The life of the Rt. Hon. Canning

THE LIFE

OF THE

BT. HON. GEORGE CANNING.

BY ROBERT BELL. *

" a

AUTHOR OF " THE HISTORY OF RUSSIA, " LIVES
OF ENGLISH POETS," ETC.

NE W-YO RK:

HARPER cSc BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,

82 CLIFF STREET.

1846. /

TO

THE RIGHT HON.

HENRY ROBERT, LORD ROSSMORE,

LORD-LIEUTENANT OF THE COUNTY OF MONAGHAN,
&C, &C,

IN MEMORY

OF SOME HAPPY HOURS IN THE SOLITUDES OF GLEN

EERZA, AND AS A SLIGHT TRIBUTE TO QUALITIES

OF HEAD AND HEART WHICH MAKE THE

PUBLIC MAN RESPECTED AND THE

PRIVATE BELOVED,

2TJ)fs Bfoflrapts fs X-nscrifiefc,

BY

THE AUTHOR.

THE LIFE

OF THE

RIGHT HONORABLE GEORGE CANNING.

I.

GENEALOGY. FAMILY HISTORY. BIRTH OF GEORGE

CANNING. MRS. HUNN.

The name of Canning is derived from the original
seat of the family at Bishop's Canninges, in Wilt-
shire, where the line continued until the reign of
Henry VII., when it expired in co-heiresses. One
of the cadets of the family had, long before, in the
reign of Edward II., settled at Bristol, and found-
ed that branch which afterward became so famous
in the annals of the city, and from which the illus-
trious subject of this memoir was descended.

William Canynge represented Bristol in several
successive Parliaments, and was mayor no less than
six times in the reisms of Edward III. and Richard
II. He died in 1396, and his eldest son, John, suc-
ceeded to his honors, both in Parliament and the
corporation. Of three sons he left at his death, in
1406, Thomas, the second, was knighted, and be-
came Lord-mayor of London; and William, the
youngest, was elected to the mayoralty of Bristol,
which had become a sort of heir-loom in the fam-
ily. William Canynge was a foremost man in his
day, and stands out so prominently in the list of lo-
cal worthies, that he was selected as the hero of the

A2

6 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

Rowley forgeries. He is supposed to have found-
ed the beautiful church of St. Mary, Radcliffe, but
his claim to that distinction is unfortunately set
aside by the date of its erection, 1294. It must be
recorded, however, to his honor, that he repaired
the edifice at his own private expense, on some occa-
sion when it had been damaged by a thunder-storm
— glory quite enough for the epitaph of a wealthy
burgess. It was in the muniment-room, over the
northern porch of this church, Chatterton pretend-
ed to have discovered his poetical relics and his list
of painters ; but, unluckily, the industrious Vertue
had been there before him, and, finding nothing
half so interesting, furnished Walpole with the cue
which enabled him to show such sagacity in de-
nouncing the delinquent genius *

The monument of William Canynge is still to be
seen in the interior of the church ; and by a paper,
discovered a few years since in the cabinet of Mr.
Browning, of Barton, it appears that he was a lib-
eral contributor of ghostly emblems for its embel-
lishment, such as sundry figures of angels with
wings ; a holy sepulcher, well gilt ; a heaven, made
of wood and stained clothes, and other equally cu-
rious proofs of his munificent piety.f In the latter

* There were six or seven old chests in the muniment-room,
one of which was said to be Mr. Ca?iynge's cofre. It was secured
by six keys ; but in process of time the six keys were lost, and
the corporation resolved to break open the locks, under an impres-
sion that it contained writings of value. This was done in 1727,
and all the documents relating to the Church were removed, while
the rest, which were of no importance, were left exposed. It was
out of these dusty scrolls and parchments that Chatterton persist-
ed in asserting he had collected the Rowley poems.

t This singular document runs as follows :

" Item, that Maister Canynge has delivered, this 4th day of
July, in the yeare of our Lord 1470, to Maister Nicholas Petters,
vicar of St. Mary Radcliffe, Moses Conterin, Philip Barthelmew,
procurators of St. Mary Radcliffe aforesaid, a new sepulcher,

well gilt with gold, and a civer thereto. — Item, an image of

rising out of the same sepulcher, with all the ordinance that 'long-

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 7

part of his life he entered into holy orders, and
founded the Priory of Westbury, where he died
in 1476.

John, the eldest of the three brothers, was the
father of Thomas Canning, who married the heir-
ess of the Le Marshalls of Foxcote, in Warwick-
shire, a family which had enjoyed that possession
from the time of the Conquest. The eldest branch
of the Canning family removed upon this marriage
to Foxcote, where its lineal representatives are still
seated.*

George, a younger son of Richard Canning, of
Foxcote,f received a grant of the manor of Gar-
vagh, in Londonderry, from James I., in 1618 ;$
and, proceeding to Ireland, established a junior
branch of the family on that property. This grant
must be regarded as one of those violent appropri-
ations of land in that country which, under the pre-
text of defective titles, or other legal quibbles in-
dustriously supplied by the attorney-general of the
day, formed so conspicuous a feature in the man-
agement of Irish affairs throughout that memorable

eth thereto (that is to say), a lathe made of timber and the iron
work thereto.— Item, thereto 'longeth h-v-n, made of timber and
stained clothes.— Item, h-U, made of timber and iron work there-
to, with devils to the number of 13. — Item, 4 knights armed, keep-
ing the sepulcher, with their weapons in their hands (that is to
say), two axes and two spears, with two pares. — Item, 4 parys of
angels' wings for 4 angels, made of timber, and well painted. —
Item, the fadre, the crown and visage, the well, with a cross upon

it, well gilt with fine gould— Item, the H G coming out

of h-v-n into the sepulchre. — Item, 'longeth to the 4 angels, 4 chev-
aliers."

* See Genealogical Table.

t A correspondent of the " Gentleman's Magazine" (vol. xcviii.)
says that there is a pedigree at Foxcote, attested by Sir William
Se'gar in 1622, in which George Canning, of Barton-on-the-Heath
(then, or afterward, Garvagh), is stated to be the eighth, and not
the fourth son, as set forth in the Peerages.

t In nearly all the notices extant of the Canning family, this
grant is said" to have been made by Queen Elizabeth ; but it is
dated 1618, and Queen Elizabeth died in 1603.

8 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

reign.* The new proprietors of Garvagh could
hardly hope to escape the common penalties of a
position so odious in the eyes of the people ; and
the Cannings, accordingly, had their share of the
wild justice which made reprisals upon the settlers
for the misdeeds of the government. One of them
was killed by the populace, and another attainted
by the Parliament of James II. But, notwithstand-
ing these disasters, the family managed to keep pos-
session of their property. George Canning, the
grand-son of the first settler, married a daughter of
Robert Stratford, Esq., of Baltinglass (aunt of the
first Earl of Aldborough), by whom he had two
sons, Stratford and George. The line was contin-
ued through Stratford Canning, who had three sons,
George, the father of the statesman ; Paul, whose
son was created Baron Garvagh,f and Stratford,

* A transparent form of judicial inquiry was occasionally insti-
tuted into defective titles, of which many were known to exist ;
and wherever the slightest flaw could be detected, the property
was forfeited to the crown. To such a proceeding, however hard
in particular instances, no legal objection could be offered ; but
the true character of the appropriation is unveiled by the notori-
ous fact, that, when the juries refused to find for the king, they
were censured or imprisoned. The result was, that convictions
were obtained in almost every case. Leland says that " there are
not wanting proofs of the most iniquitous practices, of hardened
cruelty, of vile perjury, and scandalous subornation employed to
despoil the fair and unoffending proprietor of his inheritance." It
is needless to say that such forfeitures, although apparently ac-
complished through a process of law, were, in reality, acts of na-
ked spoliation.

t Paul, the secona son, died in November, 1784. He married
Jane, second daughter of Conway Spencer, of Tremany, county
of Down, sister of Sir Brent Spencer, and of the Marchioness of
Donegal. This lady died in Dublin in October, 1825. There were
four children by this marriage, but only one, George, lived to ma-
turity, and he was created Baron Garvagh in 1818. He was twice
married, first to Lady Georgiana Stewart, fourth daughter of the
first Marquis of Londonderry; and, second, to Rosabelle Char-
lotte Isabella, eldest daughter of the late Henry Bonham, Esq.,
and now lady dowager. By this marriage there was issue, two
sons and a daughter. Charles Henry Spencer George Canning,

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 9

afterward a London merchant, and father of Sir
Stratford Canning the diplomatist.

The descent of the Right Hon. George Canning
from the Mayor of Bristol, through the Cannings
of Foxcote and Garvagh, is thus clearly traced.
The following table exhibits the pedigree of the
family :

the present Baron Garvagh, was born in 1826, and succeeded to the
title in 1840.

10

THE LIFE OF CANNING.

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THE LIFE OF CANNING. 11

George Canning, the eldest son and heir of Gar-
vagh, had the misfortune to incur the parental dis-
pleasure by falling in love without his father's con-
sent. Of this incident, which exercised a material
influence over subsequent events, no particulars
have transpired. Nothing is known of the lady or
the liaison, farther than that the father disinherited
the son, and dismissed him from his house with a
scanty allowance of d£150 a year, accompanied by
a stern announcement that the offender was to look
for no more from his bounty for the rest of his life.
It is impossible to believe that so venial an offense
could have been visited by so vindictive a punish-
ment, unless the family dissensions had been aggra-
vated by other circumstances. Strong political dif-
ferences existed between father and son. The son
had taken the liberty of choosing for himself in pol-
itics, as he had done in love, and the one was no
more to be forgiven than the other. The father
thought he had a right to select opinions as well as
wives for his children ; and, being a gentleman of
implacable temper and violent prejudices, he seized
upon the first tangible excuse that offered, to drive
forth upon the world a son who had so much sense
and liberality as to embrace principles the very re-
verse of his own.

In 1757 we find George Canning in London, ban-
ished from his native country, which he was doom-
ed never to see again. In that year he entered the
Middle Temple, and in due time was called to the
English bar. But he never practiced his profes-
sion. Politics and literature, either from choice or
necessity, drew him off from the study of law, and
it was natural enough that the conversation of po-
ets and quidnuncs should possess greater attractions
for a young barrister without connections, than the
uncertain prospects of Westminster Hall. The

12 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

favorable reception given to several fugitive verses
which he contributed to the miscellanies of the day,
confirmed his alienation, while the freedom of his
principles procured him the intimate friendship of
Wilkes, in whose affairs he seems to have taken a
zealous interest. Churchill, Lloyd, and Whitbread,
the elder Colman,the good-natured Mr. Cambridge,
and doubtless many other wits and poetasters of
Dodsley's, were among his associates and acquaint-
ances ; and although he never obtained much dis-
tinction as a writer, his claims to admission into the
literary circles were cheerfully conceded on all
hands.*

The first publication by which he attracted no-
tice was an ardent defense of civil and religious
liberty, in a poem entitled "An Epistle from Will-
iam Lord Russell to William Lord Cavendish," sup-
posed to have been written by the former on the
night before his execution.t This piece was pub-
lished in 1763, and met with such success as to
reach a second edition in a few months. Its recep-
tion must be attributed solely to the boldness of its
political doctrines, for its literary claims are very
slender. But the author makes some compensa-
tion for the feeble monotony of his lines by his vig-
orous horror of priestly intolerance and kingly tyr-
anny. He was fortunate, also, in appearing at a
moment when such sentiments were certain to cov-
er a multitude of worse sins than indifferent verse.

* It is not improbable that Mr. Canning may have contributed
to the latter part of the collection of poems made by Dodsley, who
published nearly all his works ; but, after a diligent inquiry on the
subject, I can not trace any evidence of the fact. A writer in the
" Gentleman's Magazine" (vol. xcvii.) says that the Epistle from
Lord William Russell to Lord Cavendish is preserved in Dods-
ley's collection. This is a mistake. No such poem is to be found
in the six volumes. Perhaps the writer was led into this error by
discovering that Dodsley was the publisher of the epistle.

f Noticed with high commendation in the " Monthly Review"
for 1763.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 13

The " North Briton" had only recently opened its
fire upon Lord Bute and the "Auditor;" and in
the state of the public mind at that period, such
passages as the following, enunciating the popular
doctrine that all power 'emanates from the people,
and is only held in trust for the people, must have
been sure of admiring audiences :

" What ! shall a tyrant trample on the laws,

And stop the source whence all his power he draws ?

His country's rights to foreign foes betray,

Lavish her wealth, yet stipulate for pay ?
* * # *-

In luxury's lap lie screen'd from cares and pains,
And only toil to forge his subjects' chains 1
And shall he hope the public voice to drown,
The voice which gave, and can resume his crown ?"

It would be scarcely just to say that this is a fair
sample of the poem. There are better lines in it,
and worse. But Mr. Canning evidently laid more
stress on his political opinions than on the vehicle
through which they were conveyed. Verse was
the fashion of the day ; and with enough of taste
and education to make a correct use of so nice an
instrument, he selected it as the most popular me-
dium for the expression of popular opinions. The
success of the attempt was probably as great as he
anticipated. Some passages were praised for their
tenderness and pathos, such as the parting address
to Lady Rachel Russell, beginning,

" Oh ! my loved Rachel ! all-accomplished fair,
Source of my joy, and soother of my care !
Whose heavenly virtues and unfading charms
Have blessed, through happy years, my peaceful arms !"*

But, notwithstanding occasional touches of this
sort of conventional refinement, the main purpose
and surviving interest of the piece must be finally

* It has been supposed that in this passage Mr. Canning gave
vent to his own conjugal feelings ; but, unfortunately for this in-
genious conjecture, he was not married until five years after the
publication of the poem.

B

14 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

traced to its open and manly advocacy of opinions*
which could not at that time be avowed without a
certain risk of odium and persecution.

Perhaps to that very circumstance may he at-
tributed a fierce attack, which appeared in the
"Critical Review," on his next work, "A Trans-
lation of Anti-Lucretius, by George Canning, of the
Middle Temple," published by Dodsley in 1766.
This volume contained an English version of the
first three books of Cardinal Polignac's well-known
poem, in which the doctrines of various schools of
philosophers, but especially that of Lucretius, were
dissected with masterly power, and in a style at once
compact and graceful.* Upon the whole, the trans-
lation was diffuse, and occasionally careless and in-
elegant ; but the writer in the Review exceeded all
reasonable bounds of animadversion, and ran into
such outrageous abuse of the book as to draw an
indignant rejoinder from Mr. Canning.! The " Crit-
ical Review" was notorious for the scurrilous ma-
lignity of its articles, which frequently descended
to the lowest personalities ; and Smollet, who ap-
pears to have done his best, or his worst, to deserve
the distinction, generally got credit for all papers
of an offensive character which appeared in its
pages. On this occasion Mr. Canning attacked him
unsparingly with his own weapons, and got the best
of the argument as well as of the abuse. But Smol-
let had no character to lose, and suffered such things
with the impunity which attaches to people who
can not be much farther damaged by exposure. He

* A translation of the first book had been previously made
(1757) by Mr. Dobson (the translator into Latin of the " Paradise
Lost"), and reviewed by Oliver Goldsmith in the " Monthly Re-
view," vol. xvii., p. 44. See " Prior's Life of Goldsmith," passim.

t " An Appeal to the Public from the malicious Representations,
impudent Falsifications, and unjust Decisions of the anonymous
Fabricators of the ' Critical Review.' By George Canning, of the
Middle Temple. Provoco ad populum. Dodsley. 1767."

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 15

belonged to the class of literary undertakers, a nu-
merous body at that time, who were ready to grub
at any sort of work for hire, and who were trying
new speculations every day, at the manifest cost of
decent reputation, in the desperate struggle to keep
soul and bodv together. Smollet — various and
shuffling, the harlequin of bookmakers — trafficked
in this description of ware as publicly as sordid,
cheese-paring Griffiths and his wife, who boarded
and lodged their ill-paid critics, by way of starving
them both ways into their drudgery * They all be-
longed to the same herd; but Mr. Canning, with
keen and discriminating scent, singled out the bas-
est of them all — the man who, with some real right
to take rank as a genius, or something very near it,
degraded himself into a mercenary jobber, who put
Grarrick into history to propitiate his influence in
the green-room, and stuck the royal arms on the
front of his book to lure high patronage, just as
pastry-cooks hang out the regal sign over their shop-
doors, f Mr. Canning knew how to deal with such

* Griffiths boarded Goldsmith in part payment of his articles in
the " Monthly Review," and Mrs. Griffiths cut and scored them
to measure. But this worthy couple, although they seem to have
carried the system to perfection, had not the honor of originating
it. The booksellers' hack existed in all his nakedness as far back
as the Augustan age of Curll, so admirably satirized by Swift.
Davenant boarded his women actresses in Lincoln's Inn Fields ;
but they were better off than the authors, for he fed them exqui-
sitely, and honored their caprices with rosa-solis and usquebagh.

t The dedication, addressed to Smollet himself, will show the
spirit in which this uncompromising brochure is written. " To
Tobias Smollett. M.D. Uniformly tenacious of the principles he
was nursed in — famous for his stories, histories, and his continual
continuations of complete histories, as the single personage with
whom the unnamed putters-together of the ' Critical Review' ut-
terly disclaim all manner of connection (graceless rogues to dis-
own their father) — the ensuing Tractate is, with singular propri-
ety, inscribed by its author." And, as a specimen of the crushing
contempt with which the writer treated his hireling critics, the
following passage is strikingly characteristic : " I would conclude
with a pieee of friendly and Christian admonition to these public
plunderers, who have too long subsisted by literary rapine upon

16 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

shabby venality as it deserved, and not merely
scourged it, but treated it with loathing and con-
tumely.

The "Appeal" was followed in 1767 by a col-
lected edition of his poems, including, among other
additions, the fourth and fifth books of the " Anti-
Lucretius." The introductory address to his early
friend and preceptor, Shem Thomson, D.D., opens
with a confession of the straits to which he had be-
come reduced by his imprudence, and a resolution
to forsake his unprofitable dalliance with the muses,
and to devote himself to the law ; a resolution, un-
fortunately, which was taken too late. He was at
this period only thirty-one years of age.

" Formed by thy care to hopes of simplest praise,
Taught to pursue the best and safest ways,
The paths of honor, riches, and renown,
How have I fall'n beneath fell fortune's frown !

the spoils of many reputations. It is briefly this, to go back to the
place from whence they came, and there to follow the lawful occu-
pations for which they were instituted by art or designed by na-
ture. Their offense, in my opinion, comes within the express let-
ter of the statute of 9th Geo., cap. 22, being ' An Act for the more
effectually punishing wicked and evil-disposed persons going
armed in disguise, and doing injury and violence to the persons
and properties of his majesty's subjects,' vulgarly called the Black
Act. Away, then, ye banditti, while your necks are yet unbrok-
en ; but be cautious wherever ye shall handle the honest imple-
ments of industry, lest your employer should discover the vile
practices ye have been guilty of; for he who knows you would
not trust one of you with the cobbling of a shoe, lest he should
be pricked by a hobnail left wilfully sticking up on the inside of
the heel-piece." That the writers in the " Critical Review" de-
served all this abuse seems to have been acknowledged by every
body. The fugitive publications of the day teem with allusions
to their scurrility and injustice, and Churchill charges them with
forging deliberate falsehoods :

" To Hamilton's the ready lies repair ;
Ne'er was lye made which was not welcome there."

" The Apology."

The worst of it was, that the innocent were hunted down on bare
suspicion as well as the guilty ; and poor Murphy, who never
wrote a line in the obnoxious periodical in his life, was gibbeted
by Churchill under the belief that he was one of the gang.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 17

How seen my vessel founder in the deep,
Her ablest pilot, Prudence, lull'd to sleep !
But hence, Despondence ! Hell-born hag, away !
Oft lours the morn when radiance gilds the day :
Hard if all hope were dead, all spirit gone,
And every prospect closed at thirty-one.

Then welcome. Law ! Poor Poesy, farewell !
Though in thy cave the loves and graces dwell,
One Chancery cause in solid worth outweighs
Dryden's strong sense, and Pope's harmonious lays."

The bold avowal of his principles under circum-
stances so discouraging, at a time when they oper-
ated as a complete bar to advancement in his pro-
fession, was martyrdom to a man so situated ; yet he
exults in his creed, and boasts of the sacrifices made
by his family in the cause of liberty. It is a pity
that the historical illustration is not more satis-
factory, for the sanguinary attempts to transplant
Protestantism into Ireland, in which his ancestors
" fought, bled, and died," may appear to some com-
prehensions as acts of the most unwarrantable tyr-
anny.

" When Popery high her bloody standard bore,

And drenched Ieme's blushing plains with gore,

While, for a time, pale Liberty in vain

Th' o'erwhelming deluge labor'd to restrain,

We boast of ancestors with mutual pride,

Who fought, who bled, and (let me add) who died.
Ne'er be thy charms, fair Liberty, resign'd,

Birthright bestow'd by Heaven on all mankind !

Every delight is tasteless but with thee !

2s o man's completely wretched who is free /"

Throughout all the writings of this gentleman
the same generous and manly spirit predominates ;
and if his lines were not so frequently flat and pro-
saic, their honest patriotism might have secured
them durable applause. But permanent reputa-
tions are not made out of good intentions.

Mr. Canning's next publication was in 1768.

Although he had taken leave of Helicon, he had

not yet got out of the troubled waters of politics.

The American revolution had just broken out, and

2 B 2

18 THE LIFE OF CANNIN0.

Franklin had arrived in England in a sort of semi-
ministerial capacity. The subject engrossed uni-
versal attention. Mr. Canning took it up with his
usual warmth and enthusiasm in " A Letter to Lord
Hillsborough,* on the Connection between Great
Britain and her American Colonies, "f contending
for the urgent necessity, as well as the right, of the
supreme legislature to frame money bills and other
laws for America.^

There is nothing very remarkable in this pam-
phlet, except that the general manner bears a curi-
ous resemblance to some peculiarities in the style
of Georo-e Cannino- the son. Certain artifices of
treatment might easily be mistaken, such as the ex-
plosion of a train of reasoning by an unexpected
flash of pleasantry, or the suddenly breaking off
into a fervid apostrophe in the midst of a close ar-
gument. Thus, speaking of the supineness of Brit-
ain, in reference to American affairs, he says, that
if her rights are not speedily and efficiently assert-
ed, her empty declarations " will soon sound as ri-
diculous as the Cham of Tartary's gracious permis-
sion to the potentates of the earth to sit down to
their dinner ;" and again, in an excess of enthusi-
asm, he exclaims, " Would to God that all mankind
enjoyed freedom and happiness in the highest, most
perfect, and permanent degree ! would to God
there were no pain or other evil in the world ! But

* Lord Hillsborough had just been appointed to a new office
tor managing the business of the plantations.

t Published by Beckett.

% Looking back at this distance of time upon the agitation pro-
duced by this question — a question which now appears so clear
and simple !— it is instructive to observe how widely men of the
same political leaning were divided upon it. Thus Junius protest-
ed against the American claims, and, like Mr. Canning, asserted
the right of the mother country to control popular sentiment in
the colony — for that was what it amounted to— while Lord Chat-
ham, who was Junius's idol, maintained exactly an opposite opin-
ion.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 19

how vain are such wishes ! How futile are the
dreams of the philosopher in his study, when he
creates worlds by his fancy, and models systems by
his caprice ! for reasoning, abstracted from fact and
experience, will always degenerate into fancy and
caprice. " The reader who is thoroughly familiar
with the orator's periods, and those impulsive and
passionate flights with which he used to electrify
the senate, will easily recognize a family likeness
in these scraps ; but it is, of course, more obvious
in the general manner than in detached passages.
Mr. Canning had now been eleven vears in Lon-
don, mixing largely in society, and endeavoring to
sustain his precarious position by various literary
efforts. His expenses were unavoidably greater
than his small income justified ; nor could he di-
minish them without risking the only prospect of
advancement he enjoyed through his intercourse
with the popular men of his party. His profession
brought him nothing but disappointment; his pub-
lications nothing but empty compliments ; his con-
nection with Wilkes and the opposition destroyed
all chance of patronage at the bar. The conse-
quence was, that he became more and more em-
barrassed every day, and had no resource, at last,
but to seek assistance through the members of his
family. The way in which this assistance was ren-
dered shows that the domestic disunion had ac-
quired increased bitterness during the long inter-
val of separation, the political prejudices of the
father having been, no doubt, grievously outraged
by the audacious independence with which the son
continued to maintain his opinions. A proposal
was made to pay off his debts, but accompanied by
a condition so galling and oppressive, that sheer ex-
tremity alone could have compelled him to accept
it. The condition was, that he should join his fa-

20 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

ther in cutting off the entail of the estate, thus re-
nouncing forever his own legal rights as heir-at-
law. To this cruel alternative he was forced to
submit by the immediate pressure of circumstances;
and the sacrifice was no sooner made, than he had
the mortification of seeing the estate settled upon
his younger brother Paul. It is a curious sequel
to this transaction, that the son of the very George
Canning who was thus disinherited should have af-
terward acquired such personal distinction as to be
considered, politically at least, the head of the fam-
ily ; reasserting, in his person, the ascendency of
the elder branch.

The relief which Mr. Canning purchased at so
heavy a cost of prospective advantages afforded
him but a temporary escape from his difficulties af-
ter all. He soon got into debt again as deeply as
ever; and, as if there were a fatality in his embar-
rassments by which he was predestined to incur the
heaviest responsibilities at the times when he was
least qualified to discharge them, this was the mo-
ment he thought fit to become a husband. The
excess of the imprudence seems to have fascinated
his imagination. In this year, 1768, without any
resources on either side but his own poor allow-
ance, or any prospect of increase, except the in-
crease of expense, he married Miss Costello, an
Irish lady of considerable personal attractions and
good family.* Miss Costello, at that time residing
with her maternal grand-father, Colonel Guvdick-
ens, was only eighteen years of age, extremely
beautiful and captivating, but portionless.f We

* The marriage is thus recorded in the " Gentleman's Maga-
zine" for May, 1768 : " George Canning, of the Middle Temple,
Esq., to Miss Mary Ann Costello, of Wigmore-street." They were
married at Marylebone church.

t Colonel Guydickens had formerly held diplomatic appoint-
ments at some of the courts of Europet and his son, Gustavus

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 21

hear nothing more of Mr. Canning's early attach-
ment. It had either passed away, or been broken
off* or it had faded in the light of the new and bright-
er enchantment. An alliance formed under such
inauspicious circumstances, so far as fortune was
concerned, could not fail to exasperate the resent-
ment of his family to the utmost ; it effectually
crushed all hope of reconciliation. Mr. Canning
never returned to Ireland, and never saw his father

Guydickens, Esq., was gentleman usher of the privy chamber in
the queen's household. Miss Costello's family, on her father's
side, was no less respectable ; and 1 avail myself of this opportu-
nity to show that the assertion, so frequently repeated in print, that
she was a person of " low birth," has not a shadow of foundation
in fact. The branch of the Costellos from which she was de-
scended is of considerable antiquity, as may be seen from the fol-
lowing genealogical particulars with which I have been obliging-
ly furnished from an authentic quarter. The family of the Cos-
tellos, originally called M'Costello, were settled, long before the
Conquest, in the Barony of Costello, parish of Aughamore, coun-
ty of Mayo, from which possession they were styled Lords or Bar-
ons of Costello. Of this stock there were three sons, among
whom the barony was divided. The eldest son, who lived in Lis-
meganson, married into the noble family of the Jordans, who were
Barons of Gallon and Island. The second son, Edmond, settled
at Talahan, now called Edmondstown, was married to a sister of
Lord Lowth's ; and the third son connected himself by marriage
with Lord Dillon, of Clonbrock, and the Castle Kelly family.
This last branch emigrated, and are now settled in opulence at
Cadiz.

