A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV

by Justin McCarthy; Justin H. McCarthy

In the common language of the political world of that time the members of a Government who opposed the Catholic claims were called Protestant ministers, and the members in favor of the Catholic claims were described as Catholic ministers. In fact, it has had to be explained, for the sake of clearness, by some recent writers, that the word "Catholic" was constantly used in George the Fourth's time merely to signify pro-Catholic. When Canning was spoken of as a Catholic statesman there was not the least idea of describing him as a member of the Church of Rome, and, indeed, the words "Roman Catholic" hardly come up in the controversies of those days. When Mr. Lecky spoke during a recent Parliamentary debate of Catholics and Protestants, he was gravely rebuked by some divines of the Established Church who were under the impression that he was in some way or other truckling to the {55} claims of the Papacy when he used the word "Catholic" to describe the worshippers in the Church of Rome. Mr. Lecky was put to the trouble of explaining that he used the words "Protestant" and "Catholic" in the ordinary significance given to them during long generations of political controversy.

A crisis was suddenly brought about by the illness of Lord Liverpool. The Protestant statesman was stricken down by an attack which for a time deprived him of consciousness, and even after his partial recovery left him in a state which made it clear to all his friends that his work as an administrator was done. There was no hope whatever of his resuming official work, and the question which mainly occupied the mind of the King and of those around him was not what was to become of Lord Liverpool, but whom it would be most convenient for the King to appoint as his successor. Naturally every eye was turned on Canning, whether in hope or in fear. As Lord Palmerston said of himself many years later, so it might be said of Canning, he was the "inevitable man." The whole civilized world was filled with his fame. His course of policy had made England stronger than she had ever been since the death of the younger Pitt. Even King George could not venture to believe in the possibility of passing him over, and King George's chief objection to him was found in the fact that Canning was in favor of the Catholic claims. George thought the matter over a few days, consulted Lord Eldon and other advisers, and found that nobody could inspire him with any real hope of being able to form an enduring Ministry without Canning.

Then the King sent for Canning, and Canning made his own course quite clear. He came to the point at once. He assumed that the great difficulty was to be found in the pressure of the Catholic question, and he advised the King to form a Ministry of his own way of thinking on that subject and to do the best he could. The King, however, explained that it would be futile for him to think that any Ministry so composed could carry on the work of administration just then, and he gave Canning many {56} assurances of his own entire approval of his foreign policy, and declared that no one knew better than he did how much the power of England had increased with Continental States since Canning had obtained the conduct of her foreign affairs. Thus urged, Canning consented to undertake the formation of a Ministry, but he did so on the express condition that he should not only have the King's full confidence and be free to take his own course, but that he should be known to hold such a position and to have the absolute authority of the sovereign to sustain him. Canning's mind was, in fact, clearly made up. He would either be a real Prime Minister, or he would have no place in the new Administration, and would become once again an independent member. There was nothing else to be done, and the King gave Canning full authority to make his own arrangements.

[Sidenote: 1827—Defection among Canning's supporters]

The task which Canning had nominally undertaken was the reconstruction of the Ministry, but no one knew better than he did that it really amounted to the formation of a new Ministry. Canning was well aware that the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel would not consent to serve under him in any Administration. The Duke of Wellington was at this time entirely opposed to any recognition of the Catholic claims, and, more than that, he had never been in favor of the principles of foreign policy adopted and proclaimed by Canning. Between the two men, indeed, there was very little political sympathy, and Canning had got it into his mind, rightly or wrongly, that the Duke of Wellington had done his best to disparage him and to weaken his authority as Foreign Minister. Sir Robert Peel occupied a somewhat different position. He, too, was opposed to the Catholic claims; but he was a statesman of a far higher order than the Duke of Wellington, and it might always safely be assumed of him that he would rightly estimate the force of public opinion, and that when a great movement of political reform had proved itself to be irresistible Peel would never encourage a policy of futile resistance.

Peel's attitude is well described in the admirable life of {57} George Canning published by Mr. Frank Harrison Hill in 1887. "Peel," says Mr. Hill, "did not believe in governing against Parliamentary and public opinion." "To him the art of government was the measurement of social forces, and the adaptation of policy to their direction and intensity. When it was clear to him that a thing must be done, and that his help was essential to the doing of it, his duty was plainly marked out." Up to this time, however, Peel did not see that the Catholic question had reached such a stage, and he probably did not believe that it would ever reach such a stage. He had opposed Catholic claims thus far whenever the opportunity arose, and he could not undertake to serve under a Prime Minister who was openly in favor of recognizing those claims. We shall have to tell, before long, in the course of this history, how Peel came to see that Canning was right in his policy, and how he came to be the Prime Minister by whom it was carried to success, and how he brought the Duke of Wellington along with him. But at the time which we have now reached Peel still believed his own policy on the subject of Roman Catholic Emancipation to be the rightful policy for the guidance of the sovereign and the State, and he therefore found it impossible to serve in the new Administration. Five other members of the existing Government, besides Sir Robert Peel, resigned their places on the same grounds. One was, of course, the Duke of Wellington, and another was Lord Chancellor Eldon. Some influential peers who were not members of the Government made it known that they could not give their support to any Administration which admitted the possibility of recognizing the Catholic claims.

