A History of the Four Georges and of William IV Volume IV Part 2

The designs of the Holy Alliance soon made themselves manifest. The French Government had brought so much pressure to bear on the feeble King of Spain that he revoked the Const.i.tution which, at a better moment, he had {43} granted to his people. There was an attempt at revolution in Spain, and the attempt was put down by the strong hand with the a.s.sistance of France, and the leading rebels were at once conducted to the scaffold. Portugal still kept those free inst.i.tutions which England had enabled her to preserve, and still retained her sympathy with freedom. Canning soon saw that a part of the policy of the French Government was to bring Portugal also into subjection, and against this danger he provided by a bold announcement of policy. He declared in the House of Commons that if Portugal were, of her own accord, to engage herself in a war with France, the English Government would not feel bound to take any active part in the struggle, but that if the King of Spain were to accept or call in the a.s.sistance of the King of France to suppress Portugal, the Government of England would put its armies into the field to maintain its ancient ally. Then there arose a great question concerning the Spanish colonies and possessions across the Atlantic. The policy of France was to enable Spain to reconquer some of her American colonies which had long been withdrawing themselves from their condition of subjection, and the scheme of French statesmen evidently was that Spain would hand over some of her American possessions as a tribute of grat.i.tude to France for the services she had rendered to the cause of absolutism in Spain.

On this question, too, Canning announced to the House of Commons a determination on the part of the English Government which put an effectual stop to this audacious policy. Canning declared that, although Spain had long since lost any real control over her transatlantic colonies, yet if she were to attempt their actual reconquest for herself England, however little in sympathy with such a purpose, might not feel that it was any part of her business to interfere by force of arms. But he went on to tell the House that, if Spain should claim the right to hand over any of those colonies to France as a part of the policy arranged between France and Spain, the English Government would then intervene directly and at once on behalf {44} of the Spanish-American colonies. This was the course of action which Canning described to the House of Commons in an immortal phrase when he told the House "that he had called in the New World to redress the balance of the Old." No words employed by an English minister during the last century have been more often quoted, and none have ever more thoroughly justified themselves in history. The schemes of the French and the Spanish Bourbons were blighted in the bud by Canning's memorable declaration.

[Sidenote: 1822-27--The Monroe Doctrine]

Canning had indeed called in the New World to redress the balance of the Old in a sense more complete than the accepted meaning of his words, at the time, appeared to signify. He had secured for his policy the moral co-operation of the New World's greatest power--the Republic of the United States. It was on the inspiration of Canning that the President of the United States embodied in a message to Congress that declaration of principle which has ever since been known as the Monroe doctrine.

President Monroe, who knew well that he was proclaiming no doctrine which his influence and his authority with his country would not enable him to carry out, made known to Congress that it was his intention to warn European sovereigns against the danger of setting up their systems in any part of the New World. The United States, according to President Monroe's declaration, had no idea of interfering with existing systems, but if European sovereigns were to set up governments of their own on any other part of the American continents and against the wishes of the populations, the United States must regard any such attempt as a menace and a danger to the American Republic. This is in substance the meaning of that Monroe doctrine which has often been criticised unfairly or ignorantly on this side of the Atlantic, and its proclamation was undoubtedly due, at the time, to the advice which came from George Canning. President Monroe never meant to say that the Government of the United States had any idea of interfering with British North America or with the Empire of Brazil. The {45} Canadian provinces of Great Britain were, of course, perfectly free to remain a loyal part of the British Empire so long as it suited the interests and the inclinations of the Canadians. If the people of Brazil chose to be governed by an emperor, the United States Government did not a.s.sert any right to interfere with their choice. But what the Monroe doctrine did declare was that if any foreign sovereigns attempted to bring liberated American colonies again under their sway, or to set up by force new subject colonies on American sh.o.r.es against the wishes of the populations concerned, the United States must regard such action as a menace and a danger to the American Republic, and must not be expected to look quietly on without any attempt at intervention. This was, in the truest sense, the announcement of a policy of peace, for it frankly made known to the despotic rulers of the Old World what their risk must be if they ventured on the futile experiment of setting up despotic states on the sh.o.r.es of the New World.

