For the first time in the history of war, it was discovered, that the true force of kingdoms had been mistaken—a mistake which had lasted for a thousand years; that armies were but splendid machines; and that, while they might be crushed by the impulse of machines more rapid, stronger, and more skilfully urged, nothing could crush the vigour of defence, while it was supplied by a people.
The levée en masse of France was but the rudest, as it was the earliest, form of the new discovery. There, terror was the moving principle. The conscription was the recruiting-officer. The guillotine was the commander who manœuvred the generals, the troops, and the nation. Yet, the revolutionary armies differed in nothing from the monarchical, but in the superiority of their numbers, and the inferiority of their discipline.
The war of Spain was another, and a nobler advance. It was the war of a nation. In France the war was the conspiracy of a faction. In Spain the loss of the capital only inflamed the hostility of the provinces. In France the loss of the capital would have extinguished the Revolution; as it afterwards extinguished the Empire. I think that I can see the provision for a still bolder and more beneficent advance, even in those powerful developments of national capabilities. It will, perhaps, be left to other nations. Spain and France have a yoke upon their minds, which will disqualify them both from acting the nobler part of guides to Europe. Superstition contains in itself the canker of slavery; perfect freedom is essential to perfect power; and the nation which, from the cradle, prostrates itself to the priest, must retain the early flexure of its spine. The great experiment must be reserved for a nobler public mind; for a people religious without fanaticism, and free without licentiousness; honouring the wisdom of their fathers, without rejecting the wisdom of the living age; aspiring but to the ministration of universal good, and feeling that its opulence, knowledge, and grandeur are only gifts for mankind.
The system of the war was now fully established. All the feelings of England were fixed on the Peninsula, and all the politics of her statesmen and their rivals were alike guided by the course of the conflict. The prediction was gallantly fulfilled—that the French empire would there expose its flank to English intrepidity; that the breaching battery which was to open the way to Paris, would be fixed on the Pyrenees; that the true sign of conquest was the banner of England.
The battle of the Ministry was fought in Spain, and as victoriously as the battle of our army. We saw Opposition gradually throw away its arms, and gradually diminish in the popular view, until its existence was scarcely visible. Successive changes varied the cabinet, but none shook its stability. Successive ministers sank into the grave, but the ministry stood. The spirit of the nation, justly proud of its triumphs, disdained to listen to the whispers of a party, who murmured defeat with victory before their eyes; who conjured up visions of ruin, only to be rebuked by realities of triumph; and to whom the national scorn of pusillanimity, and the national rejoicing in the proudest success, could not unteach the language of despair. Perceval, the overthrower of the Foxite ministry, perished; but the political system of the cabinet remained unchanged. Castlereagh perished—Liverpool perished; but the political system still remained. The successive pilots might give up the helm, but the course of the great vessel continued the same—guided by the same science, and making her way through sunshine, and through storm, to the same point of destination.
The three successive ministers were men of high ability for government, though their character of ability exhibited the most remarkable distinctions. Perceval had been a lawyer, and had risen to the rank of attorney-general. In the House, he carried the acuteness, the logic, and even the manner, of his profession with him. Without pretending to the power of eloquence, he singularly possessed the power of conviction; without effecting changes in the theory of the constitution, he put its truths in a new light; and without a trace of bigotry, he defended, with conscientious vigour, the rights of the national religion. Sustaining a bold struggle at the head of the feeblest minority perhaps ever known in Parliament, he had shown unshaken courage and undismayed principle in the day of the Foxite supremacy. This defence was at length turned into assault, and his opponents were driven from power. His ministry was too brief for his fame. But, when he fell by the hand of a maniac, he left a universal impression on the mind of the empire, that the blow had deprived it of a great ministerial mind.
Lord Castlereagh exhibited a character of a totally different order, yet equally fitted for his time. An Irishman, he had the habitual intrepidity of his countrymen, combined with the indefatigable diligence of England. Nobly connected, and placed high in public life by that connexion, he showed himself capable of sustaining his ministerial rank by personal capacity. Careless of the style of his speeches, he was yet a grave, solid, and fully-informed debater. But it was in the council that his value to the country was most acknowledged. His conception of the rights, the influence, and the services of England, was lofty; and, when the period came for deciding on her rank in the presence of continental diplomacy, he was her chosen, and her successful, representative. His natural place was among the councils of camps, where sovereigns were the soldiers. The "march to Paris" was due to his courage; and the first fall of Napoleon was effected by the ambassador of England.
Lord Liverpool was a man equally fitted for his time. The war had triumphantly closed. But, a period of perturbed feelings and financial necessities followed. It required in the minister a combination of sound sense and practical vigour—of deference for the public feelings, yet respect for the laws—of promptitude in discovering national resources, and yet of firmness in repelling factious change. The head of the cabinet possessed those qualities. Without brilliancy, without eloquence, without accomplished literature; still, no man formed his views with a clearer intelligence; and no man pursued them with more steady determination. Perhaps disdaining the glitter of popularity, no minister, for the last half century, had been so singularly exempt from all the sarcasms of public opinion. The nation relied on his sincerity, honoured his purity of principle, and willingly confided its safety to hands which none believed capable of a stain.
But the characters of those three ministers were striking in a still higher point of view. Their qualities seem to have been expressly constructed to meet the peculiar exigency of their times. Perceval—acute, strict, and with strong religious conceptions—to meet a period, when religious laxity in the cabinet had already enfeebled the defence of the national religion. Castlereagh—stately, bold, and high-toned—to meet a period, when the fate of Europe was to be removed from cabinets to the field, and when he was to carry the will of England among assembled monarchs. Liverpool—calm, rational, and practical; the man of conscience and common sense—for the period, when the great questions of religion had been quieted, the great questions of the war had died with the war, and when the supreme difficulty of government was, to reconcile the pressure of financial exigency with the progress of the people—to invigorate the public frame without inflaming it by dangerous innovation—and to reconstruct the whole commercial constitution, without infringing on those principles which had founded the prosperity of the empire.
At length the consummation came: the French empire fell on the field by the hand of England. All the sovereigns of Europe rushed in to strip the corpse, and each carried back a portion of the spoils. But the conqueror was content with the triumph, and asked no more of glory than the liberation of mankind.