Beacon Lights of History, Volume 09: European Statesmen

by John Lord

The most powerful man in the cabinet at this time, holding the second office in the government, that of foreign secretary, was Lord Castlereagh,--no very great scholar or orator or man of business, but an inveterate Tory, who played into the hands of all the despots of Europe, and who made captive more powerful minds than his own by the elegance of his manners, the charm of his conversation, and the intensity of his convictions. William Pitt never showed greater sagacity than when he bought the services of this gifted aristocrat (for he was then a Whig), and introduced him into Parliament. He was the most prominent minister of the crown until he died, directing foreign affairs with ability, but in the wrong direction,--the friend and ally of Metternich, Chateaubriand, Hardenberg, and the monarchs whom they represented.

But foremost in genius among the great statesmen of the day was George Canning, who, however, did not reach the summit of his ambition until the latter part of the reign of George IV. But after the death of Castlereagh in 1822, he was the leading spirit of the cabinet, holding the great office of foreign secretary, second in rank and power only to that of the premier. Although a Tory,--the follower and disciple of Pitt,--it was Canning who gave the first great blow to the narrow and selfish conservatism which marked the government of his day, and entered the first wedge which was to split the Tory ranks and inaugurate reform. For this he acquired the greatest popularity that any statesman in England ever enjoyed, if we except Fox and Pitt, and at the same time incurred the bitterest wrath which the Metternichs of the world have ever cherished toward the benefactors of mankind.

Canning was born in London, in the year 1770, in comparatively humble life,--his father being a dissipated and broken-down barrister, and his mother compelled by poverty to go upon the stage. But he had a wealthy relative who took the care of his education. In 1788 he entered Christ Church College, where he won the prize for the best Latin poem that Oxford had ever produced. After he had graduated with distinguished honors, he entered as a law student at Lincoln's Inn; but before he wore the gown of a barrister Pitt had sought him out, as he had Castlereagh, having heard of his talents in debating societies. Pitt secured him a seat in Parliament, and Canning made his first speech on the 31st of January, 1794. The aid which he brought to the ministry secured his rapid advancement. In a year after his maiden speech he was made under-secretary of state for foreign affairs, at the age of twenty-five. On the death of Pitt, in 1806, when the Whigs for a short period came into power, Canning was the recognized leader of the opposition; and in 1807, when the Tories returned to power, he became foreign secretary in the ministry of the Duke of Portland, of which Mr. Perceval was the leading member. It was then that Canning seized the Danish fleet at Copenhagen, giving as his excuse for this bold and high-handed measure that Napoleon would have taken it if he had not. It was through his influence and that of Lord Castlereagh that Sir Arthur Wellesley, afterward the Duke of Wellington, was sent to Spain to conduct the Peninsular War.

On the retirement of the Duke of Portland as head of the government in 1809, Mr. Perceval became minister,--an event soon followed by the insanity of George III. and the entrance of Robert Peel into the House of Commons. In 1812 Mr. Perceval was assassinated, and the long ministry of Lord Liverpool began, supported by all the eloquence and influence of Canning, between whom and his chief a close friendship had existed since their college days. The foreign secretaryship was offered to Canning; but he, being comparatively poor, preferred the Lisbon embassy, on the large salary of £14,000. In 1814 he became president of the Board of Control, and remained in that office until he was appointed governor-general of India. On the death of Castlereagh (1822) by his own hand, Canning resumed the post of foreign secretary, and from that time was the master spirit of the government, leader of the House of Commons, the most powerful orator of his day, and the most popular man in England. He had now become more liberal, showing a sympathy with reform, acknowledging the independence of the South American colonies, and virtually breaking up the Holy Alliance by his disapprobation of the policy of the Congress of Vienna, which aimed at the total overthrow of liberty in Europe, and which (under the guidance of Metternich and with the support of Castlereagh) had already given Norway to Sweden, the duchy of Genoa to Sardinia, restored to the Pope his ancient possessions, and made Italy what it was before the French Revolution. The most mischievous thing which the Holy Alliance had in view was interference in the internal affairs of all the Continental States, under the guise of religion. England, under the leadership of Castlereagh, would have upheld this foreign interference of Russia, Prussia, and Austria; but Canning withdrew England from this intervention,--a great service to his country and to civilization. In fact, the great principle of his political life was non-intervention in the internal affairs of other nations. Hence he refused to join the great Powers in re-seating the king of Spain on his throne, from which that monarch had been temporarily ejected by a popular insurrection. But for him, the great Powers might have united with Spain to recover her lost possessions in South America. To him the peace of the world at that critical period was mainly owing. In one of his most famous speeches he closed with the oft-quoted sentence, "I called the New World into existence to redress the balance of the Old."