It would have been well indeed if European monarchs at a later day had always remembered the warning and rightly estimated its weight. It would have been well for Louis Napoleon if at the zenith of his imperial success he had studied that message of President Monroe and properly interpreted its meaning. Such a course would have prevented him from making his ill-starred attempt to set up a Mexican Empire by the force of French arms on the ruins of a subjugated Mexican Republic. It would have saved him from defeat and disaster, and would have saved the unhappy, ill-advised, and gallant Maximilian, his puppet emperor, from a tragic fate. The attempt to retrieve the disgrace of his enforced withdrawal from Mexico led Louis Napoleon into that policy of the desperate gambler's last throw which ended in the occupation of Paris and the fall of the Second Empire.

Meanwhile the policy of Canning had accomplished its purpose. The Congress of Verona had been an idle piece of business, the sovereigns of the Holy Alliance had found that their day was done, and the New World had been successfully called in to redress the balance of the Old.

{46}

CHAPTER LXVI.

THE CLOSE OF CANNING'S CAREER.

[Sidenote: 1820-30--Sir William Knighton]

The King was at first disposed to show some alarm at the bold policy of Canning. George, to do him justice, was in general a lover of peace, and for a while he did not see how the declarations of his Foreign Minister could lead to anything less than an outbreak of war on the part of the Continental sovereigns, who thus seemed to be challenged to a.s.sert what they believed to be their rights. His doubt and dread took the form of more or less concealed grumblings against Canning, and efforts to induce his other ministers to make a common cause with him against the adventurous Foreign Minister. Canning, however, saw that the crisis which he had to face was one which makes a bold and resolute policy, frankly avowed on the part of a strong Government, the best or the only means of securing peace. He was able, after a while, to impress his royal master with the justice of his belief, and the King graciously received the envoy accredited to his Court on behalf of one of the new American Republics. Then the rest of the work went on smoothly, the lines of the new policy were laid down, and the sovereigns of the Holy Alliance did not venture to transgress them.

The King was, at all times, much in the habit of attempting to make encroachments on the proper domain of any minister who had the courage and the strength to oppose him, and Canning had to endure a good deal of interference of this kind. The Foreign Minister patiently and steadfastly held his own, and George did not see his way to come to any open rupture. The King found it hard to make up his mind to settle down to the part of a purely const.i.tutional sovereign. Perhaps the part had not yet {47} been clearly enough evolved from the conditions of the time, and George, even when he had the best intentions, was always lapsing back into the way of his predecessors. George was a great letter-writer. To adopt a modern phrase, he "fancied himself" as a composer of State papers. It seems marvellous now that a man so lazy by nature should have found the time to pen so many doc.u.ments of the kind. Perhaps even in the most commonplace ways of life we are often compelled to wonder at the amount of work a man habitually lazy can sometimes contrive to cram into his day's doings. George was now as much addicted to indolence, to mere amus.e.m.e.nt, and to pleasures as he had been during earlier seasons of his career. He was just as fond of the society of his intimates and of all the pastimes and social enjoyments in which he and they delighted. He had not reformed any of his habits, and his growing years did not bring him any steady resolve to apply himself to the actual business of his position. Yet he seemed to be frequently inspired by fitful desires to display himself as the genuine ruler of a State and to let his ministers know they must not attempt to do without him.

One of the King's prime favorites was Sir William Knighton, who had begun by being a physician, had made his way into Court circles, and become the private and confidential adviser of the King. Sir William Knighton had been appointed to the office of Keeper of the Royal Purse, and in that capacity he had rendered much service to George by endeavoring with skill and pertinacity to keep income and expenditure on something more nearly approaching to a balance than had been the way in former days. Knighton's was not exactly a State office and it gave him no position among ministers, but the King constantly used him as a go-between when he desired to have private dealings with any of his recognized advisers, and Knighton was the recipient of his most confidential communications. From the letters and memoranda which belong to this time we are enabled to learn much of the real feelings of King George towards some of his ministers, and to {48} understand the difficulties with which Canning had to deal while endeavoring to make his enlightened policy the accepted and recognized policy of England.

[Sidenote: 1822-27--The war of Greek independence]

The condition of Greece began to be a serious trouble to the statesmen of Europe. Greece was under the sway of the Sultan of Turkey, and its people may fairly be described as in a state of chronic insurrection.