Canning's heart might well have sunk within him for a time when he found himself abandoned by such colleagues and thrown over by such supporters. He actually waited upon the King, and asked his permission to give up the undertaking for the formation of a new Ministry. The King, however, probably felt that he had gone too far in his support of Canning to draw back at such a moment. It is very likely that he was displeased by the pertinacity of {58} the resistance which men like Wellington and Peel and Eldon offered to any act of policy approved by him, and he had undoubtedly by this time come to have a strong faith, not only in Canning's capacity, but also in Canning's good fortune. Whatever may have been his chief inspiration, he certainly had an opportune season of enlightenment, and he refused to allow Canning to withdraw from the task assigned to him. Accordingly Canning became Prime Minister, and united in his own person the offices of First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer.

[Sidenote: 1827—Canning and Lord Grey]

Sir John Copley, raised to the peerage under the title of Lord Lyndhurst, became Lord Chancellor in succession to Lord Eldon, and the House of Lords thus obtained a member who was destined to be one of its foremost orators, to maintain a rivalry in Parliamentary debate with Brougham and the great Tory orator and leader, Lord Derby, and to be listened to with admiration by men still living, who are proud to remember that they heard some of his great speeches. It may be observed that Lord Eldon, whose retirement made way for Lord Lyndhurst, had been Lord Chancellor for twenty-six years, with the exception of one year when he was out of office. Huskisson became Treasurer of the Navy and President of the Board of Trade in the new Administration. Lord Palmerston was Secretary at War, and Frederick Robinson, now made Lord Goderich, who was in thorough sympathy with Canning and Huskisson on questions of financial policy, was Colonial and War Secretary, the latter office according to the arrangements of that time a position having quite different functions from those of the Secretary of War. The arrangements for the new Ministry were completed in April, 1827. Canning had now reached the highest point of his career. His policy had already been marked out for him, for England, and for Europe. The treaty between England, France, and Russia for the protection of Greece, which became a formal instrument after his accession to the office of Prime Minister, was the result of the efforts which he had made before Lord Liverpool's sudden illness {59} led to the break-up of the Liverpool Administration. Canning had little time left him to turn his new and great position to account. Fame, as Mr. Hill well says, was a sucked orange to George Canning when he accepted the office of Prime Minister.

The difficulties against which the new Ministry had to contend were many and great. Canning had the support of such Whigs as Brougham in the House of Commons, but in the House of Lords he had many powerful opponents, and the influence of the House of Lords then counted for more than it does at present. In the House of Lords, too, Lord Grey bitterly and pertinaciously opposed him. Grey was then one of the leading advocates of Parliamentary reform, and Canning could not see his way to ally himself with the Parliamentary reformers. Lord Grey, moreover, seems to have distrusted the sincerity of Canning's support of Catholic emancipation, a distrust for which no possible reason can be suggested; and, indeed, Grey would appear to have had a feeling of personal dislike to the great statesman. Accordingly he made several attacks on Canning and Canning's policy in the House of Lords, and Grey was an eloquent speaker, whose style as well as his character carried command with it. Canning was a man of singularly sensitive nature. Like many other brilliant humorists and satirists, he was somewhat thin-skinned and very quick of temper. He could bear a brilliant and even a splendid part in the Parliamentary battle, but it was a pain to him to endure in silence when he had no chance of making a retort. The attacks of Lord Grey exasperated him beyond measure, and it is believed that he had at one time a strong inclination to accept a peerage and take a seat in the House of Lords, thereby withdrawing forever from the inspiriting battle-ground of the House of Commons for the mere sake of having an opportunity of replying to the attacks of Lord Grey, and measuring his strength against that of the great Whig leader. The fates, however, denied to Canning any chance of making this curious anticlimax in his great political career. His health had always been more or less delicate, and he was {60} never very careful or sparing in the use of his physical powers. He was intensely nervous by constitution, and was liable to all manner of nervous seizures and maladies. In the early days of 1827 he caught a severe cold while attending the public funeral of the Duke of York in the Chapel Royal, Windsor.