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XXI.

1828.

CHAP. the Tories trusting that it would be thrown out in the Peers, and wishing to throw upon the Upper House the odium of an unpopular step. But as a town had got one of the disfranchised seats, they contended, not without some show of reason, that the country should get the next; and, accordingly, they all voted, with the exception of Mr Huskisson, against transferring the seat to Birmingham. It was carried against giving the seat to Birmingham by a majority of 19; the numbers, 141 to 122. Mr Huskisson, however, voted with the minority; and deeming this deviation from his colleagues, on a vital question, a sufficient reason for not longer retaining office, he sent a letter to the Duke of Wellington, at two in the morning, after returning from the debate, resigning his office. This resignation the Duke next day carried to the King, by whom it was accepted. Mr Huskisson does not seem to have reckoned on this being done; for Lord Dudley, on his part, went to the Duke, to endeavour to convince his Grace that he laboured under a mistake, and that no resignation was intended. The laconic answer of the Duke, however, since become proverbial, cut the matter short "It is no mistake; it can be no mistake; and it shall be no mistake." The Duke persisted, after some correspondence, in regarding it in this light; and 1 Parl. Deb. Mr Huskisson being thus out of the Cabinet, his retire811; Ann. ment was followed by that of the whole Canning party.1 15, 16, 19. Lord Dudley, Lord Palmerston, and Mr C. Grant, immediately resigned, and this was soon after followed by

xix. 805,

Reg. 1828,

*

"DOWNING STREET, 2 A.M., May 2.

* "MY DEAR DUKE,-After the vote which, in regard to my own consistency and personal character, I have found myself compelled to give on the East Retford question, I owe it to you, as the head of the Administration, and to Mr Peel, as the leader of the House of Commons, to lose no time in affording you an opportunity of placing my office in other hands, as the only means in my power of preventing the injury to the King's service which may ensue from the appearance of disunion in his Majesty's Councils, however unfounded in reality, or however unimportant in itself the question which has given rise to that appearance."- Ann. Reg. 1828, p. 15. This was couched in almost the express words of the resignation of Mr Herries, not many weeks before.

XXI. 1828.

that of the Duke of Clarence from the situation of Lord CHAP. High Admiral. This last resignation, however, was on separate grounds from the general withdrawal of Mr Canning's friends.

97.

tion of the

Wellington

These resignations deprived the Ministry of its coalition character, and the Duke of Wellington proceeded Reconstrucwith his usual decision in filling up the vacant offices. Cabinet by The persons to whom situations were offered were partly military; but the capacity they evinced in their new duties soon proved that the Duke had not been mistaken in his estimate of their characters. Mr Huskisson was succeeded in the Colonial Office by Sir George Murray, the tried and able Quartermaster-General in all the Peninsular campaigns; Lord Dudley in the Foreign Office by Lord Aberdeen; Sir Henry Hardinge, the hero of Albuera, was made Secretary at War instead of Lord Palmerston; Mr Vesey Fitzgerald was put at the head of the Board of Trade in room of Mr C. Grant. The Cabinet was now reconstructed entirely out of the Tory party, and the weakness incident to a coalition was at an end. But it soon appeared that the days of Tory domination were also closed, and that even the decided will of the "Iron Duke" must yield to the necessities of his new situation, and the opinions of a growing Liberal majority 1828, 21. in the House of Commons. 1*

One of the first debates in the next session of Parliament was on the celebrated speech from the throne concerning the battle of Navarino, which was justly looked forward to with great interest by all Europe, as embodying the

* The Duke of Wellington's Cabinet, as finally constructed, stood as follows:

First Lord of the Treasury, Duke of Wellington; Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr Goulburn; Home Secretary, Mr Peel; Foreign Secretary, Lord Aberdeen; Colonial Secretary, Sir George Murray; Lord Chancellor, Lord Lyndhurst; Secretary at War, Sir H. Hardinge; First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Melville; President of the Council, Lord Bathurst; Privy Seal, Lord Ellenborough ; Board of Trade, Mr Vesey Fitzgerald; Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, Lord Anglesea.-Ann. Reg. 1828, pp. 19, 21.

1 Ann. Reg.

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1828.

98.

the battle of

speech.

Jan. 29.

