[[110]]But the case of Mr. Canning was of a widely different nature. In him, the PEOPLE took no interest, except that which leads all men to watch their enemy's motions. He had not the honour of being disliked at court for his politics,—they were of the most accommodating character; he had given a personal offence to the "first gentleman of the land." By the country, on the other hand, it was his political principles, history, and character, that were held in the most disrepute. Placed in such circumstances, the public must have been aware that this political adventurer would not be very patriotic in his endeavours to obtain pardon for his crime against the "puissant prince;" and how far, therefore, such a man could be entrusted with power was a question not difficult to solve. As for the nation generally, they regarded Mr. Canning but in the nature of an HIRED ADVOCATE, retained for the mean purpose of palliating the weaknesses or transgressions of a cabinet, the great majority of whose members he excelled in making witty or fallacious speeches. His countrymen recollected his conduct through life too well to imagine that he was made foreign secretary to introduce any real improvement into the policy or councils of the nation. They felt convinced of his being chosen as the apologist of bad measures, not the author of good ones; and that he held the language of one of Shakespeare's heroes to be good sentiment: "A plague of opinion!—a man may wear it on both sides, like a leather jerkin!"

Mr. Canning was, indeed, known to be a fit agent

[[111]]for the "Holy Alliance;" he was the sworn antagonist of every reform in church and state; and wheresoever a grievance or an abuse appeared, there stood he, arrogantly to charge as public enemies all who testified to the existence of either. Even the unfortunate country gentlemen, reduced as they now were, by their blind support of Mr. Canning's system, to a state bordering on pauperism, could hardly have hoped, from such a rooted foe to liberty, for any shadow of relief or of assistance. "Be quiet, gentlemen," was the self-important style of his addresses, "see what an example the poor have set you; be patient, as they are, and you will soon be prosperous, like me!" From a minister of this description, no consolatory expectations could possibly be formed by any class or party. We might certainly look for a few better speeches than Lord Londonderry made; for his were, indeed, but poor maudlin affairs. The new acts would only have a better chance of being varnished over, while we might expect them to be much worse in their nature than they had been; because, as ministers had no intention to reform the system, it must, of necessity, become more vicious every day. The only measure on which Mr. Canning had ever taken any particularly active part, was the emancipation of the Catholics; and our readers will form some opinion of his SINCERITY on this subject, and of the IMPORTANCE which Mr. Canning attached to it, when we inform them that the honourable gentleman actually promised the Earl of Liverpool not to discuss the

[[112]]matter if he might only be allowed to retain the foreign secretaryship! The conduct of the Earl of Liverpool, also, leads to an observation which reflects any thing but honour on the character of his lordship. We know that the power of this premier over the king was omnipotent, owing to his being in possession of SECRETS, of the most vital importance to his majesty and the royal family. By his lordship threatening to be no longer prime minister, he could, at almost any time, have forced his own schemes of policy upon the vitiated court. By the admission of Mr. Canning to office, he had driven his royal master to the wall, and compelled him to do that which all the world had before supposed would have been more unpalatable to his proud feelings than the admission of even the Whigs to office. If Lord Liverpool could, therefore, bring in a minister so personally disliked as Mr. Canning notoriously was by his majesty, could he not also have prevented that odious and atrocious measure, commonly called the "Queen's TRIAL,"—Mr. Canning's declared disapprobation of which created the very difficulty which had just been overcome? That disgraceful proceeding against an injured woman, with all its horrid consequences, it now became indisputably evident, might have been avoided, had Lord Liverpool but only have shown as much pertinacity in the CAUSE OF INNOCENCE as he had now done in that of PARTY. His personal power in the cabinet was, however, much increased by the nomination of Mr. Canning. There was a tacit, though

[[113]]well-understood, separation of interests during the life of Lord Londonderry, who usually headed one division of the ministers, with the Duke of Wellington in the number of the subalterns of his party, while Lord Liverpool led the other wing of Tory pensioners. There was nothing now, therefore, to stand against the first lord of the Treasury, unless Mr. Canning's inveterate spirit of intrigue should possess him (a thing by no means unlikely) to see a rival in his benefactor, and to undermine Lord Liverpool, as he had done one of his former colleagues.