Miss Costello was descended from the eldest branch. Her great-
grand-father, Edmond. the son of Jordan Costello, was married to
Miss Dowel], of Brickliff Castle, near Boyle, county of Sligo, by
whom he had issue six sons and two daughters. The greater
part of his property was confiscated by Oliver Cromwell, in con-
sequence of his attachment to the cause of the Stuarts ; and three
of the younger sons, Charles, Thomas, and Gasper, being thus de-
prived of their inheritance, and unable to find employment in the
army or navy, on account of their profession of the Roman Cath-
olic faith, went into business in Dublin. Charles Costello mar-
ried Miss French, of Frenchlawn, county of Roscommon, by
whom he had a son, Jordan, who married Miss Guydickens, and
had issue Mary Ann Costello, afterward married to Mr. Canning,
and mother of the Right Honorable George Canning. Colonel
Guydickens appears to have been twice married ; first to Miss Han-
cock, of Athlone (mother of Miss Guydickens), and afterward, in
1762, to Miss Tracey,

22 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

ao-ain. The only members of his family with whom
he held any intercourse after his marriage were
his two brothers and his eldest sister.

His union with Miss Costello awoke him to the
necessity of more energetic exertions than he had
hitherto made in his flirtations with literature and
politics, but they resulted only in a succession of
failures. The situation of this young couple, in the
great conflict upon which they were cast, was pain-
fully imbittered by constitutional inaptitude for the
worldly strife. Highly gifted, sensitive, and am-
bitious, they were dragged down into sordid cares,
which wounded their pride, and forced them to at-
tempt means of extrication for which few people
could have been so ill fitted. The close retirement
in which they found it necessary to live was cheer-
ed by the birth of a daughter ; but the child died
early, and their pecuniary distresses now growing
more urgent than ever, Mr. Canning, eager to em-
brace every hopeful opportunity that presented it-
self, tried several experiments in business. He set
up as a wine-merchant, and failed, as might have
been expected. Other speculations were entered
upon with no better success ; and in the midst of
these overwhelming troubles, on the 11th of April,
1770, George Canning Was bom. He must have
been a brave prophet who should have predicted
that the child of such afflictions would one day be
Prime Minister of England.*

According to some authorities, this event took
place in Paddington ; others, with greater likeli-
hood, assign the honor to the Parish of Maryle-
bone, where George Canning was baptized on the
9th of the following May.f The register of St.

* Yet this prophecy was actually made a few years later, as we
shall see.

t Mr. Canning was generally supposed to be an Irishman ; and,

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 23

Clement, East Cheap, contains entries of the bap-
tisms of several members of the Canning family;
but these were the children of Mr. Stratford Can-
ning the merchant, including Sir Stratford Can-
ning, Mr. Charles James Fox Canning (for the
merchant was a thorough Foxite), and others.

Upon this happy occasion Mr. Canning forgot his
renunciation of the muses, and published anony-
mously a little poem addressed to his wife, entitled
"A Birthday Offering to a Young Lady from her
Lover," full of the tenderest images and most re-
fined gallantry.* The reader of to-day must not
be surprised at this mode of address, which, ac-
cording to our usages, would lead him to suspect
any thing rather than that the person so apostro-
phized was a married woman. But it was the cus-
tom of that age, and was frequently carried to a
still greater height of absurdity.f

unlike the supercilious Congreve, he had no objection to be thought
so. In a biographical work called " Literary Memoirs of Living
Authors," published in 1798, he is described as il a native of Ire-
land ;" and Moore, in the " Life of Sheridan," and Sydney Smith,
in the '; Edinburgh Review," speak of him as an Irishman. But,
to take his own humorous version of it, he was only an Irishman
born in London. When Sir Walter Scott was in Ireland, in 1825,
enjoying the proverbial hospitality of that country, Canning writes
to him : " I rejoice to see that my countrymen (for though I was ac-
cidentally born in London, I consider myself an Irishman) have so
well known the honor you are paying them." — " Life," viii., p. 129.
* The authorship was not avowed, but there appears to be no
doubt that it was his production, It was published by Dodsley,
and the " Monthly Review" (May, 1770) speaks of having seen
it advertised in his name. The verses have something of the point
and polish, and not a little of the conceit, of Waller ; as when he
says that his mistress's beauty, defying the destroying influence
of Time, shall outlast the heavens themselves :

" Long e'er thy menaced ills can harm,
Though every hour should steal a charm :
Long e'er, by twenty stars a day,
The spangled heaven would wear away !"
t ISio extremity of matronly experience disqualified a lady from
retaining the style of girlhood. One instance may sufficiently il-
lustrate the custom : " Monody to a Young Lady who died in

24 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

The birth of his son created a new source of anx-
iety, and made a fresh demand upon the energies
of Mr. Canning ; but his spirit was broken by dis-
appointments, and after another year of increasing
embarrassment and frustrated efforts, he finally sunk
under his misfortunes. The remorse he felt at hav-
ing deprived his child of his rightful inheritance
preyed incessantly on his spirits, and hurried him
to his grave. He died on the 11th of April, 1771,
the anniversary of his son's birthday, and was bur-
ied in the churchyard of Marylebone.*

These close details concerning the family and
birth of Mr. Canning acquire an extraneous inter-
est from the charge of illegitimacy which was once
flung upon him, and industriously propagated by
his political enemies in the old days of rotten-bor-
ough delinquency and electioneering corruption,
when nothing was too base or monstrous for the foul
malignity of faction. The absurd calumny would
now be scarcely worth notice, were it not for this
curious coincidence, that a similar libel was cast
upon his early and life-long friend, Mr. Huskisson,
who was stigmatized as "an illegitimate alien," and
who found it necessary to refute the infamous slan-
der from the hustings at Liverpool. Such foul as-
persions must be regarded as the wild retaliation
of the mob, worked up to phrensy by acts of op-
pression and injustice. When the people found a
man rising to a position of weight and influence by

Child-bed. |$y an afflicted Husband." This piece was published
in quarto in 1768 ; and if the reader desire any farther satisfaction,
he may have his curiosity gratified by inspecting the archives of
the Museum.

* His tomb bears the following inscription from the hand of his
widow :

" Thy virtue and my woe no words can tell ;
Therefore a little while, my Georgej farewell ;
For faith and love like ours, Heaven has in store
Its last, best gift — to meet and part no more."

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 25

the mere force of his talents, they committed the
great error of reproaching him with the lowliness
of his origin, as if it were an indelible disgrace, as
if he had no righl*to ascend to station or authority,
or as if power should be held only by those who
were born to it — the very principle against which
they themselves were contending all the time. Mr.
Canning eloquently rebuked them for this perfidy
to their own cause, a rebuke which illustrates an
anomaly we have latterly become familiar with —
the defense of democratical principles against the
assaults of the people themselves. " Are they so
little read," he exclaimed, "in the British consti-
tution as not to know that it is one of the peculiar
boasts of this countrv, and one main security for
its freedom, that men as humble as myself, with no
pretensions to wealth, or title, or high family, or
wide-spreading connections, may yet find their way
to the cabinet of their sovereign, through the fair
road of public service, and stand there upon a foot-
ing of equality with the jjroudest aristocracy of the
land ? Is it from courtiers of the people, from ad-
mirers of republican virtue and republican energy,
that we hear doctrines which would tend to exclude
from the management of public affairs all who are
not illustrious by birth, or powerful from heredita-
ry opulence ]"* But the true solution of this pop-
ular perplexity was the uneasy distrust that lay at
the bottom. The people felt, with a natural sense
of justice, that men who sprang from their own
ranks ought to be found fighting in them. They
resented as a wrong: their union with the dominant
party, not because it was dominant, but because it
was antagonistic. They were so eager to show
their impatience of the individual desertion, that
they overlooked the larger right, which was so
* Speech at Liverpool, 17th of October, 1813.

c

26 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

perversely but conspicuously vindicated through its
operation.*

Upon the death of Mr. Canning the allowance
of 66150 a year reverted to the Garvagh family,
and his widow was left destitute. In this extrem-

* Mr. Canning was constantly called an " adventurer" in news-
papers, and squibs, and political meetings. He was persecuted
with the term to the end of his life. The only intelligible reproach
which could be extracted from it was, that he was not born a lord ;
for he certainly sprang from the ranks of the gentry, was descend-
ed from families of some centuries' standing, and was as weli en-
titled, on the score of birth, to the elevated position he ultimate-
ly occupied as any gentleman in the country. But still he was
an " adventurer," because he acquired personal distinction by mer-
it, and not by inheritance. Nobody questions the honors accord-
ed to lofty birth, but every body has a fling at the honors bestowed
upon lofty minds, probably lest they might eclipse all the rest in
the long run. Bonaparte was obliged to put up with similar treat-
ment while he was dictating to the crowned heads of Europe ;
and all that need be said about it is, to express one's unfeigned re-
gret that there are not many more such " adventurers" in the
world. Mr. Canning frequently alluded to this imputed igno-
miny, and in one of his speeches, after having been elected at Liv-
erpool, he used these memorable words : " Gentlemen, there is
yet a heavier charge than either of those which I have stated to
you. It is, gentlemen, that I am an adventurer. To this charge,
as I understand it, I am willing to plead guilty. A representative
of the people, I am one of the people ; and I present myself to
those who choose me only with the claims of character (be they
what they may) unaccredited by patrician patronage or party rec-
ommendation. Nor is it in this free country where, in every walk
of life, the road of honorable success is open to every individual :
I am sure it is not in this place that I shall be expected to apolo-
gize for so presenting myself to your choice. / know there is a po-
litical creed which assigns to a certain combination of great families a
right to dictate to the sovereign and to influence the people, and that
this doctrine of hereditary aptitude for administration is, singular-
ly enough, most prevalent among those who find nothing more
laughable than the principle of legitimacy in the crown. To this
theory 1 have never subscribed. If to depend directly upon the
people as their representative iu Parliament ; if, as a servant of the
crown, to lean on no other support than that of public confidence ; if
that be to be an adventurer, I plead guilty to the charge, and I
would not exchange that situation, to whatever taunts it may ex-
pose me, for all the advantages which might be derived from an
ancestry of a hundred generations." — Speech after the chairing at
Liverpool, 12th of June, 1816. The " combination of great families"
never forgave him who tittered this bold and honest declaration

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 27

ity she was tempted, by the recommendation of
friends, to seek an independence on the stage, for
which she appeared qualified by talents and per-
sonal qualifications.

The biographical notices which have hitherto
appeared of her distinguished son treat this circum-
stance with an air of prudery and reserve, as if
there were something in it to be ashamed of. It
is time that we were done with this miserable af-
fectation.* The shame, if there be any in the mat-
ter, is at the side that would try to evade the frank
recognition of an art which has conferred such per-
manent grace upon our literature, and which has
transmitted its civilizing influence too often through
the aristocracy itself to be set aside by the genteel
finesse of a biographer. Indeed, there have been
so many intermarriages between art and aristocra-
cy, and their issues have become so diffused through
the upper classes, that one might have thought it
hardly safe to offer such a sinister indignity to the
players. At all events, it is quite certain that no-
bilitv has mingled its blood often enough with the
stage to give it a legitimate right to gentle usage
and fair report.

Whether Mrs. Canning had any previous con-
nections among the actors there are no means of

* Imitated, too, by actors themselves, who, often sprung from
honest handicraft, sometimes (out of family pride) change their
names when they go upon the stage, as if any calling were more
creditable than that ! This is the true tinfoil of false pretences.
So Garrick would have been a more respectable member of soci-
ety, "living in Durhamyard, with three quarts of vinegar, and
calling himself a wine-merchant," than Garrick interpreting the
humanities of Shakspeare. Foote shows the absurd side of this
wretched cant, when he makes Papillon in the " Lyar" say, " As
to players— whatever might happen to me, I was determined not
to bring a disgrace on my family, and so I resolved to turn footman"
This is almost as good, with its epigrammatic nose turned up, as
the old story : " Mother, mother, the players be coming !" " Lord
a mercy, child, run and take in the clothes '*'

28 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

ascertaining ; but some such probability is suggest-
ed by the discovery of the name of Costello in the
Drury Lane company in 1740. This Mr. Costello
wasi n a subordinate grade, filling insignificant
parts; and we afterward trace him to Covent Gar-
den, where he is mentioned in the bills as playing
the second grave-digger in " Hamlet," and where
he died on the 9th of August, 1766. The coinci-
dence of names gives a coloring of likelihood to
the conjecture, but leaves it only a conjecture still.

Through the intercession of some friends at
court, probably Colonel Guydickens's son, Mrs.
Canning's situation was brought under the notice
of Queen Charlotte, who desired to know how she
might serve her ; upon which Mrs. Canning re-
quested that her majesty would be good enough to
become the medium of making her known to Mr.
Garrick, with a view to her appearance on the
stage. Her majesty graciously acceded to this re-
quest, and the desired arrangement was effected
through the agency of Lord Harcourt.

Mrs. Canning made her first appearance on the
stage at Drury Lane on the 6th of November,
1773, in the character of Jane Shore. Her pecul-
iar circumstances excited so much interest, that
Garrick, stimulated a little by the expectation of
court patronage, resumed the part of Hastings,
which he had long before relinquished. The play
was repeated on the following evening, and was
acted altogether six times, after which Mrs. Can-
ning's name is found only rarely, and at intervals,
in the bills of the theater. Her next appearance
was on the 12th of April, 1774, as Perdita, in
" Florizel and Perdita" (the " Winter's Tale" re-
duced to a farce), for the benefit of Gentleman
Palmer, as the favorite actor of that name was fa-
miliarly called, On the 26th she took her benefit,

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 29

playing Mrs. Beverly, in the " Gamester;"* and on
the 28th she appeared for the first and only time
in Octavia, in "All for Love." From that time
she dropped into inferior parts, f and all the lead-
ing characters she had hitherto performed were
transferred to other persons. On the 7th of May
Perdita was played by Mrs. Smith, a singer ; and
on the 27th, when the " Gamester" was repeated,
the character of Mrs. Beverly was acted by Miss
Younge.f The truth was, that the attraction an-
ticipated from her beauty had failed through her in-
experience, and Garrick, who never stood on much
ceremony in such matters, finding her forsaken by
the court, made no scruple in reducing her at once
to a lower position in the theater. But this result
might have been anticipated from the first. A
mere novice could not have reasonably hoped to
contest the honors of popularity in a metropolitan
theater with such actresses as Mrs. Abingdon and
Mrs. Barry.§

Thus discouraged in London, Mrs. Canning

* From the playbill, which is still preserved, it appears that
the performances were " by particular desire," and that the " Game-
ster" was revived for the occasion, Reddish playing Beverly, and
Palmer Stukely. The play was followed by a dance — the Mount-
aineers—and a comic opera, "The Wedding Ring." The doors
opened at five, and the play began at six. Mrs. Canning resided
at that time in Great Queen-street, Lincoln's Inn Fields.

f Such as Isabella, in the " Revenge ;" Anna, in " Douglas."

X Afterward Mrs. Pope, a popular and fashionable actress, who
long held possession of the stage. She retired in 1797.

$ Although Mrs. Canning did not succeed in London, her fail-
ure was by no means discreditable. Bernard, who was present at
her first appearance, says that " she put forth claims to the appro-
bation of the critical : one thing, however," he adds, " must be ad-
mitted, that she was wonderfully well supported ; Garrick was the
Hastings, and Reddish (her future husband) the Dumont." — "Ret-
rospections." A critic of the day (in a work called " Theatrical
Portraits epigrammatically delineated" — 1774) compliments her
highly on her performance of Jane Shore, in a couplet which is un-
fortunately7 not fit, on other grounds, to be presented to the reader.
He contrives, with considerable ingenuity in so short a compass,
to eulocrize at once her beauty, her talents, and her virtue.

C 2

30 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

went into the provinces. In 1775 we find her at
Bristol,* playing Julia, in the " Rivals," with some
eclat, under the management of Reddish, of Drury
Lane.f Her subsequent career can not be traced
with much certainty, in consequence of her mar-
riage with Mr. Reddish, whose name, it seems, was
borne by several actresses, with some of whom
she has doubtless, in many instances, been con-
founded.t It is unlikely that she ever returned to
the London stage, although she has been conject-
urally identified with a Mrs. Reddish who was
severely treated at Drury Lane in 1776.§ The
greater probability is, that she continued in the

* Not Southampton, as misquoted in Genest's " History of the
Stage." The fact is mentioned in a letter from Miss Linley, in
Moore's " Life of Sheridan."

t Reddish, plunged over head and ears in debts and disgraces
of all sorts, purchased on credit a share in the Bristol Theater
(then unconnected with Bath) from the elder Lacy. In Septem-
ber, 1775, he apologizes to Garrickfor giving him only a small por-
tion of a sum he owed him, excusing himself on account of the
necessity he was under of paying off the arrears to Lacy.

% There were several actresses who appeared at Bristol under
the name of Reddish. Speaking of one of them. Miss Hannah
More says, in a letter to Garrick, " This is the second or third
wife he has produced at Bristol ; in a short time we have had a
whole bundle of Reddishes, and all remarkably unpungent." —
"Garrick Correspondence." The Bristol audience resented these
outrages, and used to hiss him violently whenever he made his ap-
pearance. They once " pelted him," says Miss More, " for a quar-
ter of an hour before they would let him speak."

§ The play was " Semiramis," a tragedy, by Captain Ayscough,
nephew of Lord Lyttleton, produced on the 14th of December,
1776. Some opposition was made to the play, and to the actress,
perhaps, on that account. " Mrs. Reddish was very cruelly treat-
ed," says Oulton, in his "History of the London Theaters;"
" from her very first entrance on the stage to the last scene, she
was violently hissed by the galleries. It was a regular attack,
uniform in its sound and direction, where she filled her part joler-
ably, as well as where she failed." _ Upon which Mr. Gen^st sug-
gests that " this actress was/perhaps Mrs. Canning, who sometimes
played as Mrs. Reddish." Whoever it was, this was :ne ouly time
she appeared ; and, in the printed copy of the piece, the character
she performed is stated to have been played by Miss Hopkins,
which throws a new suspicion over the whole.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 31

country, making the usual tour of the provincial
theaters with the usual fluctuating fortune ; being
at one time engaged with Whitelock's company, a
traveling corps in Staffordshire and the midland
counties ; at another time making a sensation with
Reddish in Dublin ;* afterward failing at Hull un-
der Tate Wilkinson, and then leading' the tragic
business under Mr. Bernard, at Plymouth. t

Mrs. Canning's marriage with Mr. Reddish, into
which she suffered herself to be drawn against the
advice and remonstrances of her friends, was the
source of many bitterer trials than any she had yet
endured.t This Reddish was a person of intem-
perate habits and bad character, disguised under
the most fascinating manners. He acquired some
notoriety for acting the villain on the stage, and
no less for acting the profligate in real life. He
was the son of a tradesman at Frome ; made his

* Some of the Canning family were in Dublin at the time, and,
taking offense at her appearance, avoided the theater. On the
night of her benefit the boxes were empty, although every other
part of the house was crowded.

t In 1791. " As an actress," says Bernard, " her efforts were
more characterized by judgment than genius ; but nature had gift-
ed her in many respects to sustain the matrons." — " Retrospec-
tions." It must be remembered that this was written nearly twen-
ty years after she had made her debut at Drury Lane. Bernard
tells a curious story of her having taken lodgings in a haunted
house, and braving the supernatural terrors alone at night with ex-
traordinary courage. He pledges himself to the truth of the sto-
ry, and adds that the fact was known to many other persons. It
was exactly the sort of exploit she was very likely to have under-
taken.

% Mr. Genest says that " Mrs. Canning had, at one time, such
a friendship for Mr. Reddish, that she assumed his name," from
which it might be inferred that she adopted it merely as a nom de
guerre. The statement, however, which I have given above, of
her marriage with Mr. Reddish, rests on an authority which prop-
erly closes all discussion on the subject. It is defective only in
the date when the circumstance took place, and this I have not
been able to ascertain. Mrs. Canning's acquaintance with Mr.
Reddish began in 1774, during her first season at Drury Lane ; and
she certainly played under his management at Bristol, in 1775, ir.
her own name, as mentioned by Miss Linley

32 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

first appearance at Drury Lane in 1767; and was
one of the principal actors there during Mrs. Can-
ning's first season, playing Dumont to her Jane
Shore, Beverly in " The Gamester," Antony in "All
for Love."* When he made his debut at Drury
Lane, there was a Miss Hart in the theater, who en-
joyed an income derived from a degrading source,
and Reddish, tempted by her money, and utterly
indifferent as to how it was acquired, wooed and
married her in less than ten weeks. Afterward
prevailing upon her to sell her annuity, he dissipa-
ted the proceeds, and then abandoned her.f But

* Although Reddish contrived somehow, but chiefly by subser-
viency to Garrick, to monopolize a class of characters, which com-
pelled Henderson to go to Covent Garden, and acquired such in-
fluence as to drive Macklin from the theater, he was an indifferent
actor after all, without a spark of genius. Stevens, in a letter to
Garrick, groups him with three or four others, whom he describes
as a pack of contemptible strollers. — " Garrick Correspondence,"
vol. ii., p. 35. In a contemporary work called " The Theaters ; a
Theatrical Dissection, by Nicholas Nipclose" (1772), he is said to
have had neither " expression, dignity, nor ease :"

" A figure clumsy, and a vulgar face,
Devoid of spirit as of pleasing grace ;
Action unmeaning, often misapplied,
Blessed with no perfect attribute but pride."

It seems that one of the peculiarities of Reddish was a certain vul-
gar insolence of deportment, which gave great offense to the pub-
lic. Another critic, in a publication entitled " Theatrical Portraits
epigrammatically delineated" (1774), thinks rather better of him
as an actor, but gently dismisses him to the contempt of posteri-
ty on account of his private life :

" Reddish, while living, plays Posthumus well ;
But his posthumous character no one can tell."

f Miss Hart, announced as a " gentlewoman," appeared for the
first time at Drury Lane, in October, 1760, as Lady Townly, in the
" Provoked Husband," Sheridan playing Lord Townly. If Chur-
chill may be believed, she possessed other attractions as well as
the wretched £200 a year. He specially applauds the elegance
of her carriage :

" Happy in this, behold, amid the throng,
With transient gleam of grace, Hart sweeps along."

" The Rosciau*.

But this description could have applied to her only very early in

TH"E LIFE OF CANNING- .33

the end of his^ infamous course was retributive.
After passing through a variety of disgraceful es-
capades,* he became diseased in his brain, ap-
peared for the last time, in 1779, as Poslhumus,\

her career, for she afterward grew so gross and coarse, that the
author of the " Theatrical Biography," in 1772, thinks that Chur-
chill must have strained his poetical license for this compliment.
Thus, too, the author of " The Theaters," speaking of her after
her marriage :

" Reddish without a relish we produce,
As profitless for pleasure as for use ;
Worse than a cipher — why ? because we find
She moves a figure of obnoxious kind."

Her figure was large and masculine, and produced such an aver-
sion in. Garrick, that he used to call her the " horse-reddish." She
was married to Reddish in 1767, appears to have left the stage
about 1772 or 1773, and afterward died in abject distress.

* He once appeared drunk upon the stage, for which he was
compelled to make a public apology. On another occasion he
was absent from the theater, and, by way of excuse, made an af-
fidavit that he thought it was an oratorio night. He was fond of
making affidavits, the refuge of base and vulgar minds, as if he felt
that his word was not to be believed. He tried to clear himself
in the same way in Macklin's business. At another time, being
overwhelmed by debts in Dublin, he called his creditors together,
apologized for past disappointments, and, affecting great penitence,
prevailed upon them to take a certain number of tickets for his
benefit in part payment, solemnly promising that the money re-
ceived at the doors should be applied to the liquidation of the re-
mainder. When the tickets were presented at the doors, howev-
er, they were refused admittance, and money was demanded ; and
when an explanation was required the next morning, it was found
that Reddish had decamped with the cash, and was already on
his way to England. In the midst of these shameless practices,
the only instance in which he extracted a good joke out of his
total want of principle, was in reply to one Robinson, a member
of his Bristol company, who challenged him to fight a duel, in
consequence of some flagrant breach of articles ; upon which Red-
dish wrote to him to beg that he would put it off till after his ben-
efit, for that he was so poor he could not afford to die just then.

t Ireland, in his " Life of Henderson," says that Reddish, on
his way to the theater, had the step of an idiot, his eye wander-
ing, and whole countenance vacant. Ireland congratulated him
on his being able to play, and he said, ,; Yes, sir, and in the gar-
den scene I shall astonish you !" He could not be persuaded but
that he was going to play Romeo, and he continued reciting it the
whole way. At last they pushed him on the stage, expecting that
he would begin with a speech of Romeo ; but the moment he came

3

34 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

was thrown upon the Fund for support, and linger-
ed out the remnant of his miserable life as a mani-
ac in the York Asylum, where he died in 1785.

During the term of this miserable union Mrs.
Reddish's personal exertions were rendered more
than ever imperative by the state of her husband's
health, and by fresh claims upon her maternal so-
licitude. Reddish, prostrated both mentally and
physically, was early disabled from the pursuit of
his profession ;* but his death, after many years
of suffering, at last released her from the responsi-
bility she had so rashly incurred.

She still continued in the provinces, playing at
Birmingham, Hull, and other places, but especial-
ly at Plymouth, where she was a great favorite
with the audience, and where her stage triumphs
happily terminated in a conquest of a still more
gratifying kind — her marriage with Mr. Hunn, a
respectable silk-mercer of that town. Mr. Hunn
was a constant frequenter of the theater, and a

in sight of the audience his recollection seemed to return, and he
went through the scene " much better," says Ireland, " than 1 had
ever seen him." The most curious part of this strange mechan-
ical process was, that on his return to the green-room the image
of Romeo came back into his mind, and so the same delusion went
on till he was again recalled to the business of the scene.

* There is no doubt that even in the June of 1775 Reddish
was rapidly declining into that state of mind which, in three years
afterward, terminated in imbecility. " With respect to the ser-
vice he can do the theater next season," says Parsons, writing to
Garrick, in June, 1775, from Bristol, " I am sorry to tell you I
have great doubts ; and he himself has very dreadful apprehen-
sions. He fell down and continued very long in a fit eight days
ago, and has not been able to perform since his arrival here. His
countenance undergoes the most sudden alterations. His mem-
ory fails him, and he has all the alarming symptoms of a disorder
hastening to insanity." — "Garrick Correspondence," ii., p. 61.
He struggled on, however, notwithstanding these fearful warn-
ings, and played throughout the season of 1775-76 at Drury Lane,
under Garrick, and 1776-77, under Sheridan. He now became
incapable, does not appear to have acted in 1777-78, and stagger
ed on for the last time at Covent Garden, under the coalition, in
1778-79.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 35

great lover of plays, with some pretensions to the
character of a critic, which he occasionally display-
ed in the newspapers, to the infinite mortification
of the actors. But they had their revenge upon
him. Some time afterh is marriage he failed in
business, and his wife was once more compelled
to resume the profession, Mr. Hunn resolving at
the same time to attempt the stage himself. He
made his debut at Exeter. The players, however,
set the town against him, and, notwithstanding the
interference of Mrs. Hunn, who enjoyed much
popularity there, his reception was so discouraging,
that he wisely relinquished the experiment. He
subsequently obtained a mercantile situation, in
which he died, leaving his widow with two daugh-
ters and a son.

