XXI. 1827. CHAP. reserve, into the arms of either party, he would have inevitably brought on a collision, which would have certainly proved fatal to his administration, probably to the peace and liberties of the country. The Conservatives were too firmly intrenched in power, and rested too strongly on ancient traditions, to relinquish it without a struggle; the Liberals too aspiring, and too sensible of their growing ascendancy, to shrink from the encounter. Lord Liverpool's whole reign was a long preparation on either part for the strife which all foresaw was approaching; and his great skill and prudence in postponing the period of collision, was proved by the rapidity with which it ensued when he was removed by the stroke of fate from the helm. 62. Prudent, sagacious, and reflecting, carefully watching Continued. the signs of the times, and still more carefully shunning those which portended danger, his great object was to steer the vessel of the state in present safety through the shoals by which it was surrounded. His skill consisted in his discernment of the means by which this was to be brought about, and the characters by whose agency it was to be effected. In these respects, he had very great merit, if merit it can be called, which consists in adjourning danger, not averting it, and purchasing present tranquillity by postponing the conflict to future times. He clearly discerned where the ruling party on every great question was to be found, and ranged himself with the dominant. side; holding out, at the same time, the olive branch to the minority, by conceding to them lesser, but still material objects of ambition. Thus, while he stood firm with the then ruling Conservative majority in the nation on the great questions of Catholic emancipation and reform in Parliament, he cordially joined the Liberals on the minor, but still important, points of free trade, a contracted currency, and the reciprocity system, which were so many outworks, the possession of which enabled them to breach the body of the place. By standing firm on the first, he retained the confidence of his old Conservative friends; by yielding on the last, he awakened the hopes and dis- CHAP. armed the hostility of his new Liberal supporters. XXI. 1827. 63. He brought Mr Canning and Mr Huskisson into the Cabinet, and had influence enough to make them act along Concluded. with Lord Eldon and the Duke of Wellington-a perilous conjunction, as much fraught with future danger as it was with present tranquillity. His greatest failing was a constitutional nervousness, which made him, as he himself said, never on one day during which he held office break the seals of a heap of letters without a feeling of apprehension; his greatest error the cordial support which he gave to the measure for the contraction of the currency, urged upon him by the Liberal portion of the Cabinet, and supported by so great a majority in both Houses of Parliament. But that was the error of the age in which he lived, and it would be unjust to visit upon him the responsibility shared by him with all the strongest heads in the realm. He was disinterested and just in the extreme in the administration of Government; unostentatious and conciliatory in private life; his mind was stored with a vast variety of facts on every important question, which he brought out with equal judgment and skill in debate; and he left behind him the reputation of being, if not the greatest, certainly the most prudent and fortunate Minister, that ever conducted the affairs of Great Britain. 64. the choice of sor, and Mr Lord Liverpool's retirement from the direction of the Government brought the schism which had long ex- Difficulty in isted in the Cabinet prominently into their own view, his succesbefore the dissension was yet fully known to the country. Canning's The King was under the necessity of appointing a suc-appointcessor; and the question was, who was to be the new prime-minister? The temporising system could no longer be carried on; the selection must be made; the leader of the Cabinet could only be taken from one or other of the parties into which it was divided, and the appointment would at once confer or indicate the superiority. The VOL. IV. G XXI. 1827. CHAP. King, for many reasons, was averse to Mr Canning, who had on several occasions exhibited symptoms of an ambitious, intriguing spirit, little suited for a prime-minister, and had rendered himself personally obnoxious to the Sovereign, by the prominent part he had taken as an adviser of Queen Caroline. But the circumstances left him no alternative. Mr Canning was the leader of the House of Commons, and the most popular minister who, since the days of Chatham, had directed the foreign affairs of the country; while the anti-Catholic party in the Cabinet did not contain any man qualified to be placed at its head. Lord Eldon was disqualified by age, the Duke of Wellington by his military habits, and Mr Peel was as yet too young for such a situation. In these March 27. circumstances, the King, though most reluctantly, sent for Mr Canning, with whom he had a long conference, which, at first, led to no definite result. But Mr Peel, who also was consulted, gave it as his opinion that an anti-Catholic Ministry could not be formed; and the issue was, that, after a fortnight of anxious suspense and difficulty, the King intrusted Mr Canning with the formation of a Ministry; and the Duke of Wellington, Mr Peel, Lord Eldon, Lord Bathurst, Lord Westmoreland, and Lord Melville, resigned. 