The Greeks, even in their lowest degree of national decadence, were far too intelligent, too ready-witted, and too persevering ever to become the mere slaves of an Ottoman ruler. There was something inextinguishable in the national life of the country, and it seemed as if no pressure of tyranny, no amount of humiliation, could make the Greeks forget the history of their glorious days and the deeds of their ancestry, or compel them to stifle, even for a season, their hopes of national independence. A great struggle broke out against the Ottoman rule, and it roused the pa.s.sionate sympathy of the lovers of freedom all over the world. Byron threw his whole soul into the cause, and stirred the hearts of his countrymen by his appeals on behalf of the Greek struggle for independence. Numbers of brave Englishmen gladly risked their lives to help the Greeks. Lord Cochrane, who was afterwards described as the last of the English sea-kings, rushed over to Greece to give his genius and his daring to the help of the Greeks in their struggle against overwhelming odds. A speech of Lord John Russell's which he delivered in the House of Commons within the hearing of living men described with admirable effect the enthusiasm which was aroused in England for the cause of Greece and the efforts which were openly made even by members of the ruling cla.s.s to raise money and to send out soldiers and sailors to enable the Greeks to hold their own against the Ottoman enemy. Many Englishmen bearing historic names joined with Byron and Cochrane in giving their personal help to the struggling Greeks, and indeed from every civilized country in the world such volunteers poured in to stand by Bozzaris and Kanaris in their desperate fight for the rescue of Greece. The odds, however, were heavily against the Greeks. Their {49} supply of arms, ammunition, and general commissariat for the field was poor and inadequate, and they were sadly wanting in drill and organization. Splendid feats of bravery were displayed on land and on sea, but it seemed only too certain that if the Greeks were left to their own resources, or even if they were not sustained by the open support of some great foreign State, the Ottoman Power must triumph before long.

The best part of the war on the side of Turkey was carried on by Ibrahim Pasha, the adopted son of Mehemet Ali, who ruled over Egypt as a va.s.sal sovereign to the Sultan of Turkey. Ibrahim Pasha had great military capacity; he was full of energy, resource, and perseverance, and the Turkish Sultan could not have had a better man to undertake the task of conducting the campaign. The sympathies of Russia went strongly with the Greeks, or perhaps it might be more correct to say that the policy of Russia was directed against the Turks. At that time, as in later days, the public opinion of Western Europe was not always certain whether the movements of Russian statesmans.h.i.+p were governed more by the desire to strengthen Greece or by the desire to weaken Turkey. Canning had always been a sympathizer with the cause of Greece. In his early days his sympathy had taken poetic form, and now at last it had an opportunity of a.s.suming a more practical shape. He would have wished well to any effort made by Russia for the emanc.i.p.ation of Greece, but he feared that if the effort were to be left to Russia alone the result might be a great European war, and his policy was above all things a policy of peace. His idea was to form an alliance which should exercise so commanding an influence as to render any prolonged resistance impossible. He succeeded in impressing his ideas and his arguments so effectively upon the Governments of France and Russia as to induce them to enter into a treaty with England for the avowed purpose of watching events in Eastern Europe, endeavoring to keep the conduct of the war within the limits of humanity, and bringing it to as early a close as possible.

{50}

[Sidenote: 1824--Death of Lord Byron]

The combined fleets of the three Powers were sent into the Mediterranean for the purpose of watching the movements of the Turkish and Egyptian fleets, which were threatening the sh.o.r.es of Greece. Sir Edward Codrington, the British Admiral, was in command of the expedition, and his instructions enjoined on him, in the usual official way, the necessity of caution and circ.u.mspection in all his movements.

Something happened which brought the policy of caution to a speedy end.

A report, which found some credit at the time, gave out that Sir Edward Codrington had received an unofficial hint that there was no necessity for carrying caution too far; but, however the event may have been brought about, it is certain that a collision did take place between the allied fleets and those which were championing the authority of the Sultan, and the result was that the Turkish and Egyptian war vessels were destroyed. This was the battle of Navarino, which was afterwards described in the language of British authority as "an untoward event."

Untoward, in fact, it was not, for the purposes which Canning had in view, because it put an end to all the resistance of the Ottoman Power, and the independence of Greece as a self-governing nation was established, and recognized. We have been somewhat antic.i.p.ating events in order not to break up the story of the Greek struggle for independence, but it has to be said that Canning did not live to see the success of his own policy. Before the battle of Navarino had been fought, the career of the great statesman had come to an end. We shall have to retrace our steps, for there is much still left untold in the story of Canning's career.

That struggle for Greek independence will always be remembered in the history of English literature. It cost England the life of one of her greatest modern poets. Lord Byron died of fever in the swamps of Missolonghi on April 19, 1824, not long after he had left the Greek Islands to conduct his part of the campaign on the mainland of Greece.