Throughout all these vicissitudes Mrs. Hunn was
cheered by constant proofs of the devotion of her
son George, who, passing through school and col-
lege, and gathering valuable friendships by the way,
was never seduced into forgetfulness of her claims
upon his duty and affection. He made it a sacred
rule to write to her every week, no matter what
might be the pressure of private anxiety or public
business .* His letters were the charm and solace
of her life ; she cherished them with proud and
tender solicitude, and always carried them about
her person to show them exultingly to her friends.t

* It has been generally stated that these letters were written
every Sunday. This is an error. They were written so that they
should reach his mother's hands every Sunday.

f " I remember," says a private correspondent, now living, who
was personally acquainted with Mrs. Hunn, "I remember that
one evening she called me aside in the bath-room, and read to me
two long letters of her son's, from Lisbon, extremely well written
(as may be supposed), explaining and vindicating his diplomatic
conduct, and abounding in declarations of his attachment to her."
This was in 1815 or 1816. On another occasion she showed an
immense pile of these letters to a friend, and, after dwelling af-
fectionately upon their contents, she added, "Yet they must be

36 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

In his boyhood his correspondence treated upon
every subject of interest on which his mind was en-
gaged— his studies, his associates, his prospects, his
dream of future distinction, nourished in the hope
that its realization might enable him, at last, to
place his mother in a position of independence.
And when he finally reached the height of that
dream, he continued to manifest the same earnest
and faithful feelings. No engagements of any kind
were ever suffered to interrupt his regular weekly
letter. At Lisbon, during his embassy there, al-
though the intercourse with this country was fre-
quently suspended for several weeks together, he
still wrote his periodical letter ; and it happened
on such occasions that the same post came freight-
ed with an arrear of his correspondence. In the
midst of the toils of the Foreign Office, harassed
by fatigue, and often preyed upon by acute illness,
he always found, or made, opportunities for visiting
his mother. He writes to Sir William Knighton,
in 1826, like one released for a holyday, " I am
just setting off for Bath, with a good conscience,
having so cleared off the arrears accruing during
Parliament time, that I believe I do not owe a dis-
patch to any part of the world."* When Mrs.
Hunn was performing at Plymouth, he would
sometimes leave his studies at Lincoln's Inn, to
comfort her with his presence ; and whenever he
came it was a Saturnalia ! Shortly before her final
settlement at Bath, in 1807, she resided at Win-
chester, where she had some cousins in an inferior

all burned. I have not the heart to destroy one of them myself,
but they must be burned when I die." This precious correspond-
ence, however, was not destroyed, but returned to the writer, at
his own request, after the death of his mother.

* " Memoirs of Sir William Knighton." Mr. Canning frequent-
ly went to Bath to see his mother. In January, 1825, he visited
the theater there with Lord Liverpool, who had desired the per-
formance of Morton's " Town and Country."

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 37

walk of life ; and when her son — at that time the
center of popular admiration wherever he moved
— used to visit her there, it was his delight to
walk out in company with these humble friends,
and with them to receive his " salutations and
greetings in the market-place." One recognizes
a great man in such behavior.

It had always been an object of paramount anx-
iety with him to take his mother off the stage ; and
the first use he made of the first opportunity that
presented itself was to carry that object into ef-
fect.* This occurred in 1S01, when, retiring from
the office of Under Secretary of State, he was en-
titled to a pension of ^£500 a year,f which, instead
of appropriating it to his own use, he requested to
have settled as a provision on his mother.i;

* There was a strange story circulated in the newspapers up-
ward of fifty years ago, giving a romantic account of the way in
which this result was brought about. According to this state-
ment, Mrs. Hunn was then playing somewhere in Scotland, and
Mr. Canning, happening accidentally to go into the theater, to his
utter astonishment recognized his mother on the stage. The sto-
ry ends, dramatically enough, by her immediate removal from the
profession, and her independent settlement for life. It is unneces-
sary to say that the whole affair is pure invention.

t Mr. Canning did not retire until 1801 ; but I am informed, on
unquestionable authority, that the date of the first warrant, made
payable to his mother, was in May, 1799.

% For this act, one of the noblest of his life, Mr. Canning suf-
fered almost daily martyrdom at the hands of his less scrupulous
political adversaries, from Peter Pindar down to Hunt and Cob-
bett. The circumstances of his mother's history — her connection
with the stage and the pension list — were perpetually recalled in
a spirit of coarse and unmanly ridicule. But the only effect these
lampoons produced, was to make Mr. Canning more than ever de-
sirous of testifying his regard for her. Peter Pindar was so indis-
criminate in his abuse, that his doggerel has long since rotted into
oblivion. It had not enough of the salt of wit to preserve the
corrupt mass from decomposition. He assailed every body — Dun-
das, Pitt, Rose, Jenkinson ; spurned Canning's Latin, and affect-
ed to despise the learning of Gifford and Mathias. He makes Pitt
pick the nation's pocket to pension fools and knaves :
" Gifford, that crooked babe of grace,
And Canning, too, shall be in place,
And get a pension for his mother."

D

38 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

It has been observed by a great authority, that
the mothers of distinguished men have generally
been women of more than ordinary intellectual
power ; and the remark will lose none of its force
in reference to the mother of Mr. Canning. In-
deed, were we not otherwise assured of the fact
from direct sources, it would be impossible to con-
template his profound and touching devotion to
her, without being led to conclude that the object
of such unchanging attachment must have been
possessed of rare and commanding qualities.

Mrs. Hunn was esteemed by the circle in whose
society the latter part of her life was passed as a
woman of great mental energy. This strength of
character communicated itself to her aspect, and
even to her utterance. Her conversation was ani-

All this would have passed off well enough for mere party rib-
aldry, but that he sometimes overshot the mark with naked lies.
Ex. gr. :

" I must have something, Canning cries,
And fastens on some rich mince pies ;

As dexterous as the rest to rifle ;

Ecod ! and he must something do
For mother and for sisters too,

So steals some syllabubs and trifle."

Mr. Canning had no sisters ; and Mrs. Hunn's children, by her
third marriage, were rather too young at that time (1801) to quar-
ter on the public. Few men, possessed of such opportunities,
ever made such little use of them for family aggrandizement.
Peter, going on in the same strain, says, that " with sinecures to
a large amount, squeezed from the vitals of the nation, this mod-
est and generous youth could not afford to yield his poor mother,
Mistress Hunn, alias Mistress Reddish, alias Mistress Canning, a
pittance. No ! the kingdom must be saddled with five hundred
pounds a year for her support." The sinecures had no more ex-
istence than the sisters ; and the kingdom was not saddled with
the support of Mrs. Hunn ; for, at her time of life, being then fif-
ty-five, the transfer of the pension from a " youth" of thirty-one
was clearly in favor of the public. It is a curious commentary on
the Billingsgate patriotism of Dr. Walcot, that, after a life spent
in casting obloquy upon public men for alleged venality, he is
said to have been bought up in the end ! " He dropped his
pen," says the author of " All the Talents," " while snatching at
a pension."

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 39

mated and vigorous, and marked by a distinct
originality of manner and a choice of topics fresh
and striking, and out of the commonplace routine.
Like most persons who derive their social advan-
tages from a practical intercourse with the world,
Mrs. Hunn was more distinguished by natural tal-
ents than mere accomplishments — by nervous in-
dividuality and good sense, rather than superficial
refinement. To persons who were but sliglitly ac-
quainted with her, the energy of her manner had
something of an air of eccentricity. She retained
traces of the beauty of her youth to the last.

The closing years of her life were spent in re-
tirement at her house in Henrietta-street, Bath ;
where she died, after a lingering illness, in her
eighty-first year, on the 27th of March, 1827. Her
son paid his last visit to her sick-room on the 7th
of the preceding January, the day after the Duke
of York's funeral, where he caught the cold, which,
acting on a frame shattered by anxiety, laid the
foundation of his last fatal illness ; and he, who
was so attached to her while living, in five month3
followed her to the grave.

40 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

II.

BOYHOOD. WINCHESTER. ETON. THE MICRO-
CO SM. OXFORD.

The childhood of George Canning was passed
under the inauspicious guardianship of Mr. Red-
dish, whose disorderly habits excluded the possi-
bility of moral or intellectual training. The prof-
ligacy of his life communicated its reckless tone to
his household, and even the material wants of his
family were frequently neglected to feed his ex-
cesses elsewhere. Yet, amid these unpropitious
circumstances, the talents of the child attracted no-
tice ; and Moody, the actor, who had constant op-
portunities of seeing him, became strongly interest-
ed in his behalf. Moody was a blunt, honest man,
of rough bearing, but of the kindliest disposition ;
and foreseeing that the boy's ruin would be the in-
evitable consequence of the associations by which
he was surrounded, he resolved to bring the mat-
ter at once under the notice of his uncle, Mr. Strat-
ford Canning. The step was a bold one ; for there
had been no previous intercourse between the fam-
ilies, although the boy was then seven or eight
years old. But it succeeded. Moody drew an in-
dignant picture of the boy's situation ; declared
that he was on the highroad to the " gallows"
(that was the word) ; dwelt upon the extraordina-
ry promise he displayed; and warmly predicted
that, if proper means were taken for bringing him
forward in the world, he would one day become a
great man. Mr. Stratford Canning was at first ex-
tremely unwilling to interfere ; and it was not un-
til the negotiation was taken up by other branches

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 41

of the family, owing to honest Moody's persever-
ance, that he ultimately consented to take charge
of his nephew, upon condition that the intercourse
with his mother's connections should be strictly
abridged.

Having undertaken this responsibility, Mr. Strat-
ford Canning discharged it faithfully. He was a
member of the banking and mercantile firm of
French, Burroughs, and Canning, at that time
largely concerned in the Irish loans, and a strong
Liberal in politics. At his house George Canning
was introduced to Burke, Fox, General Fitzpat-
rick, and other leaders of the Whig party. Here,
too, he first met Sheridan, but it was reserved for
later years and other opportunities, to ripen into
intimacy the acquaintance which was thus begun ;
for Mr. Stratford Canning died before his nephew
was old enough to enter upon public life.* He
had the satisfaction, however, of witnessing the
dawn of his talents, and of placing him in the most
favorable circumstances for the completion of his
education. A small estate in Ireland had been set
aside for that exclusive purpose, at the urgent so-
licitations of Mr. George Canning's grand-mother
— so small, that it yielded nothing more than was
barely sufficient to defray unavoidable expenses.!

* He died a short time before Mr. Canning left Eton.

t This trifling annuity, producing about =£200 a year, was drawn
from Kilbrahan, county of Kilkenny, which forms part of the style
of the Canning viscounty. A writer in the " Gentleman's Mag-
azine" tells us that there are two accounts of the way in which
this small estate came into Mr. Canning's possession. Accord-
ing to one version, his grand-father, when he cut off the entail,
forgot to include this little property in levying the fine, so that on
his decease it devolved upon his grand-son, as heir-at-law. Ac-
cording to the other account, the omission was intentional, the
grand-father settling Kilbrahan in fee on his disinherited son for
the purpose of more effectually barring him from any farther
claims. (" Gent. Mag.," vol. xcviii.) It is scarcely necessary to
say that these statements, which so flatly contradict each other,
are equally irreconcilable with facts.

D 2

42 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

But this settlement, penurious as it was in amount,
showed that the family recognized the claims of
the son, although they refused to extend the same
consideration to his mother.

Mr. Canning received the rudiments of his edu-
cation under the Reverend Mr. Richards, at Hyde
Abbey School, in the neighborhood of Winchester ;
and entertained throughout his life so grateful a
sense of the advantages he derived from that excel-
lent establishment, that when he came into power,
toward the close of his career, he presented his
old tutor to a prebendal stall in Winchester Ca-
thedral.*

* Mr. Richards did not enjoy his preferment long. He died in
1833, at the age of seventy-nine, and was buried in the nave of
the Cathedral. He appears to have been held in universal respect
for the strictness of his moral character, and to have inspired, at
the same time, no less terror among his refractory pupils by the
excessive severity of his punishments. In some instances these
cruelties of the old school were never forgotten or forgiven. One
of his scholars, many years afterward, retained so vivid a recol-
lection of the chastisements he had received at the hands of this
rigid disciplinarian, that, writing home from India, he said, " I am
among savages, it is true, but none so savage as old Richards !*'
It may be presumed that Mr. Canning's studious and regular hab-
its preserved him from experiencing any of the evil effects of a
system which, it is only justice to observe, prevailed at that time
in most of the public schools. Mr. Richards's establishment en-
joyed great popularity until he retired from its personal superin-
tendence, when it suddenly fell off, and was soon afterward given
up altogether. The school-house has subsequently undergone
some strange reverses, being used at different periods as a Me-
chanics' Institute and a Dissenting Chapel. The building stands
apart from the rest of the premises, and is said to have been the
first house in Winchester that was covered with slates. It is
now lying empty and idle ; yet, malgre desertion and antiquity, it
has somewhat of a new and jaunty air. The pilgrim who takes
an interest in visiting such scenes must not confound it with Hyde
Abbey, from which it derives its name, which stood on the oppo-
site side of the street, and of which nothing now remains but a
massive archway and broken gable. The garden and play-ground
of the school are still to be seen just as they were sixty or seven-
ty years ago, only a little disheveled and overgrown. Even the
little grating in the low door, through which the apple and cake
venders used to extract the pocket-money of the boys, is still ex
tant ; and the countless names of many an idle aspirant after mu-

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 43

Even at this early period he procured some ap-
plause for his skill in verse-making, and when he
was removed to Eton, where that talent is the
surest qualification for eminence, he was at once
placed as an oppidan, between the age of twelve
and thirteen. He was sent to Eton by the advice
of Mr. Fox, who took a personal interest in his
progress.

There he soon acquired distinction for the easy
elegance of his Latin and English poetry, and the
suavity of his prose ; discovering also in his char-
acter the germ of those traits for which he was af-
terward so much admired in public life — great
generosity of temper, quickness of apprehension,
and firmness of purpose. By the happy constitu-
tion of his powers, and unswerving steadiness in
their cultivation, the boy was in this instance the
perfect father of the man. He appears to have
commenced his studies with a sort of prescience
of the course which lay before him, and to have
trained his intellectual faculties carefully for that
end. His progress, undisturbed in the outset by
any of the retarding incidents of youth, maintained
one uniform direction, acquiring increased strength
as he advanced. His youth, serious without aus-
terity, elastic and persevering, disclosed a faithful
prophecy of his maturer life. There are no boy-
ish delinquencies to record in his Eton days, no
rebellion of the animal spirits ; the calm of schol-
arship appears to have settled down at once upon

ral distinction, scrawled with nails and penknives, may yet be
traced on the surrounding walls. Mr. Canning's is not to be found
among them ; aft evidence, perhaps, of the staidness of his youth,
which looked to be remembered through inscriptions of another
kind. We have a glimpse of his boyish sobriety in the follow-
ing passage in Mr. Wilberforce's diary : " C. knew Canning well
at Eton. He never played at any games with the other bovs ;
quite a man ; fond of acting ; decent and moral." — " Life of Wil«
berforce," v. 139.

44 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

his blood. With a brilliant wit, and a taste scru-
pulously refined, he possessed a capacity of appli-
cation which enabled him to give- the utmost prac-
tical effect to his talents. The assiduity he dis-
played showed how little he relied upon the mere
inspirations of genius. He felt the necessity, and
knew the full value of laborious habits ; and from
the very start applied himself with unremitting in-
dustry to his studies.

His reputation rose rapidly at Eton, and drew
about him the chief spirits among his young con-
temporaries. A society existed there for the prac-
tice of discussion, and used to meet periodically in
one of the halls of the college. This little assem-
bly was conducted with a strict eye to parliament-
ary usages ; the chair was taken by a speaker duly
elected to the office ; the ministerial and opposition
benches were regularly occupied ; and the subject
for consideration was entered upon with the most
sincere and ludicrous formality. Noble lords, and
honorable and learned gentlemen, were here to be
found in miniature, as they were in full maturity
in another place ; the contest for victory was as
eager ; and when it is added that among the ear-
lier debaters were the late Marquis Wellesley and
Earl Grey, it will readily be believed that the elo-
quence was frequently as ardent and original. In
this society Mr. Canning soon won distinction by
the vigor and clearness of his speeches, anticipa-
ting upon the themes of the hour the larger views
of the future statesman. And here, too, in these
happy conflicts, he formed some solid friendships
that lasted through his life.

The purity of sentiment, and congeniality of pur-
suits in which these personal attachments had their
origin, flowered out into a little literary enterprise,
which has conferred celebrity upon the spot from

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 45

whence it issued — the famous boy-periodical called
the " Microcosm," projected by a few of the more
accomplished Etonians, with Canning, then advan-
cing toward the seventeenth year of his age, at
their head.

The first number of the " Microcosm" appeared
on the 6th of November, 1786. It was a small
weekly paper, published at Windsor, price two-
pence ; on the plan of the " Spectators," " Ram-
blers," &c, which at that time, and even to a still
later date, were the favorite models with all litera-
ry tyros. The original design of the work was to
treat the characteristics of juvenile Eton in the
same style of didactic humor which had been ap-
plied to general society by Addison and his follow-
ers ; but the writers found it impossible to keep
strictly within such circumscribed limits ; and, grad-
ually breaking bounds, extended their observation,
touching mimetically upon men and manners at
large, with a degree of freedom, and an occasional
felicity of illustration, not unworthy of the experi-
enced moralists in whose train they moved.

The plan was not hit upon by chance. It was
laid down with abundant seriousness of intention
by the literary conclave, who ventured to predict,
out of the materials around them, the future glories
of their country. " I consider the scene before me
as a microcosm," says the editor, Mr. Gregory
Griffin, in the opening paper; " a world in minia-
ture, where all the passions which agitate the great
original are faithfully portrayed on a smaller scale ;
in which the endless variety of character, the dif-
ferent lights and shades which the appetites or pe-
culiar situations throw us into, begin to discrimi-
nate and expand themselves. The curious observ-
er may here remark in the bud the different casts
and turns of genius, which will, in future, strongly

46 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

characterize the leading features of the mind. We
may see the embryo statesman, who hereafter may
wield and direct at pleasure the mighty and complex
system of European politics, now employing the
whole extent of his abilities to circumvent his com-
panions at their plays, or adjusting the important
differences which may arise betiveen the contending
heroes of his little circle; or a general, the future
terror of France and Spain, now the dread only of
his equals, and the undisputed lord and president
of the boxing-ring. The Grays and Wallers of the
rising generation here tune their little lyres ; and
he who hereafter may sing the glories of Britain
must first celebrate at Eton the smaller glories of
his college."* Of this grand destiny that was to
crown the ambition of the Etonians, it is curious to
note how accurately the embryo statesman at least
(to whatever twilight nooks of fame his associates
may be assigned) realized the aspirations of his
wise and witty boyhood.

The principal writers in the " Microcosm" were
the Messrs. J. and R. Smith, Frere, and Canning.
Lord Henry Spencer contributed a couple of tri-
fles ; Mr. Mellish, a whole number ; Mr. Little-
hales and Mr. Way, a letter each ; and the respect-
able Mr. Capel LofFt volunteered a defense of Ad-
dison, which the young essayists received with the
deference due to his years. One can readily un-
derstand how the knot of school-boys must have in-
continently rejoiced over the middle-aged gentle-
man they had caught so unexpectedly in their net.

Mr. Canning supplied the largest individual share
of the forty numbers ; but Mr. J. Smith appears to
have performed the functions of editor, for the
work dropped when that gentleman went to Cam-

* The paper from which this extract is taken was written by
Mr. J. Smith.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 47

bridge. The "Microcosm" gave up the ghost
when Mr. J. Smith felt, to use his own phrase,
" that he was no longer a man of this (Eton) world."
The care and propriety with which his papers are
composed afford a hint of the judicial qualifications
which may have entitled him to the post of moder-
ator.*

The sobriety of the " Microcosm" as a whole,
and the surprising air of ease which pervades it,
helped largely, no doubt, by the celebrity of its
principal writer, have attracted more curiosity than
was ever before bestowed upon a production of its
class.t And certainly none ever deserved it so
well.| It would be difficult to detect in any of the

* In July, 1787, Miss Burney went " to hear the speeches" at
Eton. The royal family were present. " The speeches," she
tells us, " were chiefly in Greek and Latin, but concluded with
three or four in English ; some were pronounced extremely well,
especially those spoken by the chief composers of the ' Micro-
cosm.' Canning and Smith." — " Diary of Madame d'Arblay," hi.,
413. This was on the 29th of July. The work was discontinued
on the 30th, so that the " chief composers" (Miss Burney may be
acquitted of the phrase) must have been tolerably well known in
spite of their playing at masks with their readers. But when
was such a secret ever kept in such a community as that of
Eton?

f The " Microcosm" has passed through several editions : the
fifth edition was published in 1825. A curious document is still
in existence bearing Mr. Canning's signature, and dated 31st of
July, 1787 (the day after the work was discontinued), by which,
for the sum of fifty guineas, the copyright was assigned to Mr.
Charles Knight, of Windsor, the father of the accomplished edi-
tor of Shakspeare.

t Several imitations of the " Microcosm" have been attempted
at different schools, the " Kensingtonian," for example ; but none
of them survived their birth. The great success of the " Micro-
cosm" induced the Harrow boys to get up a rival periodical, which
was ostentatiously published with a foolish frontispiece, repre-
senting the two publications in a balance, the " Microcosm" be-
ing made to kick the beam. Upon seeing this print, Mr. Canning
is said to have made the following epigram :

" What mean ye by this print so rare,
Ye wits of Harrow jealous ?
Behold ! your rivals soar in air,
And ye are heavy fellows /"

48 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

articles the " 'prentice hand" of youth. The only-
exceptions, perhaps, are the contributions of Mr.
Frere, the intimate friend of Mr. Canning, whose
papers betray a tone of effort and inexperience,
with bright glimpses, however, of that playful sa-
gacity which afterward shone so brilliantly in the
"Anti-Jacobin." But Mr. Canning's are incom-
parably the most compact and aged essays ever
produced by a boy of little more than sixteen *
There are no such specimens elsewhere of English
prose written at that age, so weighty of purpose, so
chaste and finished in expression. The influence
of the sententious modes which were in vogue at
the close of the last century may be constantly felt
tempting him into glaring imitations ;t but, putting

* Mr. Canning's essays were specially praised by the critics of
the day for that quality of subtle humor which he afterward em-
ployed with such effect in the House of Commons.

t The most direct imitations for which he is responsible are a
letter from " Nobody," deploring his ill treatment in the world,
and Gregory Griffin's account of the various opinions he hears in
society regarding himself and his works. On sitting down to
these essays, his imagination was evidently heated by a recent
perusal of the famous petition of " Who and Which" (the prolific
parent of a whole race of discontented nonentities), and the "Spec-
tator's" account of the contradictory criticisms of his club. But
he nevertheless vindicates his originality by some new and witty
touches. Particularly happy is the lurking irony of that passage
where Gregory Griffin, himself personally unknown, says that he
has sometimes been ready to sink with shame and gratitude when
he chanced to meet gentlemen who cleared him of all his faults
by kindly taking them on themselves, candidly confessing that
they were the real authors of such and such papers. " To these
gentlemen," he adds, " I am proud of an opportunity to return my
thanks for the honor they confer on me, and to assure them that
all my papers are very much at their service, provided, only, that
they will be so kind as just to send me previous notice which they
may think fit to own ; that my bookseller may have proper direc-
tions, if called upon, to confirm their respective claims ; and for
the prevention of any error which might otherwise arise, should
two persons unfortunately make the same choice." In this sort
of sarcasm he was unequaled. He applied it with marvelous ef-
fect in the House of Commons. It was even more dreaded by
bis opponents than that fierce ridicule rising into invective, which,

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 49

aside the question of originality, these fugitive pa-
pers exhibit striking evidences of the early severi-
ty and daintiness of his taste. A gentlemanly con-
tempt for the false and affected in real life and in
literature suggests such themes for his ridicule as
the mincing effeminacy of fops, the foolish custom
of sfarnishinor conversation with oaths, the vices of

• • • • mi ■

bombastic criticism, and pointless witticisms. This
choice of a class of subjects, taken from the tradi-
tions of English manners, and already exhausted by
previous essayists, discloses the source at which
the writers of the " Microcosm" drank their first
draughts of inspiration. They regarded the school
of Addison (aerated, however, by the sparkling gay-
ety of Steele — a step in advance of most followers
of the " Spectator," who see nothing in it but its
trim morality) as the perfection of English prose ;*
and they imitated it with scholastic precision, not
merely in the texture of its diction, but in that pru-
dential pleasantry which gives it such a coloring
of constitutional goodness. The work abounds in
touches of well-bred humor and quaint irony of
amiable foibles, and sedulously displays a proper
sense of the genteeler virtues, and an amusing sym-
pathy for all sorts of oddities, especially that super-
annuated order of correspondents who represent
abstract ideas and exploded eccentricities. As in
the " Spectator," so in the " Microcosm" social

says Scott, fetched away both skin and bone, and was the special
terror of the " Yelpers."

* The Duke of Susses, whose miscellaneous intercourse with
books gives weight to his judgment in such matters, thought Ad-
dison's style the best adapted to all subjects : he said that it nev-
er tired. Sir James Macintosh seems to have held the same opin-
ion. He told M r. Rush that the " Spectator" had lost its value as
a book of instruction, but that it would always last as a standard
of style — an assertion which may be reasonably doubted. Rush
says that he described Franklin as a better Addison, with more
grace and playfulness.

4 E

50 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

weaknesses are laid bare — social vices never; or
only in a way to give the greater importance to the
externals of decorum, insisting with overwhelming
sententiousness upon the doctrine of appearances,
while great offenses, too mighty for ridicule, are
suffered to stalk abroad with impunity. The ethics
of the " Spectator" are diligently slipped and trans-
planted into this lighter soil, and blossom, as all
such transplantations do, in diminished force and
fainter hues. Every thing is tested by a judgment
too cautious and exceptional to throw out much
vigor or freshness ; the ear is lulled by the flowing
repose of undulating periods ; and we have the sat-
isfaction of retracing, in smooth and agreeable ca-
dences, a whole anthology of truisms.

The modes and customs ridiculed by the " Mic-
rocosm" are the modes and customs of the " Spec-
tator," and had passed away long before. The
" scowerers" had vanished from the purlieus of
Covent Garden, country gentlemen no longer held
it a special mark of good breeding to " kiss all
round," and fine ladies had renounced snuff, al-
though they might still, here and there, affect the
coquetry of patching. The manners depicted in
the " Microcosm" survived only in print. The
" Lounging Club" was but a reflection of the " Ugly
Clubs" and " Everlasting Clubs" (themselves little
more than shadows of the " No-Nose-and-Surly
Clubs" of a previous day); and the youngsters who
took these things from books, believing all the time
that they were describing an actually existing state
of society, might as well have reanimated Duke
Humphrey and the tenpenny ordinaries. The crit-
ics felt this, and with all their admiration of the ex-
traordinary merit of the juvenile " Spectator," es-
pecially in its serious papers, they could not help
hinting that it was sometimes " out of nature ;" by

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 51

which they really meant that it was sometimes out
of convention.

The notion of setting up any author as a uni-
versal standard of style is false in principle ; since
style, to be of any instrumental value, ought to be
flexible and adaptive. Yet the prose of Addison,
so delicately embellished with what Gibbon calls
" the female graces of elegance and mildness,"*
enjoyed this distinction for a long period, by the
indolent acquiescence of the reading public, who
seemed waiting for some convulsion to rouse them
into more active perceptions. It is curious that
Johnson should have given such an impulse to this
opinion, by an emphatic dictum, which he notori-
ously violated in his own writings.f It was as if
he thought it discreet, for the sake of the public,
to defer to forms of which he felt the hollowness ;
just as a certain sort of people, who are not over-
particular themselves, keep up a pretence of pru-
dery about words and behavior before children,
of the absolute futility of which, as a practical

* " Memoirs," 4to, p. 86.

t In Johnson's character of Addison, he applauds his style for
being voluble and easy (which was, perhaps, what Boswell meant
when he said that he wrote like a gentleman), and adds, that who-
ever wishes to attain an English style ought to give his days and
nights to the volumes of Addison. Burney furnishes us with an
amusing key to what was intended by the expression " English
style." Being once in conversation with Johnson on this subject,
he ventured to observe that, although Johnson praised Addison,
he had not adopted him as his model, no two styles being more
different ; suggesting that the difference consisted, probably, in
this : that Addison's prose was full of idioms, colloquial phrases,
and proverbs, which, although so easy to an Englishman as to
give his intellect no trouble, was extremely difficult, if not impos-
sible of translation ; while Johnson's prose, being strictly gram-
matical, and free from any peculiarity of phraseology, would fall
into any other language as easily as if it had been originally con
ceived in it. Johnson assented to the accuracy of the distinction,
leaving us to conclude that he esteemed that to be the best Eng-
lish style which was least capable of being rendered intelligibly
into any other language.

