1821] MINISTERIAL CHANGES 1369 So shaken indeed was the predominance of the extreme Tory party, that in the year 1821 they found it necessary to strengthen themselves by a coalition with the Conservative section of the Opposition, hoping by this means to give a more broad and liberal appearance to the administration. Lord Grenville Peel joins the ministry. himself declined office, but several of his followers were admitted to the ministry, while a still further improvement was made by the retirement of Lord Sidmouth, who had played so prominent a part in all the late repressive measures, and the substitution in his place of Mr. Peel, as yet Tory in his views, but capable, as was subsequently proved, of constant advance, and of an intellect so clear and sensible as to be able to learn, as his predecessor never could, the growing requirements of the time. At the same time Lord Wellesley was sent as Lord-Lieutenant to Ireland, with Mr. Plunkett as his Attorney-General, both of them supporters of the Catholic claims; and although Wellesley's statesmanlike character and moderation excited the anger of extreme men on both sides, the mere fact of such a man being placed at the head of the Irish Government was a clear mark of the relaxation of the principles of the Tory system. These new appointments were but the beginning, to be followed in a few months by other changes far more important, which were to effect an entire alteration in the position which England occupied in Europe, and in the principles which governed her financial policy. These changes were the admission, in 1822 and 1823, of Mr. Canning and Mr. Huskisson to the ministry. Throughout the trial of Queen Caroline, Canning had held himself studiously aloof. He had been early one of the Queen's advisers, had declared from the first his intention to avoid any participation in her trial, and had in fact remained abroad during its continuance. On his return in December, thinking it impossible for a minister to be entirely absent from his duties, but determined to take no part in the discussions on the trial which were inevitable, he insisted on resigning his place at the Board of Trade. He was therefore at first excluded from the new ministerial arrangements. The India Company indeed had decided upon sending him as Governor-General to India. His preparations for taking the post were being made, and he was at Liverpool on a farewell visit to his constituents, Castlereagh. when a piece of news was heard which caused a profound movement both at home and abroad,-Lord Castlereagh, of State. now become Lord Londonderry, had committed suicide. The man who was regarded as the real soul of the Tory party, as Death of Canning Sept. 11, 1822. the type of the arbitrary and absolutist temper which distinguished it, had passed away. Honourable and amiable in his private life, he had contrived to render himself so unpopular that the news of his death was received with unseemly rejoicings, and his coffin was followed to the Abbey with shouts of gladness from his enemies. Europe was in a critical condition. Lord Londonderry had been in the act of going to an European Congress held at Verona. Canning appeared to be the only man fitted to supply his place. When asked to join the ministry as Secretary of State for foreign affairs, after some consideration, he threw up the great post for which he was at the moment destined, and accepted the office. Retrospect of the affairs of Europe. Position of To understand the importance of this change it is necessary to say a few words on what had passed in Europe since the Peace. The hopes of the liberal party in Europe had received a heavy blow at the Congress of Vienna. England had so constantly put herself forward as the champion of freedom, and her influence had been so preponderating in the late events of the war, that she was expected to have taken up England abroad. strong ground in the settlement of Europe, and to have. demanded and secured some sort of popular rights in the countries to which her assistance had been given. The nation had shown itself sa full of resources, and had been so exceptional in the success of its opposition to Napoleon, that a general belief had arisen that there was some< thing peculiarly excellent in the character of its constitution. So strong was this feeling, that many of the sovereigns of Europe promised constitutions to their people. It was forgotten that the freedom for which England had been fighting meant deliverance from external conquest, and had no connection with the internal freedom of national constitutions, that, on the contrary, the war against France had been originally undertaken, if not ostensibly yet really, to oppose the revolutionary temper of France. It was a severe disappointment when the English minister was seen joining with Talleyrand in upholding legitimacy, and for the sake of that principle, and to preserve in its old lines the balance of European power, himself demanding the destruction of the liberty of Belgium and of Genoa, and calmly acquiescing in the absorption of much of Saxony, the final division of Poland, and the destruction of Norway. Even the one constitutional effort which was made, the establishment of a limited monarchy in France, was rendered nugatory by the fact, that the privileges were given as a grant and charter from the crown, and the 1820] INSURRECTIONS ABROAD 1371 first principle of the English Constitution—that power is from the people-ignored. Effect of policy. But though in the general triumph of the moment his foreign policy was accepted and even approved, it will be remembered that even Castlereagh felt himself compelled to respect public opinion at home and to hold aloof from the Holy Alliance, which seemed tc assert the unity of interests of the crowned heads and their sole right, as of divine origin, to be the governors of the world. lt was the extension of the principles of the Holy Alliance Castlereagh's which had produced the present critical state of Europe, with which his moderate abilities, his natural tendency towards repressive government, aggravated by domestic affairs, and the entanglements in which his policy at the Vienna Treaty had involved him, rendered Castlereagh unable to cope. It was no use to ignore the fact that the French Revolution had given a great impulse to the ideas of constitutional freedom. Even the conquests of Napoleon, followed as they always were by democratic changes, had fostered these ideas in the very countries which had suffered most from them; and when it appeared that all hopes and promises of freedom were entirely illusory, insurrections of the deceived people burst out in several parts of Europe, and where the strength of the government rendered such outbreaks impossible, secret societies, more dangerous and extravagant because they were secret, sprang everywhere into existence. 