It was not his good fortune to die sword in hand fighting on the battle-field for the cause which he loved so well. It was not his good fortune even to have had a {51} chance of doing much of a soldier's work in that cause. There can be no doubt that if he had been graced with opportunity he would have shown that he had a leader's capacity as well as a soldier's courage--that, as Fortinbras says of Hamlet, "He was likely had he been put on to have proved most royally." He had only completed his thirty-sixth year shortly before his death, and the poem in which he commemorated his birthday can never be read without feelings of genuine emotion. His death created a profound sensation, not only in England, but all through the civilized world. Not long since we were all favored with an opportunity of hearing how the boy, afterwards to be famous as Alfred Tennyson, was thrilled by the news of Byron's death, and how it seemed to him to be like the ending of the world. The pa.s.sion of partisans.h.i.+p for and against Byron as a poet and as a man has long since died away, and indeed it might perhaps be said that the reaction which, for a time, followed the outburst of his fame has spent itself as well. It may be taken now as the common judgment of the world that Byron was one of the great forces of modern poetry, and that his political sympathies sometimes had, as well as his poetic efforts, the inspiration of genius to guide them.

We must now return to the career of Canning as we left it at the time when he had made his great declaration of policy with regard to the revolted colonies of Spain on the American sh.o.r.es, and when he was as yet engaged in shaping the policy which was destined to end in the emanc.i.p.ation of Greece. There were questions of home government coming more and more to the front every day, which much disturbed the mind of King George, and made the business of keeping an Administration together more and more difficult for his advisers. The financial policy of the country had been gradually undergoing a change, owing to the foresight and enlightenment of some few among English statesmen.

Lord Liverpool, to do him justice, was always a man of somewhat advanced views on questions of finance, although an inveterate Tory in all that related to popular representation and freedom of speech.

Canning and his {52} friend William Huskisson were leading the way in the movement towards an enlightened financial system. Huskisson had done more than any other man, with the exception of Canning himself, to improve the systems of taxation. What may perhaps be called the scientific principle in the raising of revenue was only in process of development, and to many statesmen no better idea of increasing supplies seemed to have occurred than the simple plan of increasing the rate of custom or excise duty on the first article of general consumption which came under notice. Huskisson represented the new ideas, and put them into action whenever he was allowed a fair chance of making such an experiment. He had often held administrative office, had been Secretary of the Treasury, President of the Board of Trade, and Secretary for the Colonies, and had accomplished the removal of many restrictions on the commercial dealings of the colonies with foreign countries and the reduction of many antiquated and embarra.s.sing import duties.

[Sidenote: 1770-1830--Daniel O'Connell]

Canning and Huskisson were always close friends and often ministerial colleagues, and they two may be said to have led the way towards the system of free trade to which the time had not yet come for Robert Peel to give his complete adhesion. The great question of electoral reform was coming up, and Charles Grey and Henry Brougham were among its most conspicuous leaders. Canning did not take to Parliamentary reform, although he was what might be described as an advanced Liberal on most other questions of national importance. The Duke of Wellington was strongly opposed to any proposals for a change in the Parliamentary system, and this was one of the few great questions on which Canning and he were in habitual agreement. Then there was the still more pressing question of political equality for the Catholics of the three kingdoms. Lord John Russell succeeded later on in carrying the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts which precluded Protestant Dissenters from holding political or munic.i.p.al office, but the attempt to obtain the rights of equal citizens.h.i.+p for subjects of the King who belonged {53} to the Church of Rome had to encounter much greater difficulties.

As might easily be expected, Ireland became the main battle-field of this struggle. We have already recorded the fact that Pitt had been greatly a.s.sisted in pa.s.sing the Act of Union between Great Britain and Ireland and abolis.h.i.+ng Grattan's Parliament by the hopes which he held out that the union of the legislatures would be followed by a complete measure of Catholic emanc.i.p.ation. George the Third refused point-blank to give his a.s.sent to any such measure, or even to listen to any proposal for its introduction, declaring again and again that his coronation oath absolutely forbade him to entertain an idea of the kind. In the end, as we have seen, Pitt gave in and undertook never again to worry the mind of his conscientious sovereign by any talk about relief to George the Third's Roman Catholic subjects. But it soon became evident that in this as in other instances the resolve of the most headstrong monarch, and the promise of the most yielding Prime Minister, cannot always induce a population to put up pa.s.sively with a manifest grievance. In Ireland, where six out of every seven of the people belonged to the Church of Rome, and where the demand for Catholic Emanc.i.p.ation had long been championed by the greatest and the most patriotic of Protestant Irishmen, it was utterly impossible that any King and any minister could impose submission on such a question.