52 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

means of virtue, they are all the time thoroughly
conscious. The style of Addison was a refinement
upon the rugged elliptical styles of his greater pred-
ecessors ; but it wanted their breadth, manliness,
and sincerity, and will not bear comparison with
the healthy vigor of De Foe, the muscular energy
of Dryden, and the prodigal magnificence of Mil-
ton.* Addison had the merit of reducing the art
of prose to an attainable level, laid out with gra-
cious fields and pleasant walks, but still a flat. It
was wonderfully accessible, and popular in propor-
tion ; for the grand and the elevated, which are
not so easily reached, can never be so generally
admired. But no outlay of skill upon the surface
can prevent flats from becoming tedious ; one
longs for a break, or irregularity of some kind, to
relieve the monotony. Where the whole land-
scape lies mapped out on the plain, we see too far
in advance to care much about getting to the end
of the journey. And this is now felt with Addison.
His writings, always attractive at first by their ease
and propriety, disappoint us at last by their uni-
formity. The sameness of the charm wears out its
interest ; for the most agreeable mannerism must
ultimately produce indifference, by ceasing to ex-
cite expectation.

On the other hand, this mannerism, when it be-
comes elevated by popular admiration into an au-
thority, sometimes gets credit for more than it is
worth, and enables vague generalities to pass for
new truths. Commonplaces are frequently carried

* Even in his own day the effeminacy of Addison's style did not
escape criticism. The political paper called the " Freeholder,"
which he wrote in defense of the government, was specially ridi-
culed by Steele, who thought the humor too nice and gentle for
such noisy times. Johnson tells us that Steele is reported to have
said of the " Freeholder," that the ministry made use of a lute,
when they ought to have called for a trumpet.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 53

into general circulation, as current coin of great
value, merely because they happen to be minted
off with the stamp of a well-established style.
Pope is a conspicuous example of this. And it
may be said of Addison that he is not always as
profound as he looks.

The morality of Addison, be it observed, also, is
very much of the old conventional fashion — solemn
gravity of feature, with a liquorish tooth beneath.
The contrasts between the demure axioms and
sinister humors of the "Spectator" are things, also,
to " give us pause." And yet, with all this hover-
ing on the verge of dangerous indulgences, there
is no imagination in it — no luxuriance of fancy —
not a breath of odors from the ideal world — nothing-
to spiritualize its suggestive pruriency. This want
of 'aerial truth is felt chiefly in a long train of skele-
ton figures that move through the essays. Delight-
ful Will Honeycomb, and immortal Sir Roger, and
the rest of the club (all called into life by Steele),
are living people, as familiar to us as fireside
faces ; but the rest, who, for distinction, may be
called episodical, including most of the corre-
spondents, are representatives of mental character-
istics, rather than of real life ; not men and women,
but specimens of dried reason.*

The " Spectator" must always be honored for
its wit and good sense, and may long continue to
live on the reputation of its purity, which had no
inconsiderable merit in its own day, although it
descends to our somewhat more decent times with

* The difference between the real man of common life and the
abstraction of the essayist is forcibly illustrated in the Croaker of
Goldsmith, and the Suspirius of the " Rambler," from which the
former is said to have taken the idea. Every body knows Croak-
er; but who has ever realized Suspirius to his imagination ? The
mere difference between the dramatic and the didactic forms is
not enough to account for the difference in the impression made
by two characters identical in their elements,

E 2

54 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

abated influence. But who now recurs to Addison
for a mastery of English, for an example of the
power of the language, for the study of its capa-
bilities, its strength, or its beauty % He is gone
with his age. The French and American revolu-
tions have utterly swept away the literary influences
of that Middle Age of attenuated delicacy and Au-
gustan polish. Bolder and more picturesque styles
have superseded them — styles that address them-
selves to the wants of the time, expanding with its
conquests, and giving open utterance to its eman-
cipated spirit. Men who seek distinction in this
age must throw their hearts and brains into the
matter, and leave forms to adjust themselves. The
lagging mannerist who stops to pick his steps and
trim his phrases in the sun will speedily find him-
self outstripped and forgotten.*

If Mr. Canning adopted Addison to some extent
as a model of style (for emulation rather than imi-
tation), there is apparently conclusive evidence in
the " Microcosm" that he did not think very high-
ly of him as a critic — the single feature in the esti-
mate of his literary character which Johnson has
ingeniously contrived to shirk, by insinuating an
indefinite defense without venturing a decisive
opinion. Two of Canning's essays are occupied

* The " British Essayists" must forever be indispensable to
an English library — a sort of traditionary Penates. But their
future functions seem to be clearly marked out, as supplying the
best easy moral reading for the young— the happiest combination
of amusement and instruction ; for, let grown-up people say what
they please, they seldom turn back to these books except for an
occasional pleasure. Hazlitt, who really admired and relished
them, admits that he outlived his taste for them. " ; The Period-
ical Essayists,' " he tells us, " I read long ago. The ' Spectator'
I liked extremely, but the « Tatler' took my fancy most. I read
the others soon after, the ' Rambler,' the ' Adventurer,' the ' World,'
the ' Connoisseur.' I was not sorry to get to the end of them, and
have no desire to go regularly through them again."—" The Plain
Speaker," ii., p. 77. If people would confess it, this is the case
with a large majority of readers.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 55

with a mock examination of an epic poem called
" The Knave of Hearts," a bit of boyish doggerel
which has found its way into every nursery in the
kingdom.* From the structure of this critique, its
humorous formality, and its application of ponder-
ous canons to a ludicrously insignificant subject, it
seems to have been intended as a parody on Addi-
son's critique on " Chevy Chase," which Johnson
himself abandoned to the contempt of Dennis, when
he admitted the poem to be a piece of chill and
lifeless imbecility. But it is equally clear that the
young essayist meditated another stroke of ridicule
in this critique, as the following passage will testify:

" The author has not branched his poem into excres-
cences of episode, or prolixities of digression ; it is nei-
ther variegated with diversity of unmeaning similitudes,

* " The Queen of Hearts]

She made some tarts,
All on a summer's day ;

The Knave of Hearts

He stole those tarts,
And — took them— quite away ! &c."

The criticism on this pleasant absurdity produced a curious
commentary some years afterward (1796), from a correspondent,
of the " Monthly Magazine," who tells his readers that he had
found the prototype of Mr. Canning's jest in a French composi-
tion called " Le chef-d'oeuvre d'un inconnu, poeme, &c." " Its ob-
ject," says the writer, " is to expose the jargon of criticism. The
poem has an affected silliness (niaiserie) of thought and style."
So far, the resemblance is close enough, and the opening of both
criticisms, extolling the simplicity of the poems and the absence
of invocations, are much alike. But there is nothing surprising
in this. The form of such travesties existed long before, and had
been frequently employed by other writers. The merit consisted,
not in applying this mode of ridicule, but in applying it effective-
ly. And this merit may be freely accorded to the essay in the
" Microcosm," since it is still remembered for its point, which
outlives the occasion, while all similar specimens of that sort of
satire are forgotten. This is the final test. Besides, it may be
reasonably doubted whether Mr. Canning, then a school-boy at
Eton, had ever heard of his French predecessor, who, it seems,
published a fourth edition of his " cAe/-cfcewW in 1758, in two
volumes : a fact, as to bulk, which goes a great way to account
for the rapidity with which it sunk into oblivion.

56 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

nor glaring with the varnish of unnatural metaphor. The
whole is plain and uniform : so much so, indeed, that I
should hardly be surprised if some morose readers were
to conjecture that the poet had been thus simple rather
from necessity than choice ; that he had been restrained
not so much by chastity of judgment as sterility of ima-
gination."

The poised and turgid pomp can not be mistaken.
His pure taste, which took delight in the perspi-
cuity of Addison, revolted from the three-piled
grandeur of Johnson. He was never reconciled
to writers of that class, and to the last disliked the
glitter of Junius. Fox also held the style of Junius
in aversion, as might be expected from the large-
ness of his intellect and the copiousness of his elo-
quence.

The strong English temper of Mr. Canning's
mind, his earnest nationality, paramount even in
its prejudices, constantly breaks out in these es-
says. Wherever opportunity offers (and some-
times he went out of his way to make it) he stands
up for the English character, and throws himself
on the defensive at the first approach of art or fash-
ion to tamper with its sturdy simplicity. Eng-
land was his party from the beginning, and contin-
ued so to the end.

At Eton he first discovered a political bias.
The boy was an ardent Whig. His noble poem
on " The Slavery of Greece," in one of the early
numbers of the " Microcosm," shows that he in-
herited his father's principles, which he knew how
to set off with a higher grace. But he gave a more
practical proof of his opinions on the occasion of a
contested election for Windsor, when he threw
himself boldly into the popular tumult in opposi-
tion to the court nominee. There was no mistake
here. Students who are visited in their dreams
by visions of Marathon and Thermopylae must not

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 57

be held too strictly responsible for their classical
enthusiasm, if it lean (as it always does !) toward
the side of public liberty; but here was a question
of the day, between might and right — into which
forms such struggles, at that time, but too plainly
resolved themselves. And the young politician,
with the whole collected force of his mind, was
found battling on the side of the people ; speak-
ing, huzzaing, swelling the shout and chorus of the
weaker party, which, being the weaker, is gener-
ally the first chosen of generous and heroic na-
tures. But how could it be otherwise 1 His ed-
ucation had been all along superintended by his
uncle, one of the most zealous Liberals of the day.
His Eton, and afterward his Oxford vacations, were
passed either at his uncle's, or at Mr. Crewe's, or
at Mr. Legh's, of Cheshire,* or among the Sheri-
dans — all of the same color. What politics was
he likely to hear in such circles 1 or where could
they have been so temptingly presented to his im-
agination? His progress, too, was watched with
daily interest by Fox, who calculated upon attach-
ing him to the Whigs ; and he was already looked
upon with such confidence as their legitimate prop-
erty, that Sheridan absolutely announced his com-
ing in the House of Commons.t

The death of his uncle just before he went to
Oxford removed at once the example and the au-
thority under which his youthful convictions were
formed ; and farther endangered their permanen-
cy by separating him from his early associations,
and casting him, at the impressionable age of sev-

* A connection of the Rev. Mr. Legh, of Ashbourne, in Der-
byshire, who was an uncle of Mr. Canning's.

f This was on the occasion of Mr. Jenkinson's first speech in
Parliament, which excited much applause on the ministerial side.
Sheridan personally alluded to Mr. Canning, and declared that
when he appeared he would far eclipse the talents of his friend.

58 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

enteen, into a university hostile, by tradition, to the
cultivation of popular sentiments. In going to Ox-
ford, he had passed out of the atmosphere of Whig-
gery, and there was little left, at least no urgent
or direct influence, to draw him back again. But
it was not so easy to shake off his Eton impres-
sions. The sudden antagonism to which they were
exposed only confirmed them the more. He was
a stronger Liberal, with more thoughtful and de-
liberate purpose, in his scholastic retirement at
Christ Church than amid the riot of a Windsor
election. There was a touch of chivalry in this,
and an evidence of that clinging affection for old
ties, which many years afterward made him revert
to the scenes and sports of his boyhood, the play-
ground and the Montem, with feelings of unaltered
delight.*

In 1788 Mr. Canning entered Christ Church
College, Oxford. His Eton companions were near-
ly all scattered ; the only relative who took an in-
terest in his education was gone, and he was com-
mitted, in this critical juncture, to the sole guid-

* He was attached to the old haunts to the last, and scarcely
ever omitted a Montem. His own enjoyment, on such occasions,
was to the full as real as that of the boys ; and he entered with
such unflinching zest into the hilarious humor of the scene, that
the statesman was soon forgotten in the Etonian. It was at the
Montem of 1823 that he met Mr. Brougham, for the first time af-
ter that fierce contention in the House of Commons about Mr.
Canning's conduct on the Catholic claims, for which they were
both nearly committed to the custody of the sergeant-at-arms.
Their political enmity, if either of them entertained such a feel-
ing, vanished on the instant ; and Mr. Canning stretched out his
hand to his adversary, to the infinite delight of the spectators.
The action was a trifle in itself, but at such a moment, and on a
spot sacred to happier associations than those of the House of
Commons, it touched a chord of the human heart which never
fails in its response to generous impulses. At the Eton regatta
of the following summer Mr. Canning was the sitter in the " ten-
oar," the post of distinction to which the most illustrious visitor
is promoted. We are told that he huzzaed with the loudest of
them as the boats shot past the crowded shores.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 59

ance of his own discretion. But his habits were
already formed, and he was safe. Good taste, no
less than prudence, led him to shun the frivolous
waste and life-consumption of the majority of his
contemporaries. He " consorted" with none of
these,- restraining himself for higher aims.

New friendships sprung up at Christ Church, of
a class materially calculated, to influence, if not to
decide, the subsequent direction of his life. Among
his more immediate associates were the Hon. Mr.
Jenkinson, afterward Earl of Liverpool, Mr. Stur-
ges Bourne, Lord Holland, Lord Carlisle, Lord
Seaford, Lord Granville, and Lord. Boringdon.
Most of these gentlemen, especially Mr. Jenkin-
son, were educated with a specific view to a par-
ticipation in the government of the country ; and
Mr. Canning, although he could reckon upon none
of the advantages of patronage or hereditary posi-
tion, was soon admitted to the freedom of their in-
tercourse by virtue of claims more powerful and
commanding. His wit, eloquence, and scholar-
ship established an ascendency among them, never
wholly free, to be sure, from the jealousies of rank,
but always superior to its naked accidents. He
was here, for the first time, placed upon a familiar
footing with lords and statesmen in training; here
he took his first lesson in aristocracy ; and he used
its admonitions wisely. And it is something no
less to the purpose to add, that although political
differences frequently separated him in after life
from some of these intimate companions of his col-
lege days, he retained their personal attachment to
the close. The friendships of his boyhood never
suffered check or interruption. He was no less
happy in the fidelity of his friends than in the
choice of them.

The closest intimacy existed between Mr. Can-

60 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

nine: and Mr. Jenkinson. The latter had entered
Christ Church in the preceding spring or summer.
They were constantly together, and their most fre-
quent companion was Lord Henry Spencer, third
son of the Duke of Marlborough. This young no-
bleman was a few months younger than Mr. Can-
ning, had been his inseparable associate at Eton,
and accompanied him to Oxford. Of all the writ-
ers in the " Microcosm," he approached the near-
est to his friend in the delicacy and polish of the
slight compositions he contributed to its pages.
His " Ars Mentiendi" affords a very remarkable
specimen of his cultivated talents, so early devel-
oped, and so soon cut off. The death of Lord
Henry, in the very flower of youth, was a source
of inexpressible sorrow to his friends, and to none
more than to the chosen companion of his boyhood.
Before he had reached the age of twenty he was
called to the diplomatic service. In the following
year the grave responsibilities of the embassy at
the Hague devolved wholly upon him, in conse-
quence of the absence of Lord Auckland, and he
discharged his trust with so much ability, that he
was soon afterward appointed envoy extraordinary
to the court of Stockholm. Here, worn out by
the premature activity of his mind, he died in his
twenty-fifth year. No man ever gave fairer earn-
est of capacity to serve his country, or left behind
him a purer reputation.

While these three congenial spirits remained at
the University they maintained the strictest friend-
ship. Mr. Canning was the center of attraction ;
the soul of their mock debates, their trials of wit,
and classical controversies ; and his genius render-
ed forever memorable the nodes coenceque of Christ
Church.*

* Mr. Canning always looked back with affectionate interest to

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 61

The vacations were generally passed in some
country house, where the accomplishments of the
student were exercised upon lighter themes. It
was the age of scrap-books and vers de societe ;
every boudoir had its volume ready to receive the
offerings of the visitor, who, if he had the slightest
reputation or celebrity of any kind, was put under
contribution by collectors, whose levy it was vain
to resist. Mr. Canning's penalties in this way were
innumerable ; things thrown off on the impulse of
the moment, intended onlv for the moment, and so
exquisitely trivial that, even if we had the power,
it would be scarcely fair to submit them to the or-
deal of publication. Most of these gay trifles are,
no doubt, swept away in the common ruin of all
old-fashioned memorials, trinkets, autographs, and
the like ; and many a dusty page, full of antiquated
gallantry and tea-table wit, has shared the fate of
the hereditary receipt-books, and gone the way of
all lumber. Any attempt to trace Mr. Canning's
•sportive effusions on the sundry occasions that pro-
voked and entrapped his youth into scrap-books,
hermitages, mazes, grottoes, showers of rain, and
similar suggestions, incidents, and places, would
now be quite hopeless. The loose leaves scribbled
over with precious impromptus are scattered — per-
haps to the winds or the flames ; and, except here
and there in some revered nook in a far-off country
mansion, where things are husbanded up in the
alphabeted niches of old secretaries, and ticketed

this period of his life, and was a frequent visitor at Christ Church
after he took his degrees. On a subsequent occasion he wrote
two copies of verses for the installation of the Duke of Portland
as Chancellor of the University, which were spoken in the thea-
ter— Mr. Burke and Mr. Windham being among the audience —
by Mr. Dawkins and Lord John Beresford, afterward archbishop
of Dublin. 1 have sought in vain for these poems, nor is there
any repository in which the Encaenia of that installation are pre-
served.

F

62 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

like choice specimens in a museum, it would be
idle to hunt after such relics.

But I am fortunately enabled, through private
channels, and by the aid of a valued friendship, un-
wearied in discharging offices of kindness, to gratify
the reader's curiosity with a sample or two of these
early verses, the interest of which arises chiefly
from the period of life they illustrate ; for their in-
trinsic merit, stripped of personal associations, is
not very remarkable. This is generally true of all
juvenile poems ; yet the popular appetite for de-
vouring the first fruits of men of genius is not the
less keen on that account.

Among the recollections of Crewe Hall is a lit-
tle jeu d' esprit, which has as good a right to be pre-
served as most quips. Mr. Canning, then about
eighteen or nineteen years of age, was walking in
the grounds with Mrs. Crewe, who had just lost
her favorite dog Quon, and wanted an epitaph for
him. The dog was buried close at hand, near the
dairy-house. Mr. Canning protested he could not
make epitaphs ; but the lady was not to be denied,
and so he revenged himself with the following :

EPITAPH ON MRS. CREWE'S DOG.

" Poor Quon lies buried near this dairy,
And is not this a sad quandary."*

On another occasion he inscribed the following
verses in the scrap-book, on leaving Crewe Hall :

LINES OCCASIONED BY MRS. CREWE HAVING MAINTAINED, IN A
CONVERSATION AT HER FARM, "THAT ALL NERVOUS AFFEC-
TIONS PRODUCE A CRAVING APPETITE."

" ' Happy the fair, who, here retired,
By sober contemplation fired,

* This will recall Sheridan's well-known epigram on Lady
Payne's monkey — the pretty and ill-used Lady Payne.

" Alas ! poor ]Ned,
My monkey's dead,
I had rather by half
It had been Sir Ralph."

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 63

Delight from Nature's works can draw.'

('Twas thus I spoke when first I saw

That cottage, which, with chastest hand,

Simplicity and taste have planned.)

' Happy, who, grosser cares resign'd,

Content with books to feed her mind,

Can ieave life's luxuries behind ;

Content within this humble cell,

With peace and temperance to dwell,

Her food, the fruits— her drink, the well.

'Twas thus of old — ' But as 1 spoke,

Before my eyes what dainties smoke !

Not such as Eremites of old,

In many a holy table enroll'd,

Drawing from but their frugal hoard,

With nuts and apples spread the board ;

But such, as fit for paunch divine,

Might tempt a modern saint to dine.

Then thus, perceiving my surprise,

Which stared confest through both my eyes,

To vindicate her wiser plan,

The fair philosopher began —

4 Young gentlemen, no doubt you think'

(And here she paused a while to drink)

'All that you've said is mighty fine ;

But won't you taste a glass of wine ?

You think these cates are somewhat curious,

And for a hermit too luxurious ;

But such old fograms (Lord preserve us)

Knew no such thing as being nervous.

Else had they found, what now I tell ye,

How much the mind affects the belly ;

Had found that when the mind's oppress'd,

Confused, elated, warmed, distress'd,

The body keeps an equal measure

In sympathy of pain or pleasure ;

And, whether moved with joy or sorrow,

From food alone, relief can borrow.

Sorrow's, indeed, beyond all question,

The best specific for digestion ;

Which, when with moderate force it rages,

A chicken or a chop assuages.

But, to support some weightier grief,

Grant me, ye gods, a round of beef !

Thus then, since abstract speculation

Must set the nerves in agitation,

Absurd the plan, with books and study

To feed the mind — yet starve the body.

These are my tenets, and in me

Practice and principle agree.

See, then, beneath this roof combined

Food for the body and the mind.

64 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

A couplet here, and there a custard,
While sentiment by turns, and mustard,
Bedew with tears the glistening eye.
Behold me now with Otway sigh,
Now reveling in pigeon pie ;
And now, in apt transition, taken
From Bacon's Works — to eggs and bacon.'

" Dear Mrs. Crewe, this wondrous knowledge
I own I ne'er had gained at college.
You are my tut'ress ; would you quite
Confirm your wavering proselyte ?
I ask but this, to show your sorrow
At my departure hence, to-morrow,
Add to your dinner, for my sake,
One supernumerary steak !"

At Mrs. Legh's, in Cheshire, he left behind him
many similar tokens of whim and pleasantry. The
Leghs were an old county family, and divided
with the Davenports the dominion of Cheshire,
where it was a common saying, that "the Leghs
were as plenty as fleas, and the Davenports as dogs'
tails." The following amusing lines were address-
ed to Mrs. Legh on her wedding-day, in reference
to a present of a pair of shooting breeches she had
made to Canning, and were probably written during
the early part of his Oxford course :

TO MRS. LEGH.

" While all to this auspicious day
Well pleased their heartfelt homage pay,
And sweetly smile and softly say

A hundred civil speeches ;
My muse shall strike her tuneful strings,
Nor scorn the gift her duty brings,
Though humble be the theme she sings—

A pair of shooting breeches.

" Soon shall the tailor's subtle art
Have made them tight, and spruce, and smart,
And fastened well in every part

With twenty thousand stitches ;
Mark, then, the moral of my song,
Oh ! may your loves but prove as strong,
And wear as well, and last as long,

As these, my shooting breeches.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 65

" And when to ease the load of life,
Of private care, and public strife,
My lot shall give to me a wife,

I ask not rank or riches ;
For worth like thine alone I pray,
Temper like thine, serene and gay,
And formed like thee to give away,

Not wear herself, the breeches."

Poetical epistles were still in vogue — that quaint
old fashion of dressing up the sentiments of love
and friendship in fine ceremonial suits. Odes and
elegies were going out, or gone, and the epistles
were following them ; but the taste yet lingered
here and there, just as we sometimes see scraps
of antiquity scattered about a modern drawing-
room. Of these epistles, the majority were very
grand and solemn, having pretty much the tone of
somber Christmas pieces or historical tapestries, in
which fat-ribbed ships, mounted in soft tranquillity
on rows of waves, are made to represent storms,
and huge-limbed women are thrown into the fiercest
attitudes, to make them look as if their hearts were
breaking. But there were also epistles which had
a more direct bearing upon the lower world of
reality — sportive communications, in which Lord
William recounted an incident of indolent gallantry
to Lady Ellen, or depicted the horrors of ennui in
some country seat ; all intended to be particular-
ly gay and buoyant, the sprightliness being pre-
served against vulgarity by that natural dullness,
which has always been considered, in such cases,
a genteeler sort of attic salt.

What a lively influence such productions must
have exercised on Mr. Canning's quick sense of the
ridiculous may be easily conceived, and no doubt
the scrap-books contained many a jest of his upon
them. The following apparently good-humored
satire upon these moping and ludicrous epistles is
the only MS. of Mr. Canning's of this class which
5 F 2

66 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

I have been fortunate enough to obtain. Lord
Boringdon (raised to the peerage in 1815, as Earl
of Morley) and Lord Granville were both among
Mr. Canning's intimate college companions ; and
the Lady Elizabeth, alluded to in the poem, was
one of the daughters of the Duke of Marlborough,
and sister to Mr. Canning's friend, Lord Henry
Spencer. Her ladyship married her first cousin
(a quiet gentlemanly person, distinguished by noth-
ing but a great love of music), the son of Lord
Charles Spencer, and brother of William Spencer,
the dandy and overpraised pet poet of the Devon-
shire House circle.

POETICAL EPISTLE FROM LORD BORINGDON TO LORD GRAN-
VILLE (L. gower).

" Oft you have asked me, Granville, why
Of late I heave the frequent sigh —
Why, moping, melancholy, low,
From supper, Commons, wine, I go —
Why lours my mind, by care oppress'd ;
By day no peace, by night no rest.
Hear, then, my friend (and ne'er you knew
A tale so tender, and so true),
Hear what, though shame my tongue restrain,
My pen with freedom shall explain.

Say, Granville, do you not remember,
About the middle of November,
When Blenheim's hospitable lord
Received us at his cheerful board,
How fair the Ladies Spencer smiled,
Enchanting, witty, courteous, mild?
And mark'd you not how many a glance
Across the table, shot by chance
From fair Eliza's graceful form,
Assailed and took my heart by storm ?
And marked you not with earnest zeal
I asked her, if she'd have some veal 1
And how, when conversation's charms
Fresh vigor gave to love's alarms,
My heart was scorch'd, and burn'd to tinder,
When talking to her at the winder?

These facts premised, you can't but guess
The cause of my uneasiness,
For you have heard as well as I
That she'll be married speedily —

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 67

And then (my grief more plain to tell)

Soft cares, sweet fears, fond hopes, farewell !

But still, though false the fleeting dream,

Indulge a while the tender theme,

And hear, had fortune yet been kind,

How bright the prospect of the mind.

Oh ! had I had it in my power

To wed her — with a suited dower —

And proudly bear the beauteous maid

To Saltrarn's venerable shade.*"

(Or if she liked not woods at Saltram, •

Why, nothing's easier than to alter 'em.)

Then had I tasted bliss sincere,

And happy been from year to year.

How changed this scene ! for now, my Granville,

Another match is on the anvil.

And I, a widow'd dove, complain,

And find no refuge from my pain —

Save that of pitying Spencer's sister,

Who has lost a lord, and gained a Mister."

Reputations acquired by such lively and ready
talents are sometimes vague, and often magnified
in proportion. But in this instance the power of
making verses (such as they were) off-hand upon
any subject was associated with acquisitions so
solid, that the pleasure faculty, instead of endanger-
ing Mr. Canning's scholastic character, only helped
to confirm its ri^ht to the admiration it received on
all sides. Great things were expected from him
in the University, and he realized still greater. His
orations, highly colored by the liberal doctrines of
the day, were universally applauded for their ele-
gance and symmetry ; and his Latin verses display-
ed not merely the resources, but the cultivated
taste of the ripe scholar. He contested the prize
for " The aboriginal Britons" with the Rev. Dr.
Richards, and was beaten; but had the glory of
transcending all competitors in the " Iter ad Mec-
cara" — the best Latin prize poem Oxford has ever

* The seat of the Earl of Morley — a beautiful residence with-
in a few miles of Plymouth, near the Exeter-road.

