A History of England, Period III. Constitutional Monarchy

by J. Franck Bright

Misery of the lower classes.

But whether for the moment it was the agriculturists or the merchants who suffered most, the lower classes were quite sure to suffer. Not only did the Continental System injure the great branches of English industry, the foreign corn ports were also closed. The increase of population since the large introduction of machinery in the last century had gone beyond the resources of home production. The high price of wheat has been already mentioned. Meat also went up from 4d. or 5d. to 10d. a pound. Considering the enormous rate of the price of corn, it was impossible to give wages sufficient to keep the operatives alive. Before the end of the year 1811, wages had sunk to 7s. 6d. a week. The manufacturing operatives were therefore in a state of absolute misery. Petitions signed by 40,000 or 50,000 men urged upon Parliament that they were starving; but there was another class which fared still worse. Machinery had by no means superseded hand-work. In thousands of hamlets and cottages handlooms still existed. The work was neither so good nor so rapid as work done by machinery; even at the best of times used chiefly as an auxiliary to agriculture, this hand labour could now scarcely find employment at all. Not unnaturally, without work and without food, these handworkers The Luddite riots. were very ready to believe that it was the machinery which caused their ruin, and so in fact it was; the change, though on the whole beneficial, had brought much individual misery. The people were not wise enough to see this. They rose in riot in many parts of England, chiefly about Nottingham, calling themselves Luddites (from the name of a certain idiot lad who some thirty years before had broken stocking-frames), gathered round them many of the disbanded soldiery with whom the country was thronged, and with a very perfect secret organization, carried out their object of machine-breaking. The unexpected thronging of the village at nightfall, a crowd of men with blackened faces, armed sentinels holding every approach, silence on all sides, the village inhabitants cowering behind their closed doors, an hour or two's work of smashing and burning, and the disappearance of the crowd as rapidly as it had arrived—such were the incidents of the night riots.

Perhaps, however, the agricultural labourer was still worse off. While farmers were selling their corn at 112s., or even at 170s., the quarter—while it paid to take in bits of open down land, get three Misery of the agricultural labourer. crops off it without manuring, and then pass on to the next piece,—the wretched labourers were told that prices were so high that but little could be given them for their wages. The misery was therefore exceedingly great among them; and even worse than this, the Poor Law stepped in and destroyed their characters. For the wages were so low that they could not live on them, and they were forced to come upon the parish; and the old Poor Law, in the hands of the farmer guardians, enabled those very employers who kept the wages low to levy a rate upon their parishes to support those people whom they were starving, and to give outdoor relief in aid of wages. In other words, the employer had the right to compel the country to give him the money to pay his labourers enough to keep them alive. Selfish views, too, were mixed with false political economy. Many labourers made cheap labour; many hands, it was thought, made a strong country. So this strange grant in aid of wages came to be apportioned according to the number of the family of the recipient; and when the whole state of the nation pointed to the necessity of a curtailed population, a premium was given for its increase.

Difficulties attending the settlement of Europe.

The termination of a war so new in its character, and so universal as that which for the last eleven years had been wasting Europe, brought with it great difficulties. On the one hand arose the question of the position to be taken up by the allies with regard to France; on the other, the reconstitution of Europe, completely dislocated by the policy of Napoleon. Both questions were rendered difficult of solution by the various interests and mutual jealousies of the powers of the victorious coalition. But,—while those European powers who had suffered most severely from the French arms, and especially Prussia, on which the vengeance of Napoleon had fallen most heavily, were desirous to treat France as a conquered nation, so to curtail its dimensions as to render it harmless for the future, and to lay such burdens upon it as might in some degree recompense them for their losses,—England, which had never felt the sword of the conqueror, and Russia, ruled by a Czar much influenced by notions of chivalry and magnanimity, had already determined upon an opposite course. Following the opinion of the founder of their party, the Tory Government which had succeeded Pitt declared its intention of acting towards France as towards a friendly power, and of allowing it to retain the same frontiers as in 1790. There was not much magnanimity in such conduct; the Tory party, the champions of legitimacy, could scarcely avoid restoring the Bourbons; their view of the balance of Europe rendered a powerful France almost a necessity; they could look for no continental acquisitions for England, and took care to secure the advantages they required for their maritime and commercial superiority in other directions. But, while restoring the Bourbons, the English Government found itself compelled by the temper of the time, the course of circumstances, and the liberal views of the Emperor of Russia, to restore them only upon conditions. A constitutional government was granted to France, ratified by a charter securing the chief personal and political rights of the people, such as the maintenance of the public sales during the Revolution, freedom of religion, and freedom of the press.