1820. The first outbreak was in Spain, where Ferdinand had entirely refused the constitution to which he was pledged, and had Insurrection shown his character by directing his vengeance chiefly in Spain. against those very men who had been most prominent in saving his kingdom from the French. During the occupation of Spain by the French, when the central authority of the mother country was virtually destroyed, the South American colonies had, one after the other, thrown off their allegiance, and were still engaged in making good their independence. It was an army collected at Cadiz for the purpose of reducing the victorious colonies which set the example of insurrection. It mutinied in the beginning of the year 1820, and was so successful that the King was compelled, on the 7th of March, to accept the constitution of 1812, which had been drawn up under the influence of Napoleonic and American ideas. In August the constitutional spirit passed to Portugal. Since the departure of the royal family from Lisbon in 1808, the King had not returned to his European dominions. Insurrection in Portugal. in Naples. Brazil became the seat of government, the restrictions formerly put upon its trade were removed, it was elevated nominally to the rank of a kingdom, and Portugal seemed to occupy the position of a colony of its former dependency. The discontent which had thus been fostered displayed itself in August, when national Juntas were established both in Oporto and Lisbon; subsequently, on the 1st of October, the provincial assembly coalesced with that of the capital, and the regency was compelled to resign its functions. When at length in the following spring the King set out for his continental dominions, it was a question whether he would arrive in time to save them. Almost at the same time similar events took place in Naples. Ferdinand IV. could not entirely disregard Insurrection popular wishes and rule despotically, as his nephew in Spain had done, for the longer and more complete hold which Murat, Napoleon's nominee, had obtained upon the throne had given time for ideas of constitutional government to become prevalent, and the army was full of Napoleonic soldiers. But in spite of the comparative liberality of his government, Ferdinand's army was full of discontented soldiers, and the secret and revolutionary societies of the Carbonari undermined society. At the same time, in the island of Sicily a constitution had been established under the influence of Lord William Bentinck, and had been swept away on the restoration. In July the garrison at Nola mutinied, and before a week was over the King was obliged to accept the Spanish constitution, which had become the formula of the Liberal party, although there was actually no copy of that document to be found, and no one in fact knew anything about it. Sicily soon followed Naples; but recollections of its old independence prevented it at first from joining the revolutionary government of the mainland, and its complete acquiescence in the movement had to be secured by force of arms. Arbitrary action of the Holy Alliance. It was in presence of these disturbances that the true principles of the Holy Alliance began to show themselves. The three Eastern powers seemed to consider themselves authorized to introduce into Europe a new form of international law. Regarding themselves as the only legitimate and divinely appointed powers, and holding themselves pledged to mutual support against their enemies, and having declared their intention to act as a brotherhood in international questions, they appear to have believed that the enemies against whom their mutual assistance was required were all those who resisted established authority, and that any disturbances thus arising ought to be regulated by European 1820] CASTLEREAGH'S POLICY 1373 congresses. In other words, they arrogated to themselves, for the sake of suppressing what they considered revolutionary movements, the right of federative action in the cause of legitimacy and absolutism. Already, at Vienna and Aix-la-Chapelle, they had acted more or less on this principle, and now they summoned a similar Congress at Troppau (1820). It was impossible for an English England refuses minister to accede to this new doctrine, however much to join. he may have had at heart the cause which the allied sovereigns were supporting, and Lord Castlereagh, as early as April, declared that the alliance to which England was a party existed for particular cases only, and was not to be generalized as the Eastern sovereigns appeared to wish to generalize it. It shows how the position of England had sunk under Castlereagh's management, that the monarchs determined to act without England, and it shows the weakness of Castlereagh's mode of action that he allowed, under these circumstances, an English minister to be present at the meeting, not to take part in the discussions, but merely to report their progress to his Government. The Holy Alliance proceeded to act upon its own principles. In November the English minister learnt that the three powers intended to join and to act in common for the restoration of Ferdinand of Naples, whom they had invited to meet them at Laibach, whither the Congress was adjourned. Early in December 1820 a circular to that effect was issued in the name of the three sovereigns, which, in spite of what Castlereagh had said, proceeded to declare that, as what they were now doing was in accordance with the late treaties, they felt no doubt of the adhesion of France and England. On the 19th of that month, without knowledge of this circular, Castlereagh wrote an explicit declaration that England would not join in any united action. Had he openly declared this intention and withdrawn the English ambassador he would not have acted otherwise than as became an English minister. But on the 19th of January 1821 a letter of Castlereagh's, purporting to be an answer to the circular of December 8th, which had been published by some indiscretion in the public prints, while reasserting the position he had taken up in his previous declaration, went on to confess that the Government had looked with the strongest disapproval on the insurrection in Naples. This weak document, coming as it did just before the meeting of Parliament, after the popular temper had been roused by the know- Popular anger ledge of the arrogant circular of December, and taken at Castlereagh's in connection with the facts that diplomatic relations weak policy. 1821. |