68 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

produced.* This work affords singular evidence
of the value of a close study of Latin poetry — that
is, of Virgil and Lucretius — with a view to the
uses of specific and definite imagery. It is full of
examples of this sort. The distinction will be ob-
vious on comparison with his other serious poem
(in English), "Ulm and Trafalgar," which deals
in the most "loose generalities and commonplaces.
The fluency of this poem deserves special praise ;
and the description of the crescent standard of the
Mohammedans,

" Vexillis fluitantibus intertexta,
Sanctum insigne micant crescentis cornua lunae,"

may be cited as a wonderful instance of plastic
Latinity in a modern.

His studies were pursued with unremitting dili-
gence. There never was a collegiate career more
distinguished by brilliant achievements and inde-
fatigable industry. The character he built up at
the University was in itself a prediction of the suc-
cess that awaited him in the ambitious paths to
which he aspired.

But great obstacles were in his way. He pos-
sessed none of the magic facilities of wealth, or
patronage, or influential connections. Every thing
depended on his own genius — and poor genius had
a hard battle to fight in those days when it chanced
to be on the wrong side of power. The worst
omen of all was that he was reared in a Whig
nursery, and believed to be a disciple of Fox.
This was fatal under the reign of Pitt, especially
at a moment when the ministerial imagination was

* This poem was recited by Mr. Canning in the theater on the
26th of June, 1789, on the occasion of Lord Crewe's anniversary
commemoration of benefactors to the University. The theater
was unusually full, and presented a distinguished display of fash-
ion and beauty.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 69

reeking with the horrors of the French Revolution.
But omens, like dreams, must sometimes be read
backward. And so it happened with this student
of Christ Church when he quitted the University
and went up to London to study the law at Lin-
coln's Inn.

III.

LONDON AT THE CLOSE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CEN-
TURY. THE CONVENT.

London, toward the close of the last century,
was a perilous place for a young man just come
from the seclusion of the University, and settling
himself down to read law in some dusky chambers
in Lincoln's Inn, with the echoes of a living world
of strange and suggestive excitement ringing in
his ears. It was no longer the London to which
the young imagination used to look forward as to
a great moving panorama in the holydays. The
panorama was there, but its jubilant aspect had
given way to gloom and dismay. One predominant
idea filled every man's mind ; groups were to be
seen in the streets exchanging' hurried words, and
hastily dispersing ; the revels of the taverns had
subsided into whispering coteries, arguing the signs
of the times with " bated breath;"* even the play-

* The fear of spies was universal, and led to the abandonment
of many an agreeable association which had nothing whatever
to do with politics. An instance of this kind occurred in Liver-
pool. A few gentlemen had been in the habit of meeting once a
fortnight at each other's houses, and devoting the hour before sup-
per to the reading of papers, or the discussion of literary ques-
tions. Among the members of this little party, which consisted
of about a dozen persons, were Mr. Roscoe, Dr. Currie (the au-
thor of the " Life of Burns"), Professor Smyth, the Rev. W. Shep-
herd, and Dr. Rutter. " But even this peaceful and unoffending
company," says Mr. Roscoe's biographer, " was not exempt from
the violence of party feeling." Upon the appearance of Mr. Pitt's

70 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

houses were unsafe for audiences and actors, and
opened their doors under surveillance.* Startling
things were happening in the world : the American
war — the French Revolution — the vibration of the
distant earthquake agitating the length and breadth
of England — open defiance in Scotland — Tooke
and Hardy in the Old Bailey — Muir and Palmer in
the hulks — and Pitt, to carry off the discontents,
embarking in a war of principles with France.
The whole country was in a state of terror, and
London was the focus of the commotion.

The town was full of clubs, political juntas, and
debating societies. The club was a special prod-
uct of the age. With something of the easy gos-
siping characteristics of Will's and Button's, and

proclamation against seditious meetings, and the consequent odi-
um in which all who professed liberal principles were involved,
the Literary Society found their meetings viewed with such jeal-
ousy and suspicion, that it was thought proper, for the time, to dis-
continue them : nor were they afterward resumed. Mr. Roscoe,
writing to Lord Lansdowne on the subject, says : " Under the
present system, every man is called on to be a spy upon his broth-
er ;" and adds " that the object of their meeting was purely liter-
ary, yet that he had good reason to believe that they were pointed
out to government by the collector of the customs." — " Life of Ros-
coe," i., 128. Such was the prevailing phrensy, that the liberal
newspapers were overawed by threats, and compelled to disavow
their principles ; and although there were at that time four week-
ly papers published in the town of Liverpool, there was not one
that would have dared to admit a contradiction of the gross cal-
umnies which were daily circulated against the Reformers.

* One example will suffice to show the fright of the managers.
A worthy gentleman who glorified himself upon an innocent de-
votion to the practice of archery, being struck with an ardent de-
sire to exhibit the art worthily upon the stage, wrote an opera
called " Helvetic Liberty ; or, the Lass of the Lakes," founded on
the dramatic story of William Tell. " I presented my opera to
the theater," says the honest Kentish bowman, " but in that par-
adise I found politics to be the forbidden fruit, lest the people's
eyes should be opened, and they become as gods, knowing good
and evil : in brief, my piece was politely returned, with an assu-
rance that it was too much in favor of the liberties of the people to ob-
tain the lord chamberlain's license for representation." A straw
shows the course of the winds, and this straw was thrown up in
1792.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 71

something of the wit of the Mermaid, " so nimble
and so full of subtle flame," the modern club had
fiercer pleasures and a more practical bearing
upon the transactions of the day. It was invented
to meet certain social and political exigencies which
were hourly expanding into broader development.
Young men fresh from college ; sprigs of aristocracy
hunting up places or " sensations ;" fashionable
roues ; and rich fools ready to be snared by the
first springe, formed the chief material out of which
these clubs were created. They were invaluable
to the scouts of the great factions, whose activity
in scouring the country for raw recruits was won-
derfully assisted by having such capital head-quar-
ters to billet them upon. When Pitt began his
career, only a few years before (curiously enough,
too, as a student at Lincoln's Inn), he saw the ad-
vantages to be derived from the clubs, and seized
upon them with his unfailing sagacity. If he did
not originate the system, he was one of the first to
discover its political and parliamentary uses, and
under his auspices it grew to maturity. There was
scarcely a man of figure about town who was not
drawn into one or more of them : some for sheer
publicity, and the ton of the thing ; others, the mush-
rooms, to get brevet rank in general company; and
not a few to be duped, cleaned out, and laughed
at*

* The choicest club in Pitt's younger days was Goosetree's, so
called after the man who kept the house, since known as the
Shakspeare Gallery. It was limited to twenty-five members, and
included among them Pitt, Pratt, G. Cavendish, Bankes, Wind-
ham, and Wilberforce. White's, Brooke's, Boodle's, the Turk's
Head, and Miles and Evans's were also leading clubs. Tickell,
Sheridan's brother-in-law, put some of the celebrities, who made
themselves conspicuous in these places, into sp< kling couplets,
which still survive among the jeux d'esprit of th day. Gibbon
rapping his box, " good-natured Devon," Beauclerc

" Oft shall Fitzpatrick's wit, and Stanhope's 'ase,
And Burgoyne's manly sense, unite to please "

72 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

The apparent business of the clubs was to idle
in the windows and yawn all day, sup at midnight,
and drink and gamble late into the morning. Wil-
berforce, in spite of his conscience and his diary,
was caught the moment he came to town, and
whisked into the vortex, although he fought man-
fully against the cards and the Champagne. The
temptations were too subtle even for him, and he
fell on the outside, just where they wanted him.
The prodigal genius that flung about its enchant-
ments so adroitly, lured him on insensibly, until at
last he grew into such sworn brotherhood with Pitt,
that he was never able to perform his public duty,
when it took an adverse direction to the " heaven-
born minister," without an apology from his private
feelings. It was quite pitiable to see how this
amiable struggle with an anti-political friendship
prostrated his powers and weakened his utility.
He could not even move an amendment upon the
war, against which his most solemn convictions re-
volted, without some sort of personal deprecation,

Lord Stanhope was the marked man of the Upper House, as pres-
ident of the " Revolution Society"— the uncle of Pitt, the father
of Lady Hester, the famous " Citizen" Stanhope, who carried his
republicanism so far as to obliterate his arms from his plate and
carriages ; Fitzpatrick, no less prominent in the Commons, was
still more distinguished in private by the laxity of his life and the
versatility of his talents ; while accomplished Burgoyne enjoyed
a quieter reputation from the flowing " gentility" of his writings.
But these were not the only stars in TickelPs airy verses.
Brookes himself came in for a snatch of the immortality, and
appears to have deserved it as well as he could — the " liberal
Brookes,"

" Who, nursed in clubs, disdains a vulgar trade,
Exults to trust, and blushes to be paid."

There was, unluckily, too much truth in this disreputable jest.
A scurrilous wor't, called the " Jockey Club," says that Lord John
Townshend (tr whom it falsely attributes these verses) lived for
a long time at drookes's expense, and never paid him. However
we may be d* inclined to credit this assertion, there is no doubt
that large b? <ances were due to Brookes at his death.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 73

which utterly deprived him and his appeal of all
weight and influence.

It would be a great mistake to suppose that the
clubs were simply places for libertine intrigues,
where wits and debauchees did nothing but discuss
dice, women, and horses, and get drunk overnight.
There was an undercurrent which commanded
the depths of these licentious orgies, and imper-
ceptibly swayed their courses. While the surface
presented all the dissolute attractions of fashion-
able dissipation, the real purpose beneath was to
strengthen and extend the resources of party, to
catch hesitating votes, to impound stray cattle like
Wilberforce, to hatch cabals, and premeditate po-
litical imbroglios, to hold extra cabinet councils,
and to plan the incidents and cast the parts of the
great Parliamentary drama.

No means were left untried, in public or private,
to accomplish the same purposes. The club was
a brilliant decoy, and discharged its functions with
admirable effect. But there were remoter ends to
be served, and other " sweet voices" to be won,
which required spells of a different kind.

The influence of the clubs upon private society
was not equal to their power of mischief. Their
disorderly habits placed them in an equivocal po-
sition, and nothing escaped from them into the cir-
cles but occasional flashes of their symposia, trans-
mitted through such conductors as Hare and
Jekyll. It was necessary to employ more direct
tactics in the management of the led lords and sim-
pering toadies, who, picking up in London the
latest political fashions, returned, at the close of
the season, to announce them authoritatively in the
country. These were the tactics in which the
Whigs excelled.

The Prince of Wales was avowedly at the head

G

74 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

of the opposition. He not only possessed the rep-
utation of being the " first gentleman of the age,"
but was resolved to maintain it, in its princely sense
at least, by the super-royal splendor of his expend-
iture. It was nothing to the purpose that the
people were the munificent sufferers who paid for
these luxuries. In 1787 Parliament had discharged
his royal highness's debts (nearly d£200,000), on a
full assurance from his royal highness, guarantied
in a royal message by his majesty, that he would
incur no more ; but a very few years elapsed be-
fore the prince came down to the House again, and
denied point-blank that he had ever promised to
live within his income, giving at the same time the
best possible proof of his determination not to do
so, by requesting the Commons to pay off' the lia-
bilities he had incurred in the interim, amounting
to no less than =£600,000. To do him bare justice,
there never was a prince of the blood who enter-
tained so large a contempt for the integrity of a
promise of any sort, or who had so grand a way of
overrunning the constable. The festivities of
Carlton House were famous all over Europe. The
taste displayed at the prince's parties was worthy
of their Oriental magnificence ; for in the midst of
the grossest depravities, he managed to surround
himself with intellect and social talent of the highest
order, and to secure for his table every foreigner
of celebrity who visited the country. By such
means he sustained his political position, and com-
municated a tone to society that had an important
influence upon those detached masses of floating
opinion, which, although they never become re-
solved into a compact body, exercise a species of
irregular power over the public mind. The pres-
tige of the prince's name was formidable in the
fashionable world. Even his vices were set off

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 75

with such brilliancy and grace of style as to render
them attractive : moral repugnance was fascinated
into admiration, and his showy and illusive popu-
larity prospered upon his very delinquencies.

We suppose it is a providential dispensation in
royal families, as it is sheer vulgar cunning in other
families, which makes the son espouse contrary
opinions to the father. Certain it is, that when-
ever England has been favored with a Prince of
Wales, she has always found him heart and hand
with the popular party — until he was called to the
throne, when he left his principles to the next heir,
to play the same game over again. By this in-
genious political hedging, royalty makes so safe a
book, that it can trim the odds to meet any human
contingency* Such were the balanced politics
of St. James's Palace and Carlton House. The
prince bestowed himself upon the Whigs. Every
triumph they achieved in the senate or on the hust-
ings was followed by an ovation in Pall-Mall ; and
the jubilee was taken up in Devonshire House and
Lower Grosvenor-street, and throughout the prin-
cipal houses of the aristocracy, until it went the
whole round. These assemblies presented irre-
sistible charms to the younger branches of the no-
bility, and unclaimed country gentlemen, through
whose unconscious agency the opposition wisely
and untiringly labored to augment and consolidate

* It is worthy of note that the very first time the Prince of
"Wales (afterward George IV.) spoke in the House of Lords, he
announced himself as a friend of the people, and solemnly de-
clared that he would never abandon them ! This was in 1783.
" I was educated in the principle," exclaimed his royal highness,
" and I shall ever preserve it, of a reverence for the constitution-
al liberties of the people ; and as on those liberties the happiness
of the people depend, I am determined, as far as my interest can

have any force, to support them I exist by the love, the

friendship, and the benevolence of the people, and them I never
will forsake as long as I live." Let history draw the moral.

76 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

their strength. Nor did they rely solely upon the
admitted supremacy of their intellectual resources
— the wit of Selwyn and Sheridan — the inexhausti-
ble pleasantry of Hare — the universality of St.
Leger, embalmed in the prince's joke, that he was
" open to all parties, and influenced by none," al-
luding to his indiscriminate enjoyment of the hos-
pitalities of both sides — the irony of Curran — the
racy eloquence of Erskine — or the versatility of
Fox, more wonderful than all the rest. They
brought still more captivating sorceries into play
— an artillery of eyes, a thousand times more ef-
fective and convincing than all the logic of Parlia-
ment or the seductions of place, if they had it to
bestow. The Duchess of Devonshire, renowned
for her charms and her wit, and the beautiful Mrs.
(afterward Lady) Crewe, immortalized in the
poetical gallantries of Fox and Sheridan, were the
enchantresses who presided over these bewitching
scenes. This ascendency in the literary and politi-
cal circles is attested by many memorable incidents,
and it was preserved by a zeal, activity, and ad-
dress which can scarcely be appreciated in these
days of comparative quietude. They lived in the
storm and daily struggle of contending factions —
they took part in the agitation, and contributed
largely, by the refinement and irreproachable pu-
rity of their lives, to elevate and dignify the cause
to which they were devoted. They served the
Whigs, not only by gathering together their scatter-
ed forces, and inspiring them with union and con-
fidence, but by drawing in new and available talent
wherever it appeared. To the influence of the
Duchess of Devonshire is attributed the accession
of Lord Grey, who had just arrived at his majority,
and was irresolute which side to take, but inclined
to the ministry, when her grace determined his

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 77

doubts, and won him over to Fox and his party.
The prize was a jewel of price ! He was only
twenty-two when he entered the Commons, and
his first speech — the initiative step of a long and
distinguished career of statesmanship — is still the
greatest first speech upon record. By such signal
instances of well-directed social power the Duchess
of Devonshire acquired that devotion from her
contemporaries so happily expressed in Fox's
charade ;* but her domestic character displayed
traits of tenderness, which in any circumstances
must have commanded their admiration.f

Mrs. Crewe was the reigning toast of the Whigs,
a distinction gracefully conferred upon her by the
prince himself; and whenever the banquet reach-
ed its culminating point of complimentary efferves-
cence, the homage,

"To buff and blue,
And Mrs. Crewe,"

was never forgotten.^ She was the most beautiful

* The occasion is well known. The duchess asked Fox to
write a charade. He requested to be supplied with a subject,
when she suggested herself. The impromptu charade was writ-
ten in pencil on the back of a letter.

" My first is myself in a very short word,
My second's a plaything,
And you are my third." (Idol.)

f She was the first lady of rank in England who nursed her
own children. When Roscoe translated the " Balia" of Luigi
Tansillo, he requested permission to introduce her name into the
poem in reference to that circumstance, as the poet himself had
introduced those of the noble ladies of his own country :

" Le Colonne, le Ursine, le Gonsaghe ;"
and she consented without hesitation, in the desire of extending
the practice by the force of her salutary example.

J The origin of the toast was an entertainment in celebration
of Fox's return for Westminster in 1784. The prince had given
a sumptuous fete at Carlton House in the morning, which was
followed up on the same night by an assembly at Mrs. Crewe's,
in Lower Grosvenor-street. Every person present was dressed in
the colors of the party, buff and blue (from whence the " Edin-
burgh Review" subsequently adopted its livery), and after supper

G 2

78 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

woman of her time,* possessed great conversation-
al vivacity, and frequently made it tell with the live-
liest effect upon the vulnerable points of Toryism.
" So Pitt means to come in," she exclaimed to
Wilberforce, when Lord Temple resigned in 1783 ;
" well, he may do what he likes during the holydays,
but it will be a mince-pie administration, depend
upon it." And the mince-pie administration im-
mediately became the by- word of the clubs.

The Duchess of Portland — doomed not very long
afterward, unfortunately, to rat with her husband —
took a conspicuous part in these dazzling entertain-

his royal highness concluded a speech, sparkling with gallantry,
by proposing, amid rapturous acclamation,

"BurT and blue,
And Mrs. Crewe."

To which the lady merrily replied,

"Buff and blue,
And all of you."

The anecdote is preserved by Wraxall. — " Posthumous Memoirs,"
i., 17. The dress was a blue coat, orange collar, and buttons with
" King and Constitution" upon them. This was the costume
Home Tooke, Hardy, and the Reformers used to wear, for the
wearing of which, or for what it implied, they were indicted as
traitors only ten years afterward.

* Madame d'Arblay visited her at Hampstead in 1792, when she
had passed her zenith, and was still perfectly lovely. " The room
was dark, and she had a veil to her bonnet, half down, and with
this aid she looked still in a full blaze of beauty. I was wholly
astonished. Her bloom, perfectly natural, is as high as that of
Augusta Lock when in her best looks, and the form of her face is
so exquisitely perfect, that my eye never met with it without fresh
admiration. She is certainly, in my eyes, the most completely a
beauty of any woman 1 ever saw. I know not, even now, any fe-
male in her first youth who could bear the comparison. She ugli-
fies every thing near her.'" — " Diary," v., 313.

This remarkable woman was the only daughter of Fulke Gre-
ville, Esq., for some time British minister at the court of Munich.
She was married, in 1766, to Mr. Crewe, who was raised to the
peerage by Fox in 1806. After a life spent in the most brilliant
society, through which she moved to the end without a whisper
of scandal, she died at Liverpool at an advanced age, in the win-
ter of 1818, and was interred in the family vault at Barthomley,
near Crewe Hall, county of Chester.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 79

ments ; which also derived an irresistible charm
from the musical talents of Mrs. Sheridan ; " the
elegance of whose beauty," says Madame d' Arblay,
" is unequaled by any I ever saw, except Mrs.
Crewe."* The Tories spared no outlay or artifice
to subvert the popularity of their rivals. They
threw open their saloons with a publicity which
startled the habitual exclusiveness of the old aris-
tocracy; and, seeing that office itself had paled its
attractions before the brighter lures of wit and
beauty, they set up the Duchess of Gordon — a bold,
masculine woman — and the pert Lady Salisbury, as
opponents to the Duchess of Devonshire and Mrs.
Crewe. But it was a conspicuous failure. The
fashion had set in with the prince and his friends,
who earned every thing before them ; and who
possessed an overwhelming advantage in being en-
abled, by the popular tone of their politics, to culti-
vate a certain freedom of intercourse, which the
hereditary reserve of the opposite party prohibited.
While the upper classes were thus engaged, the
body of the people was convulsed by a fiercer
movement, down to the very dregs of the popula-
tion. The ale-house and the workshops were crowd-
ed by as anxious faces as the ball-room or the an-
te-chamber, but with a darker and more earnest
meaning in them. That which was but the silken
dalliance of party to the one was a life and death

* There was considerable hesitation at first in the introduction
of Mrs. Sheridan into fashionable society, on account of her pre-
vious professional associations. When the Duchess of Devon-
shire first met her, she felt some scruples about asking her to
Devonshire House ; but Sheridan's growing celebrity soon over-
threw all conventional difficulties. It was no small compensation
in kind afterward, that the talents which originally stood in the
way of her reception became one of the leading attractions in
those very circles from which they had threatened to exclude her.
Mrs. Sheridan's singing was a princioal feature in the evening
wherever she went.

80 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

struggle to the other. A new sense of public
wrongs had gone forth, and was no longer to be
baffled by perfidious or ignorant legislation. The
people were unrejnresented in Parliament ; an old
grievance, as common as air in the mouths of men,
but now strangely, for the first time, laid open in
its naked injustice to the meanest apprehension.
The remedy was clear enough, but the way to it
was full of danger. The path was beset at every
turn by monsters and dragons of evil power, and
he who should undertake the desperate adventure
must be armed by the good genius of heroic pa-
tience, or add another victim to those who had be-
fore essayed the enterprise in vain. The fear was,
that in some sudden access of popular fury the
great opportunity would be lost.

The press teemed with warnings and appeals.
The booksellers' counters groaned under the weight
of new views of the state of the representation, the-
ories of reform, and philosophical treatises on the
Constitution. Every day brought forth its bundle
of pamphlets and broad sheets. Every man who
had any thing to say, or nothing to say, put it into
print. The shops of Ridgway and Debrett were
crowded every morning by politicians on tiptoe for
the last rumor.* And in the midst of this shoal
of minor speculators suddenly appeared a great le-
viathan in the shape of G-od win's " Political Jus-
tice." The sensation excited by this book was un-
paralleled. At any other period it might have been
read by a few sublime dreamers like himself, and
put away on the topmost shelves of the library,
with Hobbes, and Shaftesbury, and Brown, and
others possessed of a like gorgeous thinking fac-

* Debrett's was the principal rendezvous. Holcroft, who kept
a diary, begins his entries generally by a regular call at Debrett's
to hear the gossip of the day.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 81

ulty ; but it came out at a moment when the whole
nation was intent upon that one idea which the
"book undertook to develop, and it was seized upon
with universal avidity. The doctrines it enuncia-
ted alternately perplexed, delighted, and terrified
its readers.* The enthusiasm it produced might
have resolved itself into some awkward exhibition
of popular absurdity, were the English as explo-
sive as the French ; but, after a temporary blaze, it
went out into total darkness. People began to see
that it was transcendental and impracticable, and
that it made demands upon human perfectibility
which in no age of the world, either of action or
repose, could find adequate response. Yet it had
its effect at the time, became a text-book with thou-
sands, and divided with Paine the glory of making
a profound impression upon those who least un-
derstood the mysteries of abstract philosophy.!

The formation of societies for the attainment of
Parliamentary reform was the natural consequence
of all this uneasiness — the rational and legal way
of looking for redress, to which the people were

* Fox received the work from his bookseller, ran through half
a dozen pages in the middle (his custom with modern publica-
tions), did not like it, and sent it back.

t Holcroft wrote a notice of the " Political Justice" in the
"Monthly Review ;" a sneaking, shuffling analysis, in which he
begged the question between his hire and his conscience to oblige
Griffiths, who was afraid to commit the review to extreme opin-
ions. The " Monthly Review" was on the side of reform, but
Griffiths was such a contemptible trader, that, whenever he found
the commonplace character of the work endangered, as Hazlitt says,
he shifted about, and escaped through some shabby recantation.
But Godwin had Roman stuff in him, and bore the cowardice of
the reviewers with as much indifference as their abuse. The
world looked for a more majestic issue to all that grave and solid
magnanimity. No man ever excited so much attention as God-
win, and lived to excite so little. He not only outlived his fame,
but suddenly fell into oblivion. For many of the latter years of
his life nobody knew, or ever thought to ask, whether he was
dead or alive— he who once could not walk the streets without
being gazed at as a wonder !
6

82 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

accustomed. The London Corresponding Society
set about doing that through its affiliated branches
which the Anti-Corn-law League is now doing with
impunity — the collection of information throughout
the country bearing directly upon its avowed object.
Other societies were got up under other names,
the most conspicuous of which were the Constitu-
tional Society, and the Society of the Friends of
the People, all having the one distinct ultimate
purpose of acting upon the Legislature, through the
legitimate channels of public opinion. Every one
of these societies declared themselves and their
purpose openly. But the ministry insisted that
Parliamentary reform was only a mask for the se-
cret design of destroying the British Constitution;
and Mr. Windham, of all men, went so far as to
express his astonishment in the House of Com-
mons, that any body could be found so credulous
as to suppose any thing else. The poor Constitu-
tion— how often it has been destroyed ! What a
cat's life, with a lease of cats' lives renewable for-
ever, this same Constitution must have.

But this was the way reform had always been
evaded — treated as a plausible means to some mon-
strous end, and stifled. Mr. Pitt said, " It is not
reform they want, but revolution ;" and under this
wily pretence, the right of the people to be heard,
for good or evil, was annihilated. It never occur-
red to him to ask, " Is there any reason in this
thing for which they are clamoring north, east,
west, and south, and which they call Reform'? Be-
fore I punish them for asking for one thing and
meaning another, let me demonstrate to the world
that the thing they ask for has no foundation in
justice or necessity." The meetings that were
taking place all over the country, and the bold
^nguage of the speakers, favored this hypocrisy.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 83

" This is what they mean," exclaimed the minister;
" to react the sanguinary atrocities of the French
Revolution, to murder the king, and establish a
republic;" and so he suspended the Habeas Cor-
pus Act. Resolved not to be betrayed into the
snare, they lay a petition before the Legislature,
explaining what it is they do mean ; but he will
not hear them. Their petition is dismissed with
contumely. When they complain and agitate out
of doors, it is sedition ; when they come to Parlia-
ment, according to the usages of the Constitution,
the door is shut in their teeth.

Pitt's conduct throughout this crisis was insin-
cere. It was worse — it had none of that high
courage, in which, on other occasions, he was not
wanting. Had he relied on the country, he might
have spared us the war and the debt, and all the
political immorality through which both were con-
tracted. As it was, he displayed neither the ex-
perience nor the heroism of a statesman. The ar-
gument that the people made use of reform as a
pretext, were it true, was the best possible argu-
ment for meeting them boldly on the ground they
had themselves chosen. But it was false ; and he
showed that he knew it was false, by never bring-
ing it to the test of inquiry. Had it been true,
nothing could have been easier than to have sifted
the pretended grievance, and shown that it was
hollow, and there was an end ; for no popular agi-
tation can long be sustained upon a bubble. Fire
can not burn without fuel. The discontents of a
people must be fed by wrongs, or no human mach-
inations can keep them alive.

Had there been any real danger of a revolution,
the measures of the government would have assur-
edly brought it to a head. But the English are
not revolutionary, and least of all for a theoretical

84 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

end. Could they ever be induced to leave their
ploughs and shuttles, and get up an insurrection on
a respectable scale, it would be for food. The old
generals who served in the Continental wars knew
well what a belligerent provocation an empty stom-
ach used to be to the English soldier.

Pitt, however, insisted that there was a conspir-
acy hatching against the institutions of the country,
and men were arrested in their houses without
bail or mainprize, under the authority of the min-
ister, who was too secure in his majorities not to
be quite at his ease about an act of indemnity.
The Constitution itself was violated to protect it
against outrage ; an operation curiously described
by the attorney-general, as " a temporary sacrifice
of a small portion of our liberties, for the perma-
nent preservation of the whole,"* like cutting off a
man's nose to preserve his profile.