By the time at which we have now arrived the Catholics of Ireland had found a political leader of their own faith.

Daniel O'Connell was undoubtedly one of the greatest advocates a popular cause has ever had in modern times. He was an Irishman who had become one of the most successful advocates in the Irish law courts, and as a popular orator he had no rival in his own country. He had made himself the leader in Ireland of the movement for Catholic Emanc.i.p.ation, and he had kindled an enthusiasm there which any English statesman of ordinary intelligence and foresight might easily have seen it would be impossible to extinguish so long as there was a struggle to be fought. {54} Canning had always been in favor of Catholic Emanc.i.p.ation. Lord Liverpool was, of course, entirely opposed to it, and almost until the last the Duke of Wellington held out against it.

George the Fourth, for all his earlier a.s.sociations with Fox and Sheridan, declared himself now to have inherited to the full his father's indomitable conscientious objection to any measure of Catholic Emanc.i.p.ation. George seemed, in fact, to have suddenly become filled with a pa.s.sionate fervor of Protestant piety when any one talked to him about political equality for his Catholic subjects. He declared again and again that no earthly consideration could induce him to fall away from the religious convictions of his father on this subject, and the coronation oath had again become, to use Erskine's satirical phrase, "one of the four orders of the State." When reading some of George's letters and discourses on the subject, it is almost impossible not to believe that he really must have fancied himself in earnest when he made such protestations. In private life he frequently delivered long speeches, sometimes with astonis.h.i.+ng fluency, sometimes with occasional interruptions of stammering, in vindication of his hostility to any proposal for Catholic Emanc.i.p.ation.

[Sidenote: 1827--Lord Liverpool's successor]

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 wors.h.i.+ppers 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 pa.s.sing 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 n.o.body 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 a.s.sumed 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} a.s.surances 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 a.s.sumed 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 att.i.tude 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 Emanc.i.p.ation 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 a.s.signed 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 t.i.tle 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 G.o.derich, 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 emanc.i.p.ation, 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 const.i.tution, 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.

[Sidenote: 1827--Death of Canning]

The Duke of York was the second son of George the Third, and for some time had been regarded as heir-presumptive to the crown. The Duke's public career was in almost every way ign.o.ble. He had proved himself an utterly incapable commander, although a good War Office administrator, and his personal character was about on a level with his military capacity. His death in January, 1827, may be said to have had two serious consequences at least--it made the Duke of Clarence the next heir to the crown, and it brought on Canning the severe cold from which he never recovered. It may be mentioned here, although the fact is of little political importance, that Canning when he became Prime Minister made the Duke of Clarence Lord High Admiral. The office was probably bestowed as a token of Canning's grat.i.tude to the King who had stood by him, not indeed to the last, but at the last. It certainly could not have been given because of any conviction in Canning's mind that the Duke of Clarence was likely to render signal benefit to the royal navy, to the State, or to the country by his services in such an office.

Canning seemed for a while to rally from the cold which he had caught at the Duke of York's funeral, but the months of incessant anxiety which followed cast too heavy a burden on his shattered nerves and feeble physical frame. It was hoped by his friends that the adjournment of the Houses of Parliament, which took place after the Ministry had been formed, might give him rest enough from official work to allow him to repair his strength. But Canning's was not a nature which admitted of rest. The happy faculty which he had once possessed of getting easily to sleep when the day's work was done had long since deserted him, and of late he took his official cares to bed with him, and they kept him long awake. The early {61} summer of 1827 brought him no improvement, and his friends already began to fear for the worst. He suffered from intense agonies of nervous pain, and the agonies seemed to grow worse and worse with each return. The Duke of Devons.h.i.+re offered him the use of a summer residence which he had at Chiswick, and Canning gladly accepted the offer. It was remarked at the time by some of his friends that an evil omen hung over this summer retreat. The former Duke of Devons.h.i.+re, father of Canning's friend, had offered the same villa as a temporary retreat to Charles James Fox; the offer was accepted by him, and Fox actually died in the bedroom which was now occupied by Canning.