Commons from which he was excluded by law. Ireland was completely under his control; sometimes precipitating itself to the last limits of legal order, then again docile and prudent. In England, among the different classes of the laity, as well as in the bosom of the Anglican Church, public sentiment favorable to the Catholic Church gained ground day by day.