The mere fact that men who asked nothing more
than a reform in Parliament, a demand which had
Mr. Pitt's zealous support in former days, should
now be arraigned by Mr. Pitt himself as traitors
designing to " compass the king's death," ought to
have exposed the hypocrisy. But the French Rev-
olution threw its lurid shadows over men's minds,
and they took in all impressions through that dis-
torting medium.

The effect produced by the Revolution in the
first instance, before it was degraded by hideous
criminalities, was that of almost universal sympa-

* The exact words, as reported in the published trial of Thomas
Hardy. " This act," said the learned gentleman (afterward Lord
Eldon), " was no infringement on British liberty. It had frequent-
ly been adopted on former emergencies. It was, and ought only
to be considered, as a temporary sacrifice of a small portion of our
liberties for the permanent preservation of the whole." The sac-
rifice of a portion of our liberties was no infringement of our lib-
erty, because it had frequently been adopted before. By the same
rule you might revive the Star Chamber.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 85

tliy. It was hailed with enthusiasm in England.
Some of the societies carried their admiration so
far as to congratulate the Convention on its suc-
cess, and the early struggles against a tyranny which
had hrought discredit upon the monarchical prin-
ciple all over Europe was regarded with secret
interest even by the most steadfast Church-and-
State Tories. The event, in fact, was hailed by
both parties as an effort toward the establishment
of good government, neither of them anticipating
the horrors of its progress.

The mass of the reading, writing, and speech-mak-
ing public thought of nothing else, and during the
first stages of the Revolution the valor and devo-
tion of the Republicans furnished the grand theme
of admiration every where, in all companies, espe-
cially in the numerous debating societies, which at
this period were the vents and safety-valves of opin-
ion. The young and unoccupied intellect of the
Inns of Court found congenial employment in these
stormy discussions, and here some apprentice poli-
ticians, who afterward won a wider celebrity, first
tested their powers, and plumed their wings for
more ambitious flights.*

Among them was a student of pale and thought-
ful aspect, who brought to the nightly contests un-
usual fluency and grace of elocution. He, too,
along with the rest, had been inspired by the hero-
ic spectacle, had pondered upon its causes, and ex-
ulted over its prospects. His head was full of

* In such mixed meetings, where the young speaker is brought
into direct collision with a variety of character and rougher na-
tures than his own, many of our distinguished men trained their
faculties for debate. In Addison's time a gathering of this kind
was held at the Three Tuns, in Hungerford Market, and was con-
stantly attended by the future secretary, Steele, and others.
Burke made some of his earliest essays at the Robin Hood, in
Wych-street ; and Garrow and Dallas distinguished themselves at
Coachmakers' Hall and the Westminster Forum.

H

86 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

Constitutions ; for his studies lay among the ele-
mentary writers rather than the special pleaders
and form-mongers of the law. And after a morn-
ing of close reading and severe reflection, he would
wend his way in the evening to one of these debat-
ing-rooms, and, taking up his place unobserved,
watch the vicissitudes of the discussion, noting well
its effect upon the miscellaneous listeners ; then,
seizing upon a moment when the argument failed
from lack of resources, or ran into sophistry or ex-
aggeration, he would present himself to the meet-
ing. A figure slight, but of elegant proportions ;
a face poetical in repose, but fluctuating in its ex-
pression with every fugitive emotion ; a voice low,
clear, and rich in modulation ; and an air of perfect
breeding, prepares his hearers for one who pos-
sesses superior powers, and is not unconscious of
them. He opens calmly — strips his topic of all
extraneous matter — distributes it under separate
heads — disposes of objections with a playful hu-
mor— rebukes the dangerous excesses of preced-
ing speakers — carries his auditors through a com-
plete syllogism — establishes the proposition with
which he set out — and sits down amid the accla-
mations of the little senate. Night after night wit-
nesses similar feats ; at length his name gets out ;
he is talked of, and speculated upon ; and people
begin to ask questions about the stripling who has
so suddenly appeared among them, as if he had
fallen from the sky.

But he does not confine his range to the debat-
ing societies, which he uses as schools of practice,
and as places in which the nature of popular as-
semblies may be profitably observed. He is fre-
quently to be found in the soirees of the Whig no-
tabilities, where the aristocracy of his style is more
at home than among the crowds of the forum.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 87

Here his cultivated intellect and fastidious taste
are appreciated by qualified judges ; and these re-
fined circles cry up his accomplishments as eager-
ly as the others have applauded his patriotism.
Popularity besets him on both sides. The societies
look to him as a man formed expressly for the peo-
ple.; and the first Lord Lansdowne (stranger still)
predicts to Mr. Bentham that this stripling will one
day be prime-minister of England ! He is plainly
on the high road to greatness of some kind ; but
how it is to end, whether he is to be a martyr or
a minister, is yet a leap in the dark. The crisis ap-
proaches that is to determine the doubt.

While he is revolving these auguries in his mind,
and filling his solitary chamber with phantoms of
civic crowns and strawberry-leaves, flitting around
his head in tantalizing confusion, a note is hurried-
ly put in his hand, with marks of secrecy and haste.
It is from one of whom he has but a slight person-
al knowledge, but whose notoriety, if we may not
venture to call it fame, is familiar to him. The pur-
port of the note is an intimation that the writer de-
sires a confidential interview on matters of import-
ance, and will breakfast with him on the following
morning. The abruptness of the self-invitation,
the seriousness of the affair it seems to indicate,
and the known character of the correspondent, ex-
cite the surprise of the law student, and he awaits
his visitor with more curiosity than he chooses to
betray.

A small fresh-colored man, with intelligent eyes,
an obstinate expression of face, and pressing ardor
of manner, makes his appearance the next morning
at breakfast. The host is collected, as a man
should be who holds himself prepared for a revela-
tion. The guest, unreserved and impatient of de-
lay ? hastens to unfold his mission. Among the

88 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

speculators who are thrown up to the surface in
great political emergencies, there are generally
some who are misled by the grandeur of their con-
ceptions, and who, in the purity and integrity of
their own hearts, can not see the evil or the dan-
ger that lies before them. This was a man of that
order. He enters into an animated description of
the state of the country, traces the inquietude of the
people to its source in the corruption and tyranny
of the government, declares that they are resolved
to endure oppression no longer, that they are al-
ready organized for action, that the auspicious time
has arrived to put out their strength, and ends by
the astounding announcement that they have se-
lected him — this youth who has made such a stir
among them — as the fittest person to be placed at
the head of the movement. Miracle upon miracle !
The astonishment of the youth who receives this
communication may well suspend his judgment :
he requires an interval to collect himself and de-
cide; and then, dismissing this strange visitor, shuts
himself up to think. In that interval he takes a
step which commits him for life. It is but a step
from Lincoln's Inn to Downing-street. His faith
in the people is shaken. He sees in this theory of
regeneration nothing but folly and bloodshed. His
reason revolts from all participation in it. And the
next chamber to which we follow him is the clos-
et of the minister, to whom he makes his new con-
fession of faith, and gives in his final adherence.

Reader, the violent little man was William God-
win, the author of the " Political Justice," and the
convert was George Canning.*

* Scott has preserved this anecdote in his diary. " Canning,"
he adds, " himself mentioned this to Sir W. Knighton, upon oc-
casion of giving a place in the Charter-house, of some ten pounds
a year, to Godwin's brother." — " Life of Scott," ix., p. 230. Sir
W. Knighton's memoirs are silent on a circumstance which,
doubtless, had never been communicated to the editor.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 89

There are other versions of the way in which
Mr. Canning was brought over to Toryism and Mr.
Pitt ; but none of them are so circumstantial, or
have such a color of authenticity or likelihood in
them, as this.* Mr. Moore, in his " Life of Sher-
idan," suggests that this alteration in his views may,
probably, be accounted for by his association with
Mr. Jenkinson ; or by his unwillingness to appear
in the world as the pupil of such a man as Sheri-
dan, whose irregular life had in some degree placed
him under the ban of public opinion; or by the dif-
ficulty of rising to eminence under the hopeless
shadow of the Whigs. If these motives, which
amount to nothing more or less than a calculation
of advantages in the choice of a party, ever pre-
sented themselves to his consideration, they could
scarcely have decided him, unless, at the same time,
his opinions had undergone a total change ; and
that they had undergone such a change is evident
from the fact that he had previously declined a seat
in Parliament, which was offered to him by the
Duke of Portland, then at the head of the Whigs,
and from his refusal to join the Society of the Friends

* The change in Mr. Canning's views from the bar to the senate
is said to have been adopted on the advice of Mr. Burke. But he
never sat down to the law with any intention of studying it as a
profession. Respecting the more important change which took
place at the same time in his position, we have the following
clumsy circumstantial fabrication in a memoir of Mr. Canning,
published in Paris in 1828 : " During the chancellorship of Lord
Loughborough, upward of thirty years ago, his lordship directed
a gentleman holding an official situation to convey personally a
letter to a Mr. Canning, of whom all which was known was, that
he resided in one of the Inns of Court ! The bearer commenced
his search, and, after some time, found Mr. Canning at chambers
in Paper-buildings, Temple. The object of the letter was to
convey an offer of the post of under-secretary of state, and he to
whom it was addressed was the late premier.8' The inventor of
this anecdote ought to have understood his craft better than to
make the lord-chancellor usurp the functions of the first minister
of the crown.

H 2

90 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

of the People, although repeatedly urged to do so.
If he had been determined by mere expediency,
the weight of the argument was obviously in favor
of that party with whom he had been all along con-
nected, and through whose influence he might nat-
urally have looked for an introduction to public
life. His strength lay there, where he was wooed
by every temptation short of office, with the cer-
tainty that, whenever they came into power, his
fidelity would be remembered. But the truth was,
that his genius assimilated inore nearly with that of
the opposite party, and he only found it out when
he was brought face to face with the necessity
which decided him.

It has been stated that he confidentiallv consulted
Mr. Sheridan on this momentous passage of his life ;
and, according to one account of the transaction,
Mr. Sheridan had the dishonesty to advise him to
abandon his liberal notions, and devote himself to
the minister as the only chance a poor man had of
making any market of his talents. According to
another account, Sheridan laughed outright, and,
betraying his friend's secret before a large party at
supper, made a humorous appeal to Mrs. Crewe,
at whose house it happened, to decide the import-
ant dilemma of a young man who did not know
upon which side he ought to bestow his luster.
Both these stories are mere fabrications, but the
latter comes nearer to Sheridan, and lies more like
truth than the former ; for, into whatever social
transgressions his high animal spirits may have
hurried him, his political integrity was above sus-
picion. Had poor Sheridan traded upon his extra-
ordinary powers, he would not have been found so
often struggling on the floor of the House of Com-
mons against overwhelming majorities, augmented,
occasionally, by deserters from those ranks which,
in the worst of times, he never forsook.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 91

The supposed connection with the Sheridans, so
often alluded to, and to which all such idle gossip
may be traced, rests upon no better foundation.
Sheridan was intimate with Mr. Stratford Cannino-'s
family, and was constantly in the habit of meeting
Mr. George Canning in the circles which, at this
period, they both frequented ; but no strictly pri-
vate intercourse was ever kept up between them.*

Mr. Therry assigns a somewhat different origin
to the interview with Mr. Pitt.f He says that the
celebrity of Mr. Canning's talents reached the min-
ister, who communicated through a private chan-
nel his desire to see him — a desire with which Mr.
Canning, of course, very readily complied. That
Mr. Pitt, upon their meeting, said that he had

* A report appears to have obtained currency that Sheridan
was instrumental in some way to Canning's education ; and Wil-
berforce, who merely echoed what he had heard, alludes to it with
ludicrous commiseration. " Poor fellow," says WiJberforce, " he
had neither father nor mother to train him up. He was brought
up, I believe, partly with Sheridan. I always wondered he was so
pure /" — " Life," iv., 370. One can forgive the pity for the sake
of this tribute to the purity of Canning's life ; for, assuredly, it
was no easy matter to come up to Wilberforce's notions of puri-
ty. But the report was wholly unfounded. Sheridan contributed
nothing to Canning's education, and had nothing to do with it be-
yond the interest which he may have taken in the early promise
of a youth whom he often met at his friend's house. The allu-
sions to the name of Canning, in Moore's " Life of Sheridan,"
have probably led to some mistake as to the intercourse of the
families. Thus, in 1784, Mrs. Sheridan, in a letter from Putney,
speaks of Mr. Canning having been with her ; but as George Can-
ning was then a schoolboy at Eton, the reference is clearly to his
uncle. In 1792, also, Sheridan is said to have been on a visit
somewhere in the country with Mrs. Canning and her family ; but
this must have been the widow of Mr. Stratford Canning, as
George Canning's mother had changed her name long before.
As to any pecuniary obligations between them, the only one that
ever took place was shortly after Canning's return from Lisbon,
when Sheridan, ill in bed, wrote to him to the House of Commons
to ask the loan of £100, a request which was immediately corn-
plied with.

t " The Speeches of the Right Honorable George Canning,"
L, 17.

92 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

heard of Mr. Canning's reputation, and that, if he
concurred in the policy of the government, arrange-
ments would be made to bring him into Parlia-
ment ; and that, after a full explanation on both
sides, Mr. Canning accepted the offer.* There can
be no doubt that Mr. Pitt sent for Mr. Canning, for
it is extremely improbable that Mr. Canning would
have gone to Mr. Pitt without knowing beforehand
how he was likely to be received. But it is still
more improbable that Mr. Pitt would have sent for
Mr. Canning without being perfectly secure of the
result. How such confidences are brought about,
it is unnecessary, as it would be quite fruitless, to
inquire. The invisible agency is always tenacious-
ly guarded by the honor of both parties, and the
public are interested only in the result. Certain it
is, that when Mr. Pitt and Mr. Canning entered
into this arrangement, their friends supposed them
to be strangers to each other; for, at a dinner which
was given at Addiscombe House by Lord Liver-
pool for the express purpose of bringing them to-

* Lady Hester Stanhope, if her memory may be credited (which
is doubtful), appears to have been present at this interview, and
to have taken an aversion to Mr. Canning, founded upon a pecu-
liar theory of personal appearance, by which she was always
guided in her likings and dislikings. " The first time he was in-
troduced to Mr. Pitt," she tells us, " a great deal of prosing had
been made beforehand of his talents, and when he was gone, Mr.
Pitt asked me what I thought of him. I said I did not like him ;
his forehead was bad. his eyebrows were bad ; he was iil made
about the hips ; but his teeth were evenly set, although he rarely
showed them. I did not like his conversation. Mr. C. heard of
this, and some time after, when upon a more familiar footing with
me, said, ' So, Lady Hester, you don't like me ?' ' No,' said I ;
' they told me you were handsome, and I don't think so.' " — " Me-
moirs of Lady Hester Stanhope," i., 31 1. A good " woman's reas-
on" for an invincible personal antipathy. Mr. Pitt told her that
she must like him. And she said, " If I must, I must." but she
never did. Lady Hester had the Pitt blood at perpetual fever heat.
She sometimes hated people without a reason, sometimes against
reason, and always hated them the more when the cause was
slight. She hated them most when there was no cause at all.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 93

gether, it was discovered, greatly to the amaze-
ment of the whole party, that they were already
well acquainted.

That Mr. Canning passed over, at once, from the
one party to the other, can not be denied. Nor
was he alone in this transition ; for many others, of
greater weight in the country, and who had com-
mitted themselves deeply to the party they relin-
quished, passed over at the same time, from undis-
guised apprehensions at the progress of revolution-
ary principles. But so far from having been "rav-
ished from the opposition for his talents," as Peter
Pindar said, he joined the Tories from deliberate
conviction. Some writers have been at great pains
to prove that the French Revolution, which, accord-
ing to Mr. Burke's sophism, was not to be tried by
any known principles, had already disturbed his
opinions by its eccentric terrors before he became
acquainted with Mr. Pitt. Explanations of this
sort look very like apologies, and there never was
less need of one than in this instance. The adop-
tion of Tory principles, when such events were
pressing him to a decision, was the only honest and
conscientious conclusion at which Mr. Canning
could have arrived. It was thoroughly consistent
with the character of his mind, which was essen-
tially prudential. His genius might have been gen-
erally disposed to take the imaginative side of a
question ; but his understanding, stronger than his
genius, invariably took the English side, whichev-
er that happened to be. His theory was liberty,
wrhich he inspired like poetical air from the heights
of Parnassus; but his practice was the Constitution.
The French Revolution was not a matter of classi-
cal sympathy with him, but of plain reason. He
began to look upon it, and upon its growing pow
er over the credulity of his countrymen, through

94 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

the eyes of his English judgment ; and, once he
had fixed it there, his decision was clear and inev-
itable.

Besides, it may be fairly doubted whether we
have any right to raise an argument upon the opin-
ions Mr. Canning entertained before this time, still
less to describe any change in them as a desertion
of his party. He was not bound by any overt act
to any party. That he was claimed in the House
of Commons by the Whigs, before he appeared
there to answer for himself, is evidence of the im-
portance attached to his opinions, not of any obli-
gation on his part. He had not yet begun public
life : his political responsibilities were yet to be in-
curred. A line must be drawn somewhere to limit
the right of inquiry into the fluctuations of a man's
opinions, and it can not be placed any where with
such obvious propriety as at that point of time when
he first avowed them.

We must not confound changes of this kind with
the tergiversations which occur later in life, in the
midst of suspicious circumstances, after pledges
have been ratified, and connections formed, and
acts done, which tie men up with a party, and
which can not be renounced without treachery and
disgrace. Let us take an illustration from one of
Mr. Canning's immediate contemporaries.

Among the most furious supporters of the Soci-
ety of United Irishmen, which grew out of the dis-
contents of 1792, was a young nobleman belonging
to a rich and powerful family in the North, who
had given a remarkable proof of his patriotism only
the year before by the expenditure of no less than
^£30,000 on a contested election. If he were not
actually a member of that formidable body (which
there is much reason to believe he was), he at least
rendered himself notorious by his open advocacy

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 95

of its principles. Nothing was too desperate for
the ardor of his nationality. He was the intimate
friend of the Sheares, who were hanged in the re-
bellion, and was himself so deeply implicated in
the movements which preceded that catastrophe,
that he was supposed to be quite ready at any con-
venient opportunity to " cut the painter." All this
time he was in the Irish Parliament ; but Mr. Pitt,
discerning his uses, drew him over to England, and
in 1795 he took his seat, fbr the first time, in the
English House of Commons. And now it was that
he performed the most wonderful evolution — the
cleanest psychological summersault — ever witness-
ed in the legislative gymnasium. The firebrand
of the Irish opposition seconds the English address
— the fomenter of the rebellion becomes the aveng-
er of the law — the suspected abettor of separation
becomes the agent of the Union. All of a sudden,
to borrow an expressive image of his own, this po-
litical Scapin turned his back upon himself. He
not only abandoned the party upon whose shoulders
he had clambered into power, and which was called
into existence to vindicate the liberties of the coun-
try, but he handed over the country itself, bound
neck and crop, to the British minister. He was
not satisfied with breaking the vow, but he must
complete the sacrilege by breaking the altar too.

Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Canning were about
the same age, and entered public life about the
same time. The one commanded a county, with
which he bribed the minister ; and, after having
identified himself for four years with a party whose
excesses he encouraged, took office and apostatized.
The other belonged to no party until he went into
Parliament ; he then avowed his principles, and
maintained them, through good and evil, to the end
of his life.

96 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

IV.

FIRST START IN PARLIAMENT. THE WAR. SUSPEN-
SION OF THE HABEAS CORPUS ACT. THE UNDER-
SECRETARY SHIP.

Mr. Pitt lost no time in availing himself of the
talents of his new adherent. A borough was placed
at his disposal by the obliging zeal of Sir Richard
Worsley, who retired for the purpose ; and, in the
session of 1793, Mr. Canning took his seat in the
House of Commons, for Newport, in the Isle of
Wight.

Never did an administration stand so much in
need of young blood. Nearly the whole weight
of the debates in the Lower House fell upon Mr.
Pitt. He had nobody to help him but Dundas.
Rose, punctual and prosy, was little better than a
stop-gap ; and good old Lord Liverpool was fast
sinking into a Downing-street Polonius* The
new Whig recruits rendered very inefficient and

* Mr. Pitt, at one time, contemplated a new order of merit, and
requested the opinion of the ministers upon the color of the rib-
bon. Lord Liverpool prepared his with considerable care, and
came by appointment to show it. " You see," said he, with much
self-complacency, " I have endeavored to combine such colors as
will flatter the national vanity : red for the English flag, blue for
liberty, and white for purity of motive." Lady Hester Stanhope,
who was present, burst out into a fit of laughter, and, to his infi-
nite mortification, showed him that it was the exact pattern of the
tri-colored flag. His lordship had quite overlooked that. " What
am I to do with it ?" said he ; " I have ordered five hundred yards."
" Tie up your breeches with them," replied Lady Hester, " for
you know you have always such a load of papers in your pockets,
that I quite fear some day to see them all tumble out." " This
was his way," adds Lady Hester ; *' he used to ram his hands into
his pockets, first on one side and then on the other, searching for
some paper, just as if he was groping for an eel at the bottom of
a pond." — " Memoirs of Lady Hester Stanhope," i., 217-18.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 97

equivocal aid where aid was most wanted ; and,
with the exception of Windham, who was recon-
ciled to an inferior office by a seat in the cabinet,
none of them had the slightest chance in confront-
ing the able and indignant opposition. Even Wind-
ham, under any circumstances, must have felt him-
self placed at an enormous disadvantage in his new
position — a position in which candor was difficult,
and in which all useful progress as a public man
was vexatiously impeded by the eternal necessity
of explaining, qualifying, and protesting ; but pitted
against such overwhelming odds as Fox, Sheridan,
and Erskine, with their troop of interrogatory
followers, who were perpetually pressing the most
disconcerting questions, his situation was not only
onerous and embarrassing, but frequently humilia-
ting and hopeless. But, worse than this, and apart
from personal perplexities, the coalition itself was
unpopular, as all coalitions must be ; for, let the
expediency or justification be what it may in ref-
erence to points of agreement, it is impossible to
persuade the people that such unions can ever be
effected without a compromise of principle on
points of difference. And this coalition was par-
ticularly unfortunate in one respect, that it placed
in a position of apparent, if not real, antagonism to
popular principles men known to be lovers of con-
stitutional liberty, whose authority thus came to be
cited for the sanction of abuses which they never
could have deliberately approved. The Whig
members of the coalition were so engrossed in the
contemplation of what they regarded as the para-
mount danger, that they overlooked every other;
and, in the desire to prevent the pre-eminent evil
of anarchy, they threw open the door to a series of
minor evils scarcely less fatal to the liberties of the
people. Scared at the prospect of a revolution,
7 I

98 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

they took refuge in a system of ministerial despot-
ism. Had they contented themselves by frankly
giving their support to the minister on the immi-
nent matters on which they differed from their for-
mer colleagues, reserving to themselves the right
of exercising an independent judgment on all other
points, they might have effected their main object
without risk or opprobrium ; but the acceptance of
office and honors, by binding them to the whole
future course of a party whose general policy they
had hitherto uniformly resisted, exposed them not
only to open distrust, but to a loathing suspicion
of their motives. Sheridan denounced the coali-
tion as a piece of wholesale corruption. His hits
against the leaders told with prodigious effect upon
the House. " ' I will fight for nobility,' says the
viscount ; ' but my zeal would be much greater if
I were made an earl.' ' Rouse all the marquis
within me,' exclaims the earl, ' and the peerage
never turned forth a more undaunted champion.'
' Stain my green ribbon blue,' cries out the illus-
trious knight, ' and the fountain of honor will have
a fast and faithful servant.' "

But Pitt cared little for the ridicule of Sheridan,
which he always affected to treat with the most dig-
nified contempt. He was too much impressed with
the urgent necessity of drawing in all the assistance
he could get, upon any terms, to be turned aside
from his purpose by derision or invective. He
was constantly on the look-out for fresh accessions,
from whatever quarter they could be procured ; and
no manager of a metropolitan theater ever watched
the dawning talent of the provincial boards with
more anxiety than Mr. Pitt noted the rising men
of his day. Foremost among these were Jenkin-
son and Canning, whom he had already secured,
and Lord Castlereagh and Huskisson who were

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 99

brought in soon afterward. They were all of the
same standing,* and promised to become valuable
auxiliaries in different ways. Jenkinson, without
a ray of eloquence, was safe and respectable. Hus-
kisson had a great practical capacity ; and Castle-
reagh, although he was always blundering, and
never could draw up an official paper which Mr.
Pitt did not find it necessary to alter, was ready
and expert at a Parliamentary altercation. Can-
ning was the greatest acquisition of all ; the variety
of his powers and accomplishments, his knowledge,
judgment, and facility, gave him immediate ascend-
ency in the bureau and the senate ; and while the
others were gradually acquiring reputation by re-
peated efforts, he may be said to have stepped into
his fame at once.

Jenkinson and Castlereagh were no sooner fairly
lanched into Parliament, at one or two-and-twenty,
than they took a conspicuous part in the proceed-
ings ; the one with a clearness and moderation
which satisfied the confidence of his friends ; and
the other with a spanking intemperance which fore-
shadowed the rashness and mistakes of his career.
But it was in the nature of Mr. Huskisson's genius
to demand time for its mature development. Ora-
tory was not his forte, and he hesitated long before
he addressed the House. Even when he had ac-
quired considerable confidence in speaking, he
rarely ventured beyond that class of subjects over
which his laborious researches and the analytical
character of his mind had given him a complete
mastery.

Friendships are commonly formed by contem-
poraries thus starting into life under the same au-
spices ; sometimes from force of circumstances,

* Huskisson, Canning, and Jenkinson were born in 1770 ; Lord
Castlereagh in 1769.

100 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

and sometimes from force of sympathy. But be-
tween Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Canning neither
of these influences appear to have operated. Flip-
pancy, pretension, and zealotry could not by any
process be brought to mix up with calm reason and
good taste. There was nothing in common be-
tween them. The early intimacy with Mr. Jen-
kinson, on the other hand, was now improved and
cemented by a union of sentiments upon public af-
fairs, and by the absence on both sides of all pal-
try passions and false enthusiasm. Mr. Jenkinson
began the world like a man of the world, and dis-
played a great deal of common sense in his inter-
course with it ; and the friendship that existed be-
tween him and Mr. Canning, although it suffered
the usual fluctuations of the party thermometer,
was never seriously damaged by political differ-
ences. With Mr. Huskisson there was a closer
affinity : his comprehensive views upon commercial
policy, the solidity of his judgment, his close pow-
ers of statement, and the masses of information he
marshaled into his arguments, early attracted the
regards of Mr. Canning, who, from the commence-
ment of their intercourse, entertained for him that
feeling of admiration which subsequent years height-
ened into the strictest attachment.*

* Mr. Canning became acquainted with Mr. Huskisson in 1793,
shortly after the return of the latter from Paris, where he had
resided from the age of fourteen with his great-uncle, Dr. Gem.
During the last two or three years of his residence there he filled
the office of private secretary to Lord Gower (afterward marquis
of Stafford), who was then the English ambassador to the court
of France. This was the foundation of his subsequent fortunes.
At Lord Gower's table, in England, Mr. Huskisson had frequent
opportunities of meeting Pitt and Dundas ; and one day the con-
versation turned upon the necessity of creating an office under the
new Alien Bill, by which its provisions might be properly carried
out, and the claims of emigrants examined without delay. It was
necessary that the person filling this office should be a good man
of business, a gentleman in manners, and a perfect master of the
French language. Lord Gower immediately suggested the em-

THE LIFE OF CANNING 101

To Mr. Canning's connection with the Tory par-
ty may be ascribed that progressive modification
of its more violent tenets, and that infusion of Lib-
eralism into its practice which has been ever since
gradually cancelling, one by one, its most objec-
tionable tendencies. It is no less certain, also, that
Mr. Huskisson exercised a moderating influence
in other directions, and that, although his principles
were never fully carried out, they were so far ad-
mitted in small details as to break down the out-
works of that antiquated system by which we were
already insulated in the midst of advancing civili-
zation. Wherever either of them might have tak-
en up his stand, singly he must have effected im-
portant ameliorations ; but thus united, and acting
wTith a party which had hitherto kept itself aloof
with a high hand from all popular approaches, they
drew the administration nearer to the people, and
opened a new era in the history of Toryism.