Canning, like Peel,--and like Gladstone in our own time,--grew more and more liberal as he advanced in years, in experience, and in power, although he never left the Tory ranks. His commercial policy was identical with that of his friend Huskisson, which was that commerce flourished best when wholly unfettered by restrictions. He held that protection, in the abstract, was unsound and unjust; and thus he opened the way for free-trade,--the great boon which Sir Robert Peel gave to the nation under the teachings of Cobden. He also was in favor of Catholic emancipation and the repeal of the Test Act, which the Duke of Wellington was compelled against his will ultimately to give to the nation.

At the head of all this array of brilliant statesmen stood the king, or in this case the regent, who was a man of very different character from most of the ministers who served him.

It was in January, 1811, that the Prince of Wales became regent in consequence of the insanity of his father, George III.; it was during the Peninsular War, when Wellington, then Sir Arthur Wellesley, was wearing out the French in Spain. But the reign of this prince as regent is barren of great political movements. There is scarcely anything to record but riots and discontent among the lower classes, and the incendiary speeches and writings of demagogues. Measures of relief were proposed in Parliament, also for parliamentary reform and the removal of Catholic disabilities; but they were all alike opposed by the Tory government, and came to nothing. Four years after the beginning of the regency saw the overthrow of Napoleon, and the nation was so wearied of war and all great political excitement that it had sunk to inglorious repose. It was the period of reaction, of ultra conservatism, and hatred of progressive and revolutionary ideas, when such men as Cobbett and Hunt (Henry) were persecuted, fined, and imprisoned for their ideas. Cobbett, the most popular writer of the day, was forced to fly to America. Government was utterly intolerant of all political agitation, which was chiefly confined to men without social position.

But of all the magnates who were opposed to reform, the prince regent was the most obstinate. He was wholly devoted to pleasure. His court at the Carleton palace was famous for the assemblage of wits and beauties and dandies, reminding us of the epicureanism which marked Versailles during the reign of Louis XV. It was the most scandalous period in England since the times of Charles II. The life of the regent was a perpetual scandal, especially in his heartless treatment of women, and the disgraceful revels in which he indulged.

The companions of the prince were mostly dissipated and ennuied courtiers, as impersonated in that incarnation of dandyism who went by the name of Beau Brummell,--a contemptible character, who yet, it seems, was the leader of fashion, especially in dress, of which the prince himself was inordinately fond. This boon companion of royalty required two different artists to make his gloves, and he went home after the opera to change his cravat for succeeding parties. His impertinence and audacity exceeded anything ever recorded of men of fashion,--as when he requested his royal master to ring the bell. Nothing is more pitiable than his miserable end, deserted by all his friends, a helpless idiot in a lunatic asylum, having exhausted all his means. Lord Yarmouth, afterward the Marquis of Hertford, infamous for his debaucheries and extravagance, was another of the prince's companions in folly and drunkenness. So was Lord Fife, who expended £80,000 on a dancer; and a host of others, who had, however, that kind of wit which would "set the table on a roar,"--but all gamblers, drunkards, and sensualists, who gloried in the ruin of those women whom they had made victims of their pleasures.

But I pass by the revelries and follies of "the first gentleman" in the realm, as he was called, to allude to one event which has historical importance, and which occupied the attention of the whole country,--and that was the persecution of his wife, who was also his cousin, Caroline Amelia Elizabeth, daughter of the Duke of Brunswick. He drove her from the nuptial bed, and from his palace. He sought also to get a divorce, which failed by reason of the transcendent talents and eloquence of Brougham and Denman, eminent lawyers whom she employed in her defence, and which brought them out prominently before the eyes of the nation,--for the great career of Brougham, especially, began with the trial of Caroline of Brunswick, the unhappy woman whom the Prince of Wales married to get relief from his pecuniary necessities, and whom he insulted as soon as he saw her, although she was a princess of considerable accomplishments, and as amiable as she was beneficent. The only palliation of his infamous treatment of this woman was that he never loved her, and was even disgusted with her. No sooner was the marriage solemnized, than she was treated on every occasion with studied contumely, and scarcely had she recovered from illness incident to the birth of the Princess Charlotte, when the "first gentleman of the age" was pleased to intimate that it suited his disposition that they should hereafter live apart. Never allowed to be crowned as queen, driven from the shelter of her husband's roof, surrounded with spies, accused of crimes of which there was no proof, even excluded from the public prayers, and finally forced into exile, she sank under her accumulated wrongs, and was carried off by a fatal illness at the age of fifty-three.