A France thus reconstituted, and holding friendly relations with the other powers of Europe, would naturally claim its share in the arrangements of the forthcoming Congress. It would probably have been wiser had the French Government postponed all definite settlements as to its future limits till that Congress met; the jealousies which existed between the allies and their conflicting claims would have afforded opportunity for securing favourable terms, for by the Convention, by which France had surrendered the territories held by her armies in Europe, her troops had been allowed to withdraw unmolested, and a powerful army could have been rapidly reconstituted. But the allies, guided by Metternich, the Austrian minister, and determined to keep as far as possible the management of the Congress in their own hands, insisted on the immediate conclusion Treaty of Paris. May 1814. of the treaty with France. Eager to gain popularity by the establishment of peace, the French Government yielded, and in May the Treaty of Paris was concluded. It was upon the whole more favourable than France, as a conquered nation, could have expected. The frontier of 1790 was even slightly increased: towards the north and towards the Rhine it was advanced so as to include several important fortresses, especially the strong place of Landau, and towards the Alps about half of Savoy was also included. The demands of Prussia for a contribution towards the expenses of the war were rejected by the influence of Austria and England, and the treasures of art collected by Napoleon's armies were allowed to remain in Paris. The one great loss sustained was the Isle of France. It was upon the sea and among the colonies that England looked for its reward; it retained Malta, to secure its influence in the Mediterranean, the Cape of Good Hope, which it had won from the Dutch, and now, to complete its naval stations on the road to India, it insisted on the surrender of the Isle of France. The bases for the forthcoming Treaty of Vienna were also roughly laid by this peace. The published articles declared the independence of the States of Germany, the augmentation of Holland under the rule of the Prince of Orange, the independence of Switzerland and of the Italian States outside the limits of the Austrian possessions. Secret articles explained what these loose expressions meant. Belgium was to form the promised increase of Holland, and thus form with it a kingdom absolutely in the interest of England; the left bank of the Rhine was to supply compensations for the German princes (which meant that it was to be given to Bavaria in exchange for the Tyrol); the Po, the Ticino, and Lago Maggiore were to form the boundaries of Austrian Italy, which thus included the territory of Venice; and Sardinia was to receive Genoa in exchange for the portion of Savoy ceded to France.

Visit of the monarchs to England. Aug. 1814.

The difficulties which were sure to attend the forthcoming Congress were already felt, and it was thought that the solution would be rendered easier by the establishment of personal relations between the powers of the coalition. The great monarchs of Eastern Europe were therefore invited to visit the Prince Regent in England. The Emperor of Austria declined to come, but the Czar and the King of Prussia accepted the invitation, and were received with great pomp and enthusiasm. Several weeks were passed in universal gaiety, but the political object of the visit was not attained. The Czar seemed more than ever to occupy the first place among crowned heads; and the dread of Russian influence, and the determination to oppose its claims in the Congress, were thus only rendered stronger.

Congress at Vienna. Sept. 1814.

The meetings at Vienna, at first appointed for August, had been postponed to September, and thither, after their visit to England, the monarchs themselves, and the ministers who represented the various countries of the Congress, betook themselves. The interests of England were intrusted to Lord Castlereagh, a man of considerable firmness, but of mediocre ability, without accurate knowledge or broad views of the politics of Europe, and deficient in the conciliatory deportment so necessary for a successful diplomatist. The negotiators approached their difficult work in a spirit which promised no very good results. Almost of necessity the character of the Congress, and of the treaty it produced, belonged rather to the past than to the future. It was rendered necessary by the changes created by the French Revolution, and was in the hands of a coalition called into existence to oppose the Revolution, and consisting chiefly of monarchs whose views were both absolutist and dynastic. The Czar alone had certain liberal tendencies, but they were so mixed with personal ambition as to excite mistrust instead of co-operation among the assembled negotiators. The Congress therefore assumed the form of an old European congress. It was occupied with the personal and peculiar interest of each sovereign, the increase of territory and influence of each nation, instead of attempting a settlement of Europe in accordance with any enlarged or general theory suitable to the great change and growth of ideas which had been at once the cause and effect of the Revolution.