The entrance into Parliament is an event of in-
calculable magnitude in a man's life. It unfolds
before him a world of experiences, of which he
could form no adequate conception from theory or

ployment to Mr. Huskisson, who accepted it, although its harass-
ing and commonplace duties were far below his talents. But it
was the first introduction to the ministry, who soon discovered his
abilities, and made use of them in a higher sphere. In 1795 he
was appointed under-secretary of state in the department of war
and colonies ; and toward the close of 1796 he was brought into
Parliament for the borough of Morpeth, under the patronage of
Lord Carlisle. He made his first speech in February, 1798.

Mr. Huskisson was present at the taking of the Bastille, and
exhibited so hearty a zeal in the cause of the Republicans, that he
was frequently accused of having been a member of the Jacobin
Club. But this was not true, as the only society with which he
connected himself was the '89 Club. In defending himself against
this charge, he cited the example of Mr. Pitt, who, even up to
1792, saw so little danger to other states from the changes taking
place in France, that the speech from the throne in that year de-
clared that there was nothing in the condition of Europe which
was likely to involve this country in hostilities !

12

102 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

description. He finds the assembly not only dif-
ferent from what he expected, but from any thing
he had ever imagined to exist. The dream of leg-
islative sobriety and responsible statesmanship dis-
solves before the reality. He is surrounded by the
most incongruous materials, whose natural discord-
ance is rendered still more glaring by the strife
of factions and the extraordinary inequality of tal-
ents. He finds certain models set up whom he is
expected to imitate or obey as the oracles of the
senate ; he is to be tried by standards of excellence
of which he had no previous warning; there are
exactions to be satisfied, which put his generosity,
if not his integrity itself, to the severest test; qual-
ifications to be established, which had never enter-
ed into his calculations ; and critics to be appeas-
ed, whose judgment he may be well disposed to
hold in contempt, but which it would be ruin to
dispute. The danger is, that, in accommodating
himself to these exigencies, his originality may be
paralyzed ; that, in endeavoring to suit himself to
his audience, he may be restrained from giving fall
scope to his energies ; that, in lowering himself to
the requisite formulae, he may cease to cultivate
higher sources of success ; and that, with the no-
blest ambition, and powers equal to its achieve-
ment, he may sink at last into the common medi-
ocrity. Mr. Canning was too conscious of all these
obstacles, and of the anticipations his reputation
had excited, not to choose his occasion carefully.
Throughout his first session he resisted all the
temptations which the anxious topics before the
House presented to him. He was determined not
to fail ; and before he invoked the criticism of the
Commons — always ready to cry down new merit,
to terrify it by savage contumely, or abash it by su-
percilious derision — he resolved to take the meas-
ure of all its moods and usages.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 103

He delivered his first speech on the 31st of Jan-
uary, 1794, selecting for his subject Mr. Pitt's mo-
tion for a subsidy to the King of Sardinia. The
specific objection to this motion was, that it gave
d£200,000 a year to the King of Sardinia, and got
nothing in return ; the general objection was to
the war itself, which the subsidy was intended to
support. Mr. Fox and Mr. Grey had both spoken
before Mr. Canning rose ; and from the structure
of his reply," it was evident that he had carefully
prepared all its main points, which were less re-
markable for eloquence or originality than for dex-
terity of arrangement. It was the speech of a clev-
er tactician. The most practiced debater could
not have conducted the argument with greater
adroitness. He divided all the objections against
the subsidy into two propositions : 1st. That it ought
not to be entered into at all ; 2d. That, acknowl-
edging such a subsidy to be proper in principle,
this particular subsidy was disadvantageous in de-
tails. It will be seen at once that the whole ques-
tion was enclosed in the first proposition, which, in
point of fact, involved the second ; but, with the
expertness of a well-trained logician, Mr. Canning
took the first for granted, as a matter upon which
there could be no difference of opinion, and pro-
ceeded to discuss the merits of the second, as if it
were the vital topic ; then, having succeeded in en-
gaging or entangling attention on subordinate con-
siderations, he suddenly reverted to the original
question, and wound up with a general defense of
the war.

The House was taken by surprise. It expected
something highly inflated from the new speaker :
the opposition looked for a display of exuberant
enthusiasm which might damage a cause that re-
quired to be trimmed with the utmost caution and

104 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

subtlety; and the ministers may probably have had
some slight apprehensions of a similar result. Both
were disappointed. The speech discovered com-
plete knowledge of the artifices of debate, and was
of too close a texture to be easi]y picked to pieces.
The topics insisted upon were old and exhausted.
Every thing that could be said in behalf of the war
had been already said ; but these commonplaces
were here put together with such compactness and
rapidity of illustration, as to strike the mind with
condensed force, if not with actual novelty. It had
been urged, for instance, over and over again from
the ministerial benches that the war was absolute-
ly necessary to prevent the spread of revolutiona-
ry principles ; but Mr. Canning placed this contin-
gent terror in a more startling aspect by asserting
that we had to thank the war that we had still a
government, that the functions of the House were
not usurped by a corresponding society, and that,
instead of sitting in debate as to whether or not
they should subsidize the King of Sardinia, they sat
there at all. In the same way, upon a subsequent
occasion, in the same session, he defended the Alien
Bill, and the act for protecting French property in
our funds, by observing that if it had not been for
such measures, our towns would have been filled
by French citizens, and, instead of English notes,
our cities would have swarmed with French as-
signats. The merit consisted in bringing the argu-
ment home to the very doors of the people, in re-
ducing speculation to reality, and resolving a sound-
ing generality into palpable images. This was a
great merit ; it gave an articulate tongue and in-
telligible shape to the vague bugbear of national
alarm, and made it tell with distinctness on the
nerves of his hearers. It was like the sudden
challenge of a trumpet at the gates of the council.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 105

This speech squared wonderfully, also, with the
prejudices of the audience. It was a common thing
to say, for example, that the French were a parcel
of madmen, and to describe the Revolution as an
outbreak of insanity. Nobody minded such frothy
declamation ; but Mr. Canning knew how to give
point to the extravagance. " If," he exclaimed,
" it had been a harmless, idiot lunacy, which had
contented itself with playing its tricks and practi-
cing its fooleries at home ; with dressing up strum-
pets in oak leaves, and inventing nicknames for the
calendar, I should have been far from desiring to
interrupt their innocent amusements ; we might
have looked on with hearty contempt, indeed ; but
with a contempt not wholly unmixed with commis-
eration." It is easy to understand how such allu-
sions would act upon the sturdy Protestantism of
an English House of Commons — how this artful
method of dramatizing the superstitions of our
neighbors would throw the unguarded audience into
roars of applause.

The effect, upon the whole, was considerable,
although not exactly of the kind anticipated. But
Mr. Canning took an early opportunity of vindica-
ting his reputation for eloquence, which this sub-
ject, hackneyed and narrow, scarcely afforded him.

In his next speech — on Major Maitland's motion
of inquiry into the causes of the failure of Dunkirk
and the evacuation of Toulon — delivered in April,
he made the first experiment of his powers of sar-
casm. This is always dangerous in a young mem-
ber, who is sure to be reminded of the respect he
owes his elders ; to be told to go back to his books,
and study the laws and Constitution of the country,
of which, of course, he is profoundly ignorant ;
with a great deal of good advice to the same pur-
pose, highly flavored with contempt. Mr. Canning

106 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

did not escape this inevitable lesson. Mr. Francis
administered it with the usual square-toed solemni-
ty, but had scarcely got so far as to inform " the
young gentleman who had just escaped from his
school and his classics, and was not yet conversant
in the laws and Constitution of his country, that he
had imprudently delivered sentiments which tend-
ed to degrade him in the opinion of the world,"
when he was suddenly called to order. The House
did not see any thing in Mr. Canning's " sentiments"
which should exactly degrade him, and so the
young orator had the full benefit of the laugh.

It seems to have been Mr. Canning's manly de-
termination to avail himself, in this session, of eve-
ry proper occasion which offered, for making a
clear declaration of his principles on all the great
questions which were then before the country.
He left nothing in doubt as to the course which he
felt it his duty to pursue : and even they who dis-
sented most strongly from his opinions were com-
pelled to applaud the candor and integrity with
which he avowed them. He spoke only three times
during the session : the first time, on the subsidy
to the King of Sardinia ; the second, on the review
of certain circumstances in the campaign just then
closed; and the third, on the suspension of the Ha-
beas Corpus Act. The first and second may be
taken as declarations in favor of the war ; and the
third, as the announcement of his determination to
support Mr. Pitt in any measures which he should
consider necessary for its maintenance.

The war question was then at its height. It
dazzled many people, and had especially in its fa-
vor the traditional fanaticism which used to set up
hostility between France and England as a sort of
law of Providence,, and the capacity of one Eng-
lishman to beat six Frenchmen as an article of faith.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 107

It required little excuse, or none, to engage the
people in a war with France. We were too ready
at all times, shut up in ill humors and animosities
as we were, to shoot our quills at the least alarm
from that quarter. There was no great difficulty,
therefore, in the first step — the puzzle was to jus-
tify it when taken.

We were already at war when Mr. Canning en-
tered Parliament. He had nothing to do with the
origin of the war ; his province was to maintain
the necessity of prosecuting it, which was easier,
and more reconcilable with reason, than any de-
fense which could be made for having begun it.
There were half 'a million of soldiers on the front-
iers of France, a great many more training in the
interior, and a fleet at Brest : here were the ele-
ments of the argument ; the rest was left to fancy
or inspiration.

The most remarkable peculiarity of this war
was, that nobody could tell exactly what it was for.
Ministers and their adherents differed among them-
selves in assigning an object to it. Like the melie
in the burlesque, it exhausted all the ingenuity of
conjecture :

" To it they goes ;
But what they're all fighting for, nobody knows."

Mr. Burke declared that the object of the war
was the restoration of the ancient monarchy of
France, and that it ought to be openly avowed.
Mr. Pitt denied that such was the object,* declaring

* This denial on behalf of ministers was perfectly explicit on
the occasion of Mr. Tierney's motion for peace in 1798 (as it had
been on several previous occasions), when Lord Hawkesbury (af-
terward Lord Liverpool) took extraordinary pains to disclaim, on
the part of ministers, any such design as that of restoring the
monarchy in France. Yet it is a curious commentary on this dis-
claimer to find Mr. Pitt, in 1801, when all chance for the Bourbons
was at an end, betraying the desire which he had all along secret-
ly nourished and diligently concealed. His words are remarka-

108 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

that the restoration was only a means to an end,
the end itself being peace.* Mr. Canning, Mr.
Jenkinson, and others asserted that the legitimate
aim of the war was the destruction of the Jacobin
party, and that it could never be brought to a ter-
mination until that was accomplished — a view of
the case which was adopted in the king's speech
of 1794, with as little ambiguity as could be fair-
ly expected in a king's speech.f

ble : he said that " he gave up his hopes of restoring the ancient
monarchy of France with the greatest reluctance ; and he should,
to his dying day, lament that there were not, on the part of the oth-
er powers of Europe, efforts corresponding with our own for the ac-
complishment of that great work. There were periods, during
the continuance of the war, in which he had hopes of our being
able to put together the scattered fragments of that great and ven-
erable edifice — to restore the exiled nobility of France ; but that
had been found unattainable."

* " Gifford's Life of Pitt," iv., 310. The facts are to be found
scattered through the numerous debates which were raised on
this subject ; but it is well to confirm them by the evidence of a
thorough-paced partisan like Gifford, who would certainly admit
nothing to the prejudice of his own side of the question which he
could avoid.

The Jesuitry of Pitt comes out boldly in the audacious quibble,
that the restoration was to be considered merely as a means to an
end. The end was to be peace, yet he would not negotiate with
the existing government, who were willing enough to make terms ;
and with this profession on his lips, which every day falsified, he
meant to carry on the war until the Bourbons, with whom alone
he would negotiate, were re-established ! The proper way to de-
scribe it would be by direct inversion — the pretence of peace be-
ing really used as a means to the true end, the restoration of the
monarchy.

t It is really curious to trace, through the interminable debates
on the war, the anxiety of the opposition to extract from the min-
istry some explanation of their objects, and the obstinate deter-
mination of the ministry not to give any. Night after night this
harassing question was sure to be agitated in one shape or anoth-
er, but all to no purpose. Mr. Canning, before he was sufficient-
ly habituated to the ways of the House to bear such tantalizing
scrutiny with due Parliamentary patience— a thing, indeed, which
his temper and his candor could never, at any time, have endured
— broke out into a burst of petulant ridicule on this point. " ' But
what,' say the gentlemen on the other side of the House, ' is the
distinct object for which we are engaged V Gentlemen put this
question as if an object were a corporeal substance, as if it was

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 109

It was admitted by everybody that no country
has a right to interfere with the internal govern-
ment of another. Pitt was unusually explicit on
this point. He granted in full the right of the
French people to set up their own government ;
but he refused to recognize it when it was set up.
This was the Pitt policy in every thing. The ab-
stract principle was always admitted ; but the mo-
ment it came to be applied, there was sure to be
some plausible pretext for rendering it impracti-
cable. The Pitt ministers pursued this huge fraud
upon so grand a scale, and with such systematic
action, that they imposed to an incredible extent
upon the good nature of the people ; who, like a
dog that is soothed by words of endearment, at the
same moment that some urchin is pinching its tail,
were so puzzled, that they hardly knew whether
they ought to be pleased or vexed.

The peace which Mr. Pitt professed was unique.
It was to be brought about by much the same
sort of agency which used to be so effective in
establishing quietness at an Irish pattern. Eng-
land went to war with France to secure peace to
Europe ; and when it was urged, over and over
again, especially by Wilberforce, in his humane,
persevering way, that the obvious mode of getting
peace was to open negotiations and stop the war,
Pitt would still insist that the best possible way
to insure peace was to keep up the war as long as
we could.

As to negotiations, that course was repudiated
at once. Pitt, while he allowed that the French
people had a right to set up their own form of gov-

something tangible, something that could be taken in the hand
and laid upon your table, and turned round and round before them
for accurate, ocular examination. In this sense I profess myself
perfectly unable to satisfy them."

K

110 THE LIFE OF CANNIN-G.

ernment, insisted that the new government pos-
sessed no authority to give stability to its treaties.
He admitted the general proposition, that the people
had a right to frame any government they thought
fit ; but denied the irresistible corollary that they
were bound by its acts. This refusal to negotiate
with the republic was practically equivalent to a
declaration of war against that particular exercise
of a right which even they who made war upon it
admitted in full. Of course, ministers endeavored
to evade any direct acknowledgment that such was
the state of the case, and tried to escape from it by
general declamation upon the insecurity of things
in France, the fall of assignats, and the crippled
condition of the population ; but no equivocation
could conceal the fact that this was literally a war
of principles.

Mr. Canning alone, of all the supporters of the
ministry, was candid enough to defend the war on
that special ground. " Distinction had been taken,"
he observed, " by gentlemen on the other side of
the House, between the progress of the arms of
France and the progress of her principles. The
progress of her arms, it was admitted, it had been,
and would always be, our right and our policy to
oppose ; but we need not, and we ought not, it seems,
to go to war against her principles. He, for his
part, could not see such fine distinctions. Admit-
ting that the aggrandizement and aggression of
France must naturally be the objects of our jeal-
ousy and resistance, he could not understand that
they became less so, in proportion as they were ac-
companied and promoted by principles destructive
of civil society." The concluding sentence is a
little obscure, and partakes of the mystification
which was commonly resorted to in the application
of general doctrines to particular cases. Aggran-

THE LIFE OF CANNING. Ill

dizement and aggression certainly could not be-
come less the objects of jealousy and resistance,
because they were accompanied by pernicious
principles ; seeing that they had already become
so without any accompaniment. But that was not
the question, which simply concerned the distinc-
tion that had been drawn by the opposition be-
tween the progress of arms and the progress of
principles ; and in admitting that he could see no
such distinction, Mr. Canning, in effect, took his
stand upon the very intelligible ground that one
government is justified in going to war with another
because it disapproves of its principles.

Mr. Canning did not in so many words enunciate
this doctrine, but the argument he employed bears
no other construction ; and the fact that he applied
it practically to the war with France is only one in-
stance out of a multitude which might be cited of
the false political morality into which ministers
were driven in their defense of that measure.

That peace was not the object of the war is suf-
ficiently disclosed by the strenuous opposition of
ministers to every effort that was made for its at-
tainment. If they had been sincere, they might
easily have secured an honorable peace. But
peace was the last thing they desired. They even
went so far as to declare that the consequences of
peace would be worse than the continuance of war.
" In the event of a peace," exclaimed Mr. Wind-
ham, " the intercourse between the two countries
must be opened, when the French would pour in
their emissaries, and all the English infected with
French principles, whom we had now the means
of excluding, would return to disseminate their
abominable tenets among the people." Here was
the secret let out ; and yet all this time ministers
were guilty of the transparent hypocrisy of pretend-

112 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

ing that they were seeking to re-establish the peace
of Europe.

In one thing alone Mr. Pitt was sincere. He
never disguised his determination to prosecute the
war at any cost, shuffle as he might about his mo-
tives. To be sure, concealment on that point was
not very easy, as he was constantly making new
demands upon the industry of the people to sustain
the tremendous expense of troops and subsidies.
What with new taxes upon every conceivable ar-
ticle of taste, necessity, or pleasure, the wants of
man and the gifts of heaven, the people must have
been more obtuse than the tax-collector usually
finds them, if they were not thoroughly convinced
that he was in earnest ; and that, while the resour-
ces of the country lasted, he was resolved to per-
severe. And that was exactly what he meant. He
went upon the exhausting process. It was like a
profligate competition between two trading rivals,
carried on at a daily loss, with the desperate cer-
tainty that the one or the other, beggared and un-
done, must abandon the field to his adversary at
last. Mr. Pitt avowed this part of his policy frankly
enough, and openly boasted, during one of the
thousand and one discussions which took place on
this subject, that Great Britain had expended on the
prosecution of the war no more than 6£25,000,000
per year, while the outlay of France amounted to
<£97,000,000 per month, or d£324,000,000 per year.
The inference was, as his historian, with incredible
candor, observes, that we should exhaust her in the
Ions: run * And this was the war for which we
are to this hour laboring under the weight of a na-
tional debt, from which no prophetic trance of the
imagination can foresee the date or the means of
our extrication.

* " Gifford's Life of Pitt," iv., 292.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 113

But this very debt was a significant and pow-
erful agent in bringing round the results Mr.
Pitt aimed at. It would be difficult to hit upon a
more effectual method of preventing the people
from cultivating French principles, or any other
kind of principles. To use their own descriptive
phrase, it kept their noses so close to the grind-
stone, that there was no time for any thing but
work. They were compelled to work double tides
under the pressure of the war taxes, which were
raised to pay the interest of the debt, while the
debt itself crushed the independence and silenced
the complaints of the moneyed and property class-
es, whom it enslaved, as a matter of pure necessity,
to the will of the minister. The debt was not only
the instrument by which he overawed public opin-
ion at home, but the fulcrum by which he moved
the whole of Europe.

Had the war even been successful (poor satis-
faction as that would have been to a tax-crushed
country), the event might have furnished some for-
tuitous vindication of all this ruinous outlay ; but
it was more disastrous in its progress, and exhibit-
ed more extraordinary failures in the " long run"
(the final test to which ministers pointed on every
fresh mortification, or whenever more money was
wanted), than any known war in the history of the
world.* There was not a single point to which

* Mr. Pitt openly declared to the House that we had failed in
our efforts against France, and that the objects of the war were
frustrated in the sequel. " Disappointed in our hopes of being
able to drive France within her ancient limits," he observed, " or
even to raise barriers against her farther incursions, it becomes
necessary, with the change of circumstances, to change our ob-
jects ; for I do not know a more fatal error than to look only at
one object, and obstinately to pursue it, when the hope of accom-
plishing it no longer remains." This was when the war was
over, and peace concluded with France.

8 K2

114 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

the administration nailed their colors from which
they were not ultimately beaten down.

After this Pitt ministry had pledged itself in the
most solemn manner that it would never negotiate
with a new-fangled government of French manu-
facture (a sly hint that they were only awaiting the
legitimate advent of the Bourbons), Pitt himself
endeavored to effect a sort of underhand negotia-
tion with the Convention,* and Lord Hawkesbury
actually entered into a treaty with Bonaparte.t On
this latter occasion the noble lord was severely tak-
en to task for condescending to reduce himself, in
his own office in Downing-street, to the level of the
" citizen" minister, with, whom he signed the pre-
liminary articles. It seems that it was considered
an indispensable condition of diplomatic etiquette
that the rank of the agents should be equal, which
was about as reasonable, said Mr. Sheridan, as if
Lord Whitworth were to be sent to Petersburg,
and told that he was not to treat but with some gen-
tleman six feet high and as handsome as himself!

The project of entering and occupying France
was constantly declared to be on the eve of accom-
plishment. " We have reason to hope," exclaim-
ed Mr. Jenkinson, in 1794, " that we shall be able
to penetrate the interior of France in the present
campaign ;" and his biographer congratulates him
upon the fact that, although he was incessantly
baited in the House of Commons upon this and
other equally sagacious prophecies, he had the sat-
isfaction of seeing the idea realized at last, by the
entry of the allies into Paris, twenty-one years af-
terward.! A man who bet upon the Epsom might
as well claim the stakes because his horse happen-

* In 1796. f In 1801.

t " Memoirs of the Public Life and Administration of Lord Liv
erpool," p. 83.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 115

ed to win at Newmarket. The consequential con-
nection between the entry of the allies into Paris
in 1815, and Mr. Jenkinson's campaign in 1794, or
the war of which it formed a forlorn fraction, is just
about as obvious.

The conquest of France was treated as a thing,
not to say practicable, but certain. It was " hey,
presto !" and you might look for France in Pitt's
waistcoat pocket. Well might Mr. Fox cry out,
" Oh, calumniated Crusaders, how rational and mod-
erate were your objects ! Oh, tame and feeble
Cervantes, with what a timid pencil and faint col-
ors have you painted the portrait of a disordered
imagination !"*

The restoration of the Bourbons was another
vaticination, and, like the rest, it was signally falsi-
fied, with this aggravating difference, that a second
revolution, completing the imperfect issues of the
first, has shown, in its immediate results and dis-
tant influences, that these costly Crusades, instead
of crushing the popular principle, only submitted
its vitality to the most triumphant test it is in the
nature of human circumstances to afford. In the
mean while the world has gained some wisdom,
and will never again, we may venture to predict,
behold such an iniquitous league hounded on by
the criminal passions of despotism in the pursuit of
objects so utterly hopeless and unjust.

It was the last misfortune of this war against
France, that, well inclined as the bulk of the pop-
ulation might have been at other times to embark
in such an enterprise, out of false notions of glory,
or jealousy, or national pride, they were so averse
to it at this period that they suffered no opportuni-
ty to escape without testifying the abhorrence in
which they held it. When the king was going
* Letter to the Electors of Westminster.

116 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

down to Parliament to open the session, the mob
surrounded his coach, shouting " No war !" in his
ears (some add, " No king !"), clamoring for cheap
provisions, and demanding with furious gestures
the dismissal of Pitt. This was a plain indication
of the lowest stratum of public opinion. The op-
position declared their belief that it was only a plot
to terrify the people into weak compliances, planned
and executed by ministers themselves for the main-
tenance of their power.* But if it were a plot,
it was so clumsy that it defeated its own purpose.
If it supplied an excuse for fresh severities against
the people, it also betrayed the unpopularity of the
war, and the condition of want to which a large
section of the population was reduced. This was
proving too much for ministers, who were too cun-
ning to cast nets in the dark for catching their own
feet.

The discontents were real. There was no fic-
tion or masquerade in the sufferings or resentments
of the poor. They had the gratification, however,
of learning from the lips of the minister that they
never before enjoyed such astonishing prosperity ;
that, although the national debt had been doubled
and quadrupled, the sinking fund was flourishing ;
and that, although taxation was grinding them to
the earth, there wa3 no diminution in the exports.!
These consolatory facts were brought before the
House of Commons with such a display of unan-
swerable figures that even the starving mechanic,
if he had the least candor, or was at all open to
conviction, must have been shaken in his belief in
the existence of hunger.

* Speech of the Marquis of Lansdowne, October 20, 1795.

t The advance in the exports in the war-time was repeatedly-
put forward as a proof of the prosperity of the country — a fallacy
which to this hour is fallen back upon, whenever it can be made
use of to serve a purpose.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 117

The people never know when they are well off;
and sometimes, in spite of the most encouraging
increase in the quarter's revenue, they can not be
persuaded that they are a whit wealthier than be-
fore.* So, notwithstanding these proofs of their
happy condition, the turbulence and the distress,
and the demand for a reform in Parliament, grew
deeper and louder ; and ministers who had made
up their minds not to open the question of reform
under any extremity, took a short cut to suppress
the agitation, by seizing upon some of the most
conspicuous members of the Corresponding So-
ciety, and demanding on the same day an act of
indemnity from Parliament. Mr. Pitt moved for a
suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, to enable
the king to secure and detain persons suspected of
having designs against the government. Had Mr.
Pitt proposed to lock up the doors of the House
and fling the keys into the river, he could not have
created more amazement among the members of
the opposition. They were required on the sud-
den, without time for reflection, for evidence, for
the expression of public opinion, to pass an act to
annihilate the liberties of the subject, not by spec-
ulative and indirect approaches, but by direct and
forcible deprivation. The people demanded time
— it was refused ; it was even declared that no
mass of petitions could affect, right or wrong, the
inflexible course the ministers were resolved to
take in this exigency. The pilot was weathering
the storm, and he must weather it in his own way.
A secret committee was appointed ; they made their
report on the next day but one ; and the bill was

* The increase in the revenue is the ordinary surface-evidence
of a thriving state of things ; although, in the majority of cases,
it is solely referable to increased taxation and improved modes of
collection.

118 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

hurried with indecent expedition through the Com-
mons, and passed into law with still more alarming
alacrity by the Lords, amid the execrations of the
multitude.

This was the first violently drastic measure of
Mr. Pitt's new system of treatment. The experi-
ment was accompanied by great danger to phy-
sician and patient ; and it was essential on this oc-
casion, beyond all others, that the supporters of the
minister should rally round him with unflinching
resolution. Mr. Canning was deeply impressed by
the difficulty of Mr. Pitt's position, and the impera-
tive necessity of sustaining him through it ; and,
boldly facing the storm of invective, indignation,
and opprobrium by which the Treasury benches
were assailed, he delivered a defense of the meas-
ure and the minister, which was more to be ap-
plauded for courage and zeal than for discretion
or judgment.

The defense of the measure rested exclusively
on the plea of necessity. The necessity, however,
being rather obstinate of proof, the readiest course
was to take it for granted, and wonder how people
could be so blind as not to see it. " Good God !"
exclaimed Mr. Canning, with that admirable air of
astonishment which became him so well, and looked
so real, " how can gentlemen oppose a measure
that is so obviously necessary-'?" The opposition
had menaced them with petitions, but neither he
nor Mr. Pitt were to be intimidated by petitions so
long as they felt that they were conscientiously dis-
charging their duty to the country. This was at
least carrying the wrong with a high and fearless
hand, and imparting a tone of pomp and authen-
ticity to a palpable outrage on the Constitution.