What an enviable opportunity to enter office did this period afford to any man having the real welfare of his country at heart; for all the blessings that had been promised from the "glorious battle of Waterloo,"—that wind-up of a war against the liberties of Europe,—were yet to come: taxation remained undiminished; the liberties of the subject were gradually declining; the commerce of England was almost at an end; and her people poor and unhappy. Here, then, was a wide field for a patriotic minister to display his abilities, by restoring the country to its wonted prosperity! But, while Mr. Canning and his colleagues were indulging in luxury at the expense of the nation, the just complaints of the public were designated "the cries of a faction," and the miserable victims of their misrule said to betray an "ignorant impatience" when they prayed for relief. After years of peace, the expenditure of government exceeded the income of the Treasury, and our

[[114]]visionary and delusive system of finance required to be bolstered up by additions to our already overwhelming debt; strength of council was superseded by strength of army; all public discussion, however peaceably conducted, was opposed; acts of coercion were encouraged and abetted; and England, once the pride of nations, became desolated by the worst complication of ignorance and obstinacy that ever disgraced a cabinet! To whatever department of the state we turned our eyes, the same indifference to its prosperity seemed manifest. The ARMY, preponderating beyond all precedent in time of peace, had become an overgrown source of profligacy and barter; commissions and promotions, instead of being rewards for service and merit, were sold to the best bidder, and the produce applied to pamper the vitiated appetite of royalty. In the NAVY, once our bulwark and our boast, the services of effeminate lordlings seemed more courted than those of bluff and able seamen, commissioners more important than shipwrights, and large expensive establishments kept up on shore, while our fleets were rotting in the docks. Our TRADE was neglected, while pirates infested the seas, and destroyed our merchantmen. In our FOREIGN POLICY, all was danger and uncertainty; the calm of peace was only prolonged by our unexampled apathy and puerile forbearance. Foreign powers owed us money that we dare not demand; nations were struggling for liberty and independence that we must not assist; and outrages committed that we could not avenge.

[[115]]In the past, a long and sanguinary war, in which were sacrificed an incalculable number of lives and immense treasure; while in the future was exhibited the most dreary prospect of our declining power. At home, our decay was still more apparent: the sacred flame of liberty, to which we were indebted for our preference over other nations, was attacked on all sides by every means that treachery could devise; the malignity of the ministers visited faithful servants with dismissal without inquiry or hearing; the sovereign was recommended and advised to treat his subjects with contumely and neglect; while the constitution itself was assailed by spies and informers, who first created and abetted the commission of the crimes which they afterwards denounced! This was, indeed, a fearful state of affairs; but history will justify us in the picture we have drawn. Though these and ten thousand other evils were evidently the results of imbecility, folly, and knavery, which had mainly been assisted by bribery, lavishly bestowed on those who had possessed themselves of those secrets of state recorded in our volumes, yet he who dared to hint at such an unpleasant truth, or even to doubt the honesty of ministers, was sure to be denounced a traitor. But, thank heaven! the power of the Tories now received a check. The manly stand made by a few members of the House of Commons, during the previous session of parliament, had opened the eyes of the long-blinded public, and the late acts of

[[116]]oppression[116:A], with which the Londonderry cabinet had disgraced itself, furnished fresh cause for censure and new inducements for perseverance. The ministry, therefore, which Mr. Canning joined were humbled and degraded before he became one of its members; but, instead of raising it from the disgrace into which it had fallen, his underhanded conduct only aggravated matters, and rendered him a greater object of suspicion to patriotic men than even their avowed enemies.

Various royal diversions and exhibitions were displayed throughout this year, and the "first gentleman in the world" was too often made to appear the "first knave on the stage of life." George the Fourth's means had been bestowed so bounteously, that he had become arrogant, and considered THE PEOPLE merely in the light of SLAVES, created only to administer to his passions and caprices. He could hardly be said to know the nation, except by the representation of his hirelings. Neither did he care to know the subjects from whom his strength was derived, because they sometimes exhibited more independence than suited his princely ideas of decorum. Indeed, he not unfrequently found the popular voice rather formidable against the attainment of some of