1 April 10. 1 Life of Canning, 359; Life of Eldon, ii. 588, 591, 604; Ann. Reg. 1827, 93, 105. 65. his Tory resign ? In taking this decided step, the great Tory lords were What made not so much actuated by political differences as by personal colleagues feeling. feeling. It was not that they dreaded Catholic emancipation, or the placing England in the vanguard of the liberal powers of Europe: their feeling was, that they had been supplanted by a political adventurer—a man of genius, indeed, and eloquence, but without family connections, and who had raised himself, independent of aristocratic support, to the highest position in the State. They -were mortified at the thought of power having slipped from the old influences; they felt the jealousy which rank invariably does of genius, when it is not entirely subservient to its wishes. They dreaded the ascendancy of a XXI. 1827. rival power. On the other hand, Mr Canning, antici- CHAP. pating the defection of his Tory colleagues, had made overtures to the Liberal chiefs, and secret communications had passed between him and Sir Robert Wilson and Mr Brougham. All was jealousy and commotion; the female political coteries were in incessant activity; party spirit had never run so high; and the rancour of the rival leaders at each other found vent in bitter taunts and reproaches. * The Whig peers were in secret not less exasperated at the aspiring commoner, who threatened to shake the long-established dominion of their order, than the Tory; and Earl Grey's hostility, in particular, exhaled in a powerful and sarcastic speech against Mr Canning in the House of Peers, which made a great sensation at the time, and contributed not a little, by pointing out the inconsistencies of his public career, to diminish his reputation in the country. 66. tion of the In the midst of these dissensions, however, the king remained firm to his new promise; and after a consider- Composiable delay and much difficulty the new Cabinet was new Cabiformed, containing, as might have been expected, a decided net. majority of Whigs, or persons of known liberal opinions. The most prominent changes were, that the Master of the Rolls, Sir John Copley, was made Lord Chancellor by the title of LORD LYNDHURST, in room of Lord Eldon ; the Duke of Clarence, Lord High Admiral, in room of Lord Melville, who had been First Lord of the Admiralty; the Duke of Wellington was succeeded as Master- 1 Life of General of the Ordnance by the Marquess of Anglesea; .604; Mr Robinson, with the title of Viscount Goderich, was Martinean, made Colonial Secretary in room of Lord Bathurst; Ann. Reg. Lord Dudley, Secretary for Foreign Affairs, in room of 105." Mr Canning, appointed to the Premiership; and Mr 1 "The whole conversation in town is made up of abusive, bitterly abusive, talk of people about each other; all fire and flame: I have known nothing like it. I think political enmity runs higher, and waxes warmer, than I ever knew it."-Lord ELDON to Lady J. T. BANKES, April 7, 1827; Eldon's Life, ii. 588. Lord Eldon, i. 437, 438; 1827, 100, XXI. 1827. CHAP. Sturges Bourne, Secretary of State for the Home Department, in room of Mr Peel, in which important office he was, after a few weeks, succeeded by the Marquess of Lansdowne. By these appointments the Government became entirely Whig or Liberal, and the long-established dominion of the Tories, established by Mr Pitt in 1784, was subverted. * 67. of these events on England's tory. These three events, the death of the Duke of York, the Importance appointment of Mr Canning as prime-minister, and the entire remodelling of the Cabinet on Liberal principles, future his succeeding one another in rapid succession in the first months of 1827, deserve to be particularly noticed as turning-points in the modern history of England, and big with vast consequences in future times. The first changed the heir-apparent to the throne, and brought forward as its immediate inheritor a prince who, with many good and amiable qualities, was by no means endowed with the strong understanding and masculine intrepidity of the Duke of York, and was influenced by a secret love of popularity, the quality of all others the most dangerous in a ruling character in stormy times. The second placed the avowed and elegant leader of the House of Commons in the situation of prime-minister, and that not as the "Great Commoner" in the days of George II., from the combined influence of aristocratic connections and personal talents, but from the last of these influences alone. The steady and intrepid opponent of Catholic *The new Cabinet stood as follows: In the Cabinet.-Lord-Chancellor, Lord Lyndhurst; Earl of Harrowby, Lord President; Duke of Portland, Lord Privy Seal; Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Lord Bexley; Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Viscount Dudley; Secretary for Colonies, Viscount Goderich; Secretary for Home Department, Mr Sturges Bourne; President of Board of Trade, Mr Huskisson; Secretary at War, Viscount Palmerston; First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr Canning. Not in the Cabinet.-Lord High Admiral, Duke of Clarence; Master-General Law Appointments.-Master of the Rolls, Sir John Leach; Vice-Chancellor, 1 |