CHAP. sentiments of the new ministry on the Greek revolution. His Majesty then said: "In the course of the measures adopted with the view to carry into effect the treaty of Notice of July 6, a collision wholly unexpected by his Majesty took Navarino in place in the port of Navarin, between the fleets of the the King's contracting powers and that of the Ottoman Porte. Notwithstanding the valour displayed by the combined fleet, his Majesty deeply laments that this conflict should have occurred with the naval force of an ancient ally; but he still entertains a confident hope that this untoward event will not be followed by farther hostilities, and will not prevent that amicable adjustment of the existing differences between the Porte and the Greeks, to which it is so manifestly their common interest to accede." These words, and especially the expression" untoward event," which was certainly unsuitable for so glorious an achievement as that which delivered an entire Christian people from the Ottoman yoke, excited an immense sensation both in this country and over all Europe, and was justly deemed an undeserved slight on the commander who brought on the engagement. They were obviously dictated by the strong sense which the Duke of Wellington entertained, and has often expressed, of the importance of the independence of Turkey to the general balance of power in Europe, and of the obvious fact that the destruction of the Ottoman fleet exposed Constantinople without defence to an attack from the Russians issuing from Sebastopol. But that has always been the inherent and insurmountable difficulty of the Eastern Question, that justice cannot be done to the Christian population of Turkey without weakening its Mussulman Government, or independence given to its oppressed provinces without endangering that of the European States.

99.

Ministers, much to their honour, brought forward, early Grant to Mr in the session, a proposal for a suitable provision for the family. family of Mr Canning, which had been raised to the peerage the day after his funeral. Richly as this testi

Canning's

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1828.

monial to long and valuable public services was deserved, CHAP. the proposal met with a strenuous opposition from Lord Althorpe, Mr Hume, Mr Bankes, and other leaders of the retrenching party in the House of Commons, who, while they admitted the splendid talents of the deceased, objected on economical grounds to such an appropriation of the public money. The grant, however, of £6000 a-year, was carried by a majority of 161 to 54, and the debate was chiefly memorable as containing a tribute from eminent men to the merits of the deceased. "That he was a man," said Sir James Mackintosh," of the purest honour, I know; that he was a man of the most rare and splendid talents, I know; that he was a man renowned through Europe for his brilliant genius and philosophic thinking, not a member of this House can be ignorant; or that, with his best zeal, as well as with success, he applied that genius and those views of policy to advance the service and glory of his country. If there were those from whom he had differed-and can it be doubted that every politician will have some opposed to him?-this is not an hour when those differences should be recollected. A friendship of thirty-six years with him 1 Ann. Reg. has given me, and I am not ashamed to confess it, a deep Parl. Deb. interest in any measure which is intended to do honour xix. 884, to his memory."1 *

1828, 78;

890.

Finance

and Catho

The Finance Committee, which had proved so fatal to the Goderich Administration, was appointed without 100. opposition; Mr Peel was chairman, and both Mr Her- Committee ries and Mr Huskisson were members. The Catholic lic question. question was again introduced, in a most eloquent speech by Sir Francis Burdett; and, after a prolonged debate of three nights, carried in favour of emancipation by a majority of 6, the numbers being 272 to 266. This

* Mr Canning's eldest son, to whom the title descended, was in the navy, and perished accidentally soon after his father. Fortunately the pension was granted for the life of the second son, to whom the family honours descended. -Ann. Reg. 1828, p. 78.

VOL. IV.

I

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1828.

CHAP. majority, in a Parliament which, in the preceding session, had decided the other way by a majority of 11, proved how very nearly balanced the parties were on this momentous question, insomuch that it was a mere accident which way the vote went. It was well known also that there was a division, nearly as equal, even in the Duke of Wellington's cabinet, on the subject; and this equality, alike in the cabinet and the legislature, deserves to be specially noted, as obviously tying up the hands of Government, and precluding the adoption of vigorous measures against the Irish malcontents. It was, in truth, the main cause of the sudden conversion of the Duke of Wellington's cabinet on the subject, and the carrying of Catholic emancipation so soon after. It led, however, at 1 Parl. Deb. the moment, to no practical result; for when the matter was carried to the House of Peers, it was thrown out by a majority of 44, the numbers being 181 to 137.1

xix. 378,

675, 1294.

101. Corn-law Bill.

The two great measures of the session were the Cornlaw Settlement, and the REPEAL OF THE TEST AND CORPORATION ACTS. Both were legislative acts of the utmost moment; for the first settled for a long period the disputed question between town and country, and the last struck the first successful blow which had been delivered during an hundred and fifty years at the supremacy of the Church of England. It was obviously indispensable to come to some arrangement in regard to the Corn Laws-the bill for which, after having passed the Commons by a large majority, had been abandoned, as already mentioned, in the Peers, in consequence of an amendment deemed fatal to the principle of the bill, prohibiting the letting out of bonded corn, having been carried by the Duke of Wellington.2 The new bill, xxi. $ 78. introduced now by Mr V. Fitzgerald, adopted the principle of the sliding-scale, and made no alteration on the duties proposed the preceding year on barley, oats, and rye; but in regard to wheat the turning-point was different, beginning at 52s., when the duty was to be 34s. 8d.,

2 Ante, c.

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