consent of the people."[[150]] Pitt opposed this doctrine on the usual Tory ground. It led, he said, immediately "to the system of universal right of suffrage in the people, to the doctrine that each man should have a share in the government of the country by having a choice for his representative; and then goes back to the whole system of Jacobinism."[[151]]
The Union was therefore carried through the instrumentality of a legislature bribed to betray its constituents. This transaction was much worse than it appeared. The English Government which neglected the wishes of the Irish people in this matter would neglect them in all others. The Union was a supreme act of despotism, the fitting prelude to the systematic disregard of Irish opinion which followed it. "There must," wrote Fox a few years later, "be a fundamental change in the system of governing Ireland, to give even a chance of future quiet there.... That there should be a part of the United Kingdom to which our laws, nominally at least, extend, and which is nevertheless in such a state as to call for martial law, etc., so repeatedly, is of itself ground for reconsidering, at least, the system by which it is governed."[[152]] The Tories could not understand, even in the case of England, that it is the business of a governor to manage and not to coerce the governed, and race and religion combined to obscure still further their view of Ireland. The system remained what it had been and was, and the consequences of this fatal negligence are with us to this day.
The foreign policy of the Government gave not a few opportunities for expressions of Liberalism. The rights of nationalities were in issue in the beginning of the French War, in the treatment of Ireland, in the descent upon Copenhagen, and in the negotiations which followed the downfall
of Napoleon. In all these cases the Whig Opposition stated the pure Liberal doctrine. In that of the war with France, one section of them carried the doctrine to an absurd extent. In origin, the war was unquestionably a war of interference, an attempt to force upon the French people an obnoxious government, and to compel them to abandon those new and revolutionary principles which they had adopted for themselves. Pitt himself had apparently no such object, and was hurried into the war partly by the French threats of assisting other peoples to revolt, and chiefly by the irresistible pressure of the English governing class. It is impossible to read contemporary literature, the debates in Parliament, the newspapers, the pamphlets of Burke and other acknowledged leaders of opinion, the resolutions of corporations and public meetings, and the private correspondence, without coming to the conclusion that the great bulk of influential political society was inspired by a fanatical hatred of the new opinions. Whatever pretexts may have been urged in public, and may have been in fact held by comparatively sober people like Pitt, the impelling force behind the English armies was dread of French principles. The sword of the invader could not have been feared more than the fatal contagion of his ideas. The Germans and Austrians, who invaded France in 1792 to restore the monarchy, were less concerned to hide their motives than the English Government. But there was little difference in substance between them. The Continental Sovereigns moved of their own motion. The English Ministers were carried on by their supporters.
Against a war of this kind the Whigs spoke forcibly and with justice. Lansdowne described it as "a war, the alleged object of which was to repel unprovoked aggressions, but the real one to prescribe laws to an independent country."[[153]] It was "a metaphysical war; it was declared against France on account of her internal circumstances."[[154]] Fox said it was no better than the methods of the Inquisition. We were killing people because they thought differently from ourselves. "How could we blame all
those abominable acts of bloodshed and torture, which had been committed from time to time under the specious name of religion, when we ourselves had the presumption to wage a similar war?"[[155]] It was "the most gross violation of everything sacred which could exist between nation and nation, as striking at the root of the right which each must ever possess of internal legislation."[[156]] "Whatever our detestation of the guilt of foreign nations may be, we are not called to take upon ourselves the task of avengers; we are bound only to act as guardians of the welfare of those with whose concerns we are immediately entrusted."[[157]]
This language was wise, and its wisdom was proved by events. The Bourbons were not restored. The temper of the French people was incredibly stimulated. The new system which might have repelled by its violence and rapacity became the centre of the national enthusiasm. It inflicted a crushing defeat upon its foreign invaders and then proceeded to avenge this additional injury by the massacre of those whom the invasion was intended to assist. Whether Napoleon would have appeared in French history or not without this strengthening of the Revolutionary system, it is impossible to say. Certainly the foreign interference with the first Government consolidated the nation, and prepared for Napoleon's use the most formidable weapon that he could have obtained for the braying of Europe. There is a tragic instance of that insight which is not foresight in the correspondence of Castlereagh, and it shows how completely the English Government misunderstood what they had done. "The only thing ... which really dispirits me is, the unprecedented struggle of order against anarchy, and the unfortunate facility with which France recruits her army as fast as the sword exterminates it. A few days transforms their ragamuffins into troops, which are not contemptible even when opposed to the best soldiers in Europe.... It is the first time that all the population and all the wealth of a great kingdom has been concentrated in the field: what may be the result is beyond my perception."[[158]]
What was going on was that anarchy was being reduced into order within the boundaries of France, and no hatred of early extravagance or subsequent tyranny need blind us to the courage, energy, and skill of those French statesmen who, in the face of their enemies, built up the new system upon the ruins of the old. The war made their task comparatively easy, and if it diminished their strength, it made their material more workable. The foreign invasion operated like a powerful electric current, and fused the scattered particles of French nationalism into a solid bulk. The whole fiery mass of France was being beaten and welded and forged into something which Castlereagh could not understand: a nation, every member of which had a personal interest in and a personal devotion to his nationality. Such a thing had not been known before in France. But it was not long before even Castlereagh was made to feel that in the councils of Europe the rights of man might count for as much as government by orders.
The Whigs carried their maintenance of the equal rights of nationalities to its inevitable conclusion that nations, no less than individuals, must be bound by moral rules in their dealings with each other. Fox declared that "the greatest resource a nation can possess, the sweet source of power, is a strict attention to the principles of justice. I firmly believe that the common proverb of honesty being the best policy is as applicable to nations as to individuals ... and that cases which may sometimes be supposed exceptions arise from our taking narrow views of the subject, and being unable at once to comprehend the whole."[[159]] When he was almost at the point of death he proceeded to suggest an international congress for settling disputes. "He disapproved ... of any government pursuing under the title of indemnities a system of partition of States, making some republics, some monarchies, and annihilating the political existence of others, without regard to moral rectitude or to the common feelings of mankind, which considerations had more influence on the affairs of the world than some politicians were aware. The partition
of Poland, the seizure of Holland, the subjugation of Switzerland, and the division of States, by the agreement of some, and by the fraud and rapacity of others, had done more to destroy the confidence of mankind in each other than all the other misconduct of the powers put together. In private society, when men lost their confidence in one another, the compact was dissolved. The same rule applied to States, for they were only aggregates of individuals. He recommended to all the powers of Europe a system of justice and moderation, as the only means of putting an end to the evils under which we labour. He recommended a general congress, and that these principles should be prevalent in its deliberations."[[160]]