Mr. Pitt had been taunted by Mr. Grey for his
apostasy on the question of Parliamentary reform ;

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 119

an apostasy rendered the more glaring on this oc-
casion by the fact that one of the persons whom he
had just dragged to prison for agitating that ques-
tion— John Home Tooke — had formerly been his
own associate in the very same cause. " William
Pitt, the reformer of 1782," exclaimed Mr. Grey,
"was now the prosecutor, ay, the persecutor of
reformers."* There was no possibility of turning
aside this accusation. It was drawn from circum-
stances too notorious to admit of evasion. Mr.
Canning met it boldly, and declared that he en-
tirely agreed with Mr. Pitt, that though such a re-
form might not be improper for discussion in time
of peace, yet it was a proposition that ought not to
be agitated in times of tumult and storm. As to
the change in opinion, he had no hesitation in say-
ing that if Mr. Pitt in future should return to his
former opinion, it was probable that he might again
agree with him.

These declarations on the part of Mr. Canning,
extraordinary and extravagant as they are, can
scarcely be regarded as involving any specific prin-
ciples. They must be looked upon rather as dec-
larations of adhesion to Mr. Pitt. He felt himself
bound to support the ministerial policy as a whole ;
that was essential to what he believed to be the
true interests of the country ; and he knew that the
slightest misgiving-, the least wavering, or exercise

* In 1782 Mr. Pitt brought forward a motion in the House of
Commons for a plan of Parliamentary reform, by which he pro-
posed to buy up the boroughs, and transfer the right of election to
the freeholders of the counties at large, or to certain districts.
In 1794 he was- called as a witness upon Home Tooke's trial, and
compelled to convict himself of his former participation in the agi-
tation for reform, and of his recommendation to the people to
pour in petitions in favor of it from all parts of the country—
the very thing, distorted by indictment into treason, for which
Home Tooke and the rest were placed in the dock at the Old
Bailey,

120 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

of individual judgment, might be productive of the
most serious misfortunes. The practical question
arising out of such a line of conduct, concerns, in
effect, not the particular vote, but the obligations
understood to be imposed by all party alliances.

The character of the compact is clear. We have
seen the ministerial majority turned round, like a
troop of horse in the amphitheater, upon the self-
same question, and revoking their own decision of
the nisfht before at the bidding of the minister.*
This is an extreme case (such a one as it is reason-
able to hope, for mere decency, may never happen
again) ; but it illustrates the action, and discloses
the real nature of a party compact. The united
body must move together ; there must be no strag-
gling ; no hanging back or breaking line for the
pursuit of honest crotchets ; there must be a total
surrender of opinion — a tacit submission to orders ;
no man must think for himself; individual convic-
tions must be sacrificed to unity of purpose. It is
upon this principle the papal power has maintained,
itself so wondrously against the broken and scat-
tered assaults of independent reason, pushing its
conquests silently by the mere force of the wedge,
which keeps its place because there is no equal and
uniform pressure by which it can be dislodged. To
this principle the Tory party owe every thing : to
the absolute impossibility of acting upon it, con-
sistently with the higher obligations of conscience,
the Liberal party may attribute their weakness and
dispersion.

Mr. Canning approved of the war, and voted, as
a matter of course, for the measures which Mr.
Pitt declared indispensable to its prosecution. The
overwhelming magnitude and importance of the

* This (happily unprecedented) exploit occurred in the session
of 1845.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 121

object absorbed his scruples, if he had any, about
the means. But Mr. Canning's political life yield-
ed some memorable proofs that he did not hold this
doctrine of passive obedience as being binding at
all times, and under all circumstances, and that he
insisted upon the right of standing sometimes upou
exceptions, and broad exceptions, too ; and by these
exceptions, and not by the rule of Toryism, he won
his illustrious fame.

The devotion, ability, and fearlessness displayed
by Mr. Canning throughout this arduous session,
marked him out at once for distinction ; and he was
selected by Mr. Pitt, on the opening of the next
session, in December, 1794, to second the address
which was moved by Sir Edward Knatchbull. His
speech upon this occasion was directed principally
to the one question upon which all other questions
turned ; and he traversed over again, without much
freshness and novelty, the old reasons for not seek-
ing or inviting negotiations for peace. But there
was a deficiency of Parliamentary tact in the treat-
ment of his topics. He was much too clear and
sturdy for an address on a king's speech. There
was no attempt at conciliation, and as to the req-
uisite vagueness and mystification, it seemed as if
he had not the least suspicion that it was necessa-
ry to shirk or mystify any thing. He certainly be-
gan with the standing phrase which from time im-
memorial has followed all king's speeches, like a
wailing spirit waiting to be laid, that "he hoped
for one night gentlemen would consent to lay aside
their differences ;" but he immediately added that
he did not expect any thing of the kind, and took
care, before he had done, to prevent the possibility
of its consummation.*

* Mr. Therry, referring to this speech, says that " Mr. Pitt, in
the circle of his private friends, spoke of it, and of the admirable

X4

122 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

The tone of defiance that breathed through this
speech (although it was not more warlike, after all,
than that of his majesty), called up a new and un-
expected antagonist in the person of one of Mr.
Pitt's most indiscriminate admirers. Really alarm-
ed at the menacing character of the ministerial
manifesto, and with the best intentions in the world,
Mr. Wilberforce moved an amendment ; taking
occasion to review and condemn the sanguinary
conflict in which we were engaged, and telling
Mr. Canning that, hurried away by his eloquence
(a complimentary way of describing an oratorical
indiscretion), he had made assertions which it was
impossible to maintain, and asked questions which
it was unfortunately but too easy to answer. The
opposition were thrown into ecstasies. Mr. Pitt,
deeply moved at the defection of an ally whose
odorous reputation was so desirable at such a mo-
ment, did not hesitate to confess his mortification,
and the discussion passed away amid a roar of
artillery, and ended in smoke. Mr. Pitt, who apol-
ogized to the House for the emotion he betrayed
under these painful circumstances, had a majority
of 173.

Mr. Fox brought forward his motion on the state
of the nation in the following March. It was in-
troduced by a speech of transcendent power, which
extorted even from Pitt a burst of admiration. The
domestic questions it embraced, chiefly relating to
Ireland, required to be met with great reserve, and

address with which it was delivered, as one that afforded an indi-
cation of even greater abilities than fame — which had been busy
in Mr. Canning's praise — had hitherto awarded him." — "Speech-
es, I., 22." From an allusion which Mr. Therry makes to a par-
ticular passage in the speech, it is quite evident that there is a
mistake in the description, and that Mr. Pitt's eulogy was intend-
ed to apply to a speech made by Mr. Canning upward of three
years afterward. There was, undoubtedly, nothing in the speech
on the address to justify such an encomium.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 123

Mr. Canning, who followed Mr. Sheridan, was care-
ful not to commit himself. In this alone consisted
the excellence of his short and emphatic speech.
The object of the opposition was to obtain inquiry
— that of the ministry to prevent it : the former
wanted to compel or entrap the government into
admissions or declarations upon certain topics — the
latter to resist discussion without betraying any
opinions whatever. Mr. Canning conducted his
share of the debate with infinite skill. He said
very little, but it was to the purpose, or, more cor-
rectly, to no purpose. He assured the House that
" he was far from contending against the right of
the English Parliament to call the ministers to ac-
count for their conduct with respect to Ireland ; but
he did mean to say that he had strong doubts of the
policy and propriety of exercising that right at a
period when it could not be exercised without re-
ducing us to the dilemma either of discussing what
we had no power to decide, or of deciding what
we had no right to enforce." Nothing could be
clearer than the general right, and nothing, as usual,
more doubtful than the exercise of it.

Mr. Canning's accession to some appointment
under the administration was now looked upon as
the natural consequence of the position he had al-
ready acquired ; and before the close of the session
of 1795, he vacated his seat to accept the office of
under-secretary of state for the foreign department,
the seals of which were then held by Lord Gren-
ville. In the following session he took his seat for
Wendover, in the county of Bucks, and appeared
for the first time in the House of Commons as a
member of the government.

The opposition of that day had a great horror of
placemen, as all virtuous oppositions have until
they get into power themselves ; and Mr, Canning,

124 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

having already excited envy and jealousy enough
by his talents, could hardly expect to escape a lit-
tle odium for the official eminence to which they
had so rapidly promoted him. He was not suffer-
ed to enjoy his honors very long, until one night, in
a fit. of economical indignation, the appointment
was impugned on the ground that Mr. Aust, his
official predecessor, a person represented to be em-
inently qualified, and as fit for business as ever, had
been removed merely to provide for Mr. Canning.
The accusation was the luckiest thing imaginable.
It reduced a hundred pointless and malicious inu-
endos to a distinct shape, and enabled Mr. Canning
to show at once that it was founded on a total mis-
conception of the facts of the case. The truth was,
that the " eminent" Mr. Aust (who gained more bv
the affair than any body else, since it will surely
send him down to posterity immortally linked with
Mr. Canning) had been advanced to more lucra-
tive offices, while Mr. Canning had been put into
his former place, so that the public had neither been
burdened by one shilling of additional expense, nor,
which was probably of more consequence, depriv-
ed of the invaluable services of Mr. Aust. " If sor-
did views had been my object," said Mr. Canning,
" I would rather have accepted the offices Mr.
Aust now holds than the station which I fill."

Incidents must not be looked for in the life of a
young minister, whose apprenticeship in the bureau
is too laborious to admit of much external variety.
In the next two years, 1796 and 1797, Mr. Canning
devoted himself assiduously to the business of his
office, and rarely took any part in the discussions
in Parliament.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 125

V.

THE ANTI-JACOBIN.

About this period a phrase got into use which
seems to have been perfectly well understood by
every body, but which, at this distance of time,
does not appear to convey a very accurate idea
of any thing. It led to unexampled confusion in
the country. Had a raging plague gone forth,
sweeping the land's breadth, it could not have pro-
duced more desolating effects ; some people were
cowed and struck dumb at its approach; others, in-
spired with a sort of phrensy, defied it to come on,
as if it were an incarnate fiend ; and the govern-
ment, impressed with a proper paternal responsi-
bility, took every possible precaution that could be
devised for averting this alarming visitation.

It is not to be hoped that any body in the nine-
teenth century will be much enlightened as to the
terrible cause of this national fright by being in-
formed that it bore the name of French principles.
That was its name, whatever its nature might have
been ; and the administration, in their urgent anxi-
ety for the public safety, thought of nothing, night,
noon, or morning, but how they should keep it out
of the country. There are some French articles
— such as fans, gloves, blonde, and the like — which
can be excluded without difficulty ; and should it
ever be considered desirable to prevent their ad-
mission into England, we know exactly how to do
it, by setting them down in the tariff at a pro-
hibitory duty. But it was not so easy to describe
French principles in the tariff, or to get revenue
officers to seize and confiscate them at the ports.

L 2

120 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

Spanish mahogany is intelligible. If we were
told that there was an extraordinary supply com-
ing across the seas to us, we might probably antic-
ipate a derangement in the timber market ; but
we should have no such uneasiness if we heard of
a shipment of French principles. Judging from
the nature of principles in general, we should be
disposed to imagine that the cargo must be rather
volatile and harmless. Nevertheless, the bare sus-
picion of such an importation threw the establish-
ed authorities of this island into an agony of ap-
prehension.

Mahogany can be cut, and sawed, and seasoned,
and made into chairs. Not so a principle, which,
having no physical attributes whatever, bears a
nearer analogy to the object of the war, which Mr.
Canning declared could not be taken up in gentle-
men's hands and turned round and round upon the
table. But how this intangible and elemental
thing — the common property of the reason and
imagination of all nations — could be called French
any more than Russian, or Hanoverian, it is hard
to say. If any one were to speak of a Hottentot
principle, he would be set down as an egregious
blockhead ; yet we can not, for the life of us, see
why there should not be Hottentot principles as
well as French principles.

Still, notwithstanding the incomprehensibility of
the thing, true it is, that for a long and dreary sea-
son multitudes of honest people, who had caught
up this cuckoo cry about French principles, used
to quake in their shoes at the bare thought of their
spreading into this happy country ; as if no such
principles had ever found their way here before ;
or as if, being dressed up in the French fashion,
they had become odious to our English taste. The
difficulty of understanding is great, how it came to

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 127

pass that we, the people of this country, ever
could have been afraid of such a phrase ; or how
we could have suffered it to fly about in books,
newspapers, state documents, and common conver-
sation, with some direfully mysterious meaning at-
tached to it over and above that of mere revolution
— we who had beheaded one king, and driven out
a race of kings for betraying their trust — we, whose
living dynasty was placed on the throne by a revo-
lution.

This mad panic was foolish and unreasoning,
not alone in attributing peculiar danger to the cir-
culation of these principles, but in presupposing
(for otherwise there could have been no danger)
that the people were inclined to lay violent hands
on the monarchy, or to disturb in the slightest de-
gree the integrity of our mixed and balanced Con-
stitution. We have the express declarations of all
the popular leaders to the contrary, and their re-
corded testimony in favor of a limited monarchy,
as the mode of government which presented, above
all others, the most perfect safeguards for public
liberty. In fact, so far from entertaining any de-
sire to destroy the Constitution, the aim of the Re-
formers was to purify and invigorate it. And had
they entertained such a design, they neither could
have been prevented from effecting it by the sup-
pression of these French principles, nor furnished
with a solitary additional reason for prosecuting it
by their most active diffusion.

But, giving the government full credit for the
best intentions, was there ever such a stark staring
absurdity as the notion that they could check the
admission into this country, or the propagation in
it of political doctrines of any kind ] How could
they do it ] By calling out the militia ] By put-
ting a tax upon reading and writing % They might

128 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

as well have talked of keeping out the sun, or stop-
ping the course of the winds. And all the time
that this folly was showing itself through all sorts
of actual precautions on the part of the executive,
the press was disseminating the poison as fast as
hands could distil and distribute it through every
nook and cranny of the kingdom ; and Parliament
was accelerating its consumption by eternally an-
alyzing and discussing its miraculous properties,
and serving it out gratis to the poor in infinitesimal
doses. The danger was held to be so great that
there was nothing else talked of; until" at last the
curiosity of fear was wrought up to such intensity,
that there was not a man, woman, or child, from
the Land's End to John o' Groats, who was not as
well acquainted with the doctrines of the Revolu-
tion as the French themselves. To say that the
minister did not restrain the diffusion of French
principles would be saying little. He not only did
not restrain them, but, by betraying the impotent
desire to do so, he stimulated their circulation to an
extent incalculably greater than they could have
attained under any other possible circumstances.

It used to be said — but the saying is fast dying
out — that, had it not been for the vigorous measures
of Pitt, the populace would have taken up the doc-
trines of the Revolution. The reverse of this good
old saying happens to be true. In consequence of
the vigorous measures of Pitt, the populace did
take up the doctrines of the Revolution ; but, in
consequence of their own good sense, they laid
them down again. Instead of congratulating our-
selves, therefore, on the vigilance of Pitt, it would
be more consonant with justice to acknowledge
what we owe to the virtue of the people.

While Pitt and Grenville were carrying on the
war with remorseless energy abroad, Canning was

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 121)

employing a much more effective instrument than
the sword in combating the progress of revolution-
ary principles at home. That instrument was rid-
icule ; and if the ministry had been content to leave
French principles to its tender mercies, they would
have witnessed their extirpation by a surer process
than riot acts and state trials. The " Anti- Jacobin"
was a much more formidable prosecutor than the
attorney-general.

The first number of the " Anti-Jacobin," or
" Weekly Examiner," was published on the 20th
of November, 1797. The avowed purpose of this
journal was to expose the vicious doctrines of the
Revolution, and to turn into ridicule and contempt
the advocates of them in this country. The work
originated with Mr. Canning, who wrote the pros-
pectus, and contributed some of its ablest articles.
Mr. Gifford was the editor, and among the writers
were Mr. John Hookham Frere, Mr. Jenkinson,
Mr. George Ellis, Lord Clare, and Lord Morning-
ton, afterward Marquis Wellesley.* It occupied
the opposite ground to that which had formerly
been taken up by the " Rolliad" and the " Proba-
tionary Odes," but " with a difference." The wit
and vigor (and scurrility) of the " Anti-Jacobin"
left behind, at an immeasurable distance, the gen-
tlemanly satire of the Whigs.f

* The author of a biography of Mr. Huskisson says that "there
is no entire article in the " Anti-Jacobin" to which even conjecture
has ever affixed the name of Mr. Huskisson." — " Speeches of the
Right Honorable W. Huskisson," i., 42. It might be inferred from
this that Mr. Huskisson had contributed parts of articles to the
" Anti- Jacobin ;" but we believe it may be confidently stated that,
although intimate with the writers, he had no share whatever in
the work, direct or indirect.

1 The " Rolliad" and the " Probationary Odes" appeared about
the spring of 1785. Lord Rolle was the nominal hero of the for-
mer, but the satires generally were leveled against Pitt, Dundas,
and Lord Liverpool. The reputed author was a Mr. Joseph Rich-
ardson, of one of the Inns of Court ; they were really written by
9

130 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

Wherever the wit of the " Anti-Jacobin" is irre-
sistible, the reader may conclude that he has de-
tected the hand of Canning; but there was such a
copartnery in these things, and such a disinclination
to separate each person's share, even were it pos-
sible to do so, that, with some marked exceptions,
the authorship can not now be ascertained with
certainty. The work closed in 1798, and, during
its brief existence, Mr. Canning wrote largely for
it. His connection with it was well known at the
time, nor was he ever disposed to disavow it. He
declared in Parliament, ten years afterward, that
he had no other source of regret for the share he
had in it except the imperfection of his pieces.
But what that share was is to a great extent a mat-
ter of conjecture, to be determined by internal ev-
idence.

The poem of " New Morality" is on all hands
ascribed to Mr. Canning; and his exclusive title
to it appears to admit of little doubt. This satire,

Burgoyne, Fitzpatrick (to whom some of the happiest things are
attributed), Townshend, Tickell, Pretyman, and Dr. Lawrence.
Sheridan was suspected of having contributed, but he denied it
in the House of Commons, when charged with the authorship by-
Lord Rolle.

Mr. Moore, in his " Life of Sheridan," says : " The ' Rolliad'
and the ' Anti-Jacobin' may, on their respective sides of the ques-
tion, be considered as models of that style of political satire whose
lightness and vivacity give it the appearance of proceeding rather
from the wantonness of wit than of ill nature, and whose very
malice, from the fancy with which it is mixed up, like certain
kinds of fireworks, explodes in sparkles." This playful descrip-
tion maybe allowed to apply with sufficient accuracy to the "Rol-
liad ;" but it is suggested, with deference, that it can hardly be
considered applicable to the " Anti-Jacobin," which was so full of
base personal invective, so coarse and even indecent, that it gave
great offense to some of the minister's strongest supporters. Wil-
berforce always spoke out against it. " 1 attacked Canning," he
says, " about the ' Anti-Jacobin,' at dinner at Pitt's." — " Life of
Wilberforce," ii., 334. The " Rolliad" did expire in sparkles; but
the " Anti- Jacobin" belonged to a different sort of fireworks, had
more of an incendiary spirit in it, and might be more properly com-
pared to a firebrand.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 131

as the name implies, is aimed at the false philoso-
phy of the day, but, hitting beyond its proposed
mark as the theme rises, it strikes at the Duke of
Bedford, Southey, Coleridge, Godwin, and several
other minor celebrities. The passages, which are
clear of scornful personalities, are written with that
unmistakable polish which at once declares the
authorship ; and even where he flings his arrowy
contempt upon Thelwall, Williams, and the small
fry of democratic agitators, we fancy we can still
trace him in the refinement of the points.* But it
was not in weighty or savage satire that Mr. Can-
ning's strength lay — the tomahawk of right be-
longed to the author of the " Baviad" and " Msevi-
ad," who wielded it with the rude force and ruder
courage befitting such a weapon. Canning's more
civilized taste delighted in handling lighter instru-
ments ; and the sphere of operations in this ram-
pant journal was accordingly extended to accom-
modate him.

It must be confessed there was a lar^e field for
ridicule in the literary as well as the political fash-
ions of the day. The " Sorrows of Werter" had
done its work upon the maudlin tenderness of the
English public ; Darwin had transferred to the
vegetable world the affected sensibility of the board-
ing-school; Southey was bringing out his English
Sapphics ; and Sheridan and Holcroft were doing
their best to naturalize upon the English stage the
false sentiment and bad fine writing of the German
playwrights. Here were tempting topics for the
" Anti- Jacobin," all legitimate topics, too ; coming

* It is in this poem of " New Morality" the following lines oc-
cur, which have since become so familiar to the public :

" Give me th' avow'd, the erect, the manly foe,
Bold I can meet — perhaps may turn his blow ;
But of all plagues, good Heaven, thy wrath can send,
Save, save, oh ! save me from the candid friend !"

132 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

in luckily enough to give an aspect of justice to its
foul partisanship.

So far as the literary offenders were concerned,
the " Anti- Jacobin" had not only justice on its side,
but the thanks of every person of good taste. We
may be assured it had no heartier reader — if we
could find it out — than Fox himself, who despised
all false styles, and must have enjoyed the good
things of these slashing critics to the top of his bent,
stopping short only at their politics, which were
evil in thought and utterance. It would have been
well if the writers had stopped there too. The
" Anti-Jacobin" has grown into a vague sort of
fame by the assent of thousands who take it upon
report, and who are ready to transmit its reputation
to posterity, without any better knowledge of its
deserts. But it is right that people who receive
and forward this judgment should know something
of the grounds on which it originally proceeded.

When the " Anti-Jacobin was started, the avail-
able talent of the Reform party, in and out of Par-
liament, greatly preponderated over that of its op-
ponents. An engine was wanted that should make
up, by the destructiveness of its explosions, for the
lack of more numerous resources. That engine
was planned by Mr. Canning, who saw the neces-
sity for it clearly. But it required a rougher hand
than his to work it — one, too, not likely to wince
from mud or bruises. The author of the " Baviad"
and " Maeviad" was exactly the man — hard, coarse,
inexorable, unscrupulous. He brought with him
into this paper a thoroughly brutal spirit ; the per-
sonalities were not merely gross and wanton, but
wild, ribald, slaughtering: it was the dissection of
the shambles. Such things had their effect, of
course, at the time, and they were written for their
effect ; but they exhibit such low depravity and

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 133

baseness, violating so flagrantly all truth, honor,
and decency, for mere temporary party objects, that
we can not look upon them now without a shudder.
Fox was assailed in this journal as if he were
a highwayman. His peaceful retirement at St.
Anne's Hill was invaded with vulgar jibes and un-
intelligible buffoonery; Coleridge, Lamb, and oth-
ers were attacked with extravagant personal hos-
tility ;* and there was not an individual distin-
guished by respectability of character in the ranks
of the Reformers, who was not mercilessly tarred
and feathered the moment he ventured into public.
Such was literally the " Weekly Anti-Jacobin ;"
but time, which has bestowed so much celebrity
upon it, has also made an equitable distinction in
the verdict. The scurrility which, at the moment
of publication, stung the town to madness, has long
since lost all power of exciting attention ; it sank
into oblivion with its subjects, the wonder and con-
tempt of a day. The prose papers, written in the
ferocious vein of the Jacobins, whose criminalities
they scourged, are gone down into darkness, and
nothing has survived of the " Anti-Jacobin" but its
ethereal spirit, in the shape of its poetical bur-
lesques and jeux (V esprit. That spirit was animated
by Mr. Canning. His responsibility was always
understood to be confined to the airy and sportive
articles, for he can not be suspected of having in-

* Coleridge was stated by these calumniators to have been dis-
honored at Cambridge for preaching Deism, at a time when, he
tells us, he was absolutely decried as a bigot, by the proselytes of
the " French philosophy," for his ardor in the defense of Christi-
anity. The '• Anti-Jacobin" also accused him of having aban-
doned his native country, and deserted his wife and children.
li Is it surprising," exclaims Coleridge, " that many good men
remained longer than perhaps they otherwise would have done,
adverse to a party which encouraged and openly rewarded the
authors of such atrocious calumnies ?" — " Biographia Literaria,"
i., 17.

M

134 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

termeddled with the lower necessities of the work.
It is to his contributions, assisted by his personal
friends, that the " Anti- Jacobin" is indebted for
being still remembered and talked of; and some
of them — not all — are worthy of the distinction.*

As long as the English language lasts, " The
Friend of Humanity, and the Needy Knife-grind-
er" will last too. This is monumental brass of the
true metal. The irony is exquisite, and, which
can not be always said in such cases, just. It ridi-
cules at once the Sapphics and the politics of
Southey, who was just getting into notoriety for
the extravagance of his tenets under both heads.
No man ever out-Heroded Herod with such verse
or such doctrines. At that time he was violently
democratic, for the reader need not be reminded that
Southey, like Titian, began in one style and ended
in another. No two Titian- Venuses can afford a
more instructive contrast than Wat Tyler and the
Book of the Church. But let that rest; for it is a
compensation to know that Southey's genius was
as versatile as his faith.

In the creed of the day, every rich man was an
oppressor and every poor man a martyr. All such
generalizations are fair game for the satirist, who
pushes the argument to its extremity in the case
of the Knife-grinder. He supposes that " a human
being in the lowest state of penury and distress is
a treasure to a reasoner of this cast," and that he
" refrains from relieving the object of his com-
passionate contemplation, well knowing that every

* There was an attempt made to revive the " Anti-Jacobin" in
1827 ; and, strange to say, the venom of the work was concen-
trated on Mr. Canning himself! It was called, unfortunately for
the foolish speculators, the " New Anti-Jacobin," which suggest-
ed comparisons not particularly favorable to its reception. Be-
sides, there were no longer any Jacobins to fall foul of, and so the
project perished.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 135

diminution from the general mass of human misery
must proportionally diminish the force of his argu-
ment." The colloquy in which this philanthropic
principle is illustrated possesses immortal merit as
a piece of imitative versification ; showing Mr.
Southey's Sapphics in all their varieties, from the
dancing rhythm, with its fine swing of melody, to
the break-down into flat ambling prose. As this
poem maybe considered Mr. Canning's chef-d'oeuvre
in this way, and is now rarely to be fallen in with,
it is inserted here. But, in order to quicken the
enjoyment of its skillful wit, it is preceded by a
specimen of Southey's Sapphics duly accentuated,
as it was introduced by the author in the " Anti-
Jacobin."

" Cold was the night wind : drifting fast the snows fell,
Wide were the downs, and shelterless and naked :
When a poor wand'rer struggled on her journey

Weary and waysore."

THE FRIEND OF HUMANITY AND THE KNIFE-GRINDER.

" Needy Knife-grinder ! whither are you going?
Rough is the road, your wheel is out of order —
Bleak blows the blast ; your hat has got a hole in't,
So have your breeches !

Weary Knife-grinder ! little think the proud ones,
Who in their coaches roll along the turnpike-
-road, what hard work 'tis crying all day, ' Knives and

Scissors to grind O !'

Tell me, Knife-grinder, how came you to grind knives ?
Did some rich man tyrannically use you ?
Was it the squire ? or parson of the parish ;
Or the attorney ?

Was it the squire, for killing of his game ? or
Covetous parson, for his tithes distraining ?
Or roguish lawyer, made you lose your little
All in a lawsuit 1

(Have you not read the • Rights of Man' by Tom Paine ?)
Drops of compassion tremble on my eyelids,
Ready to fall, as soon as you have told your
Pitiful story."

KNIFE-GRINDER.

" Story ! God bless you ! I have none to tell, sir,

]36 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

Only last night, a-drinking at the Chequers,
This poor old hat and breeches, as you see, were
Torn in a scuffle.

Constables came up for to take me into
Custody ; they took me before the justice ;
Justice Oldmixon put me in the parish-

-stocks for a vagrant.

I should be glad to drink your Honor's health in
A pot of beer, if you will give me sixpence ;
But for my part, I never love to meddle
With politics, sir."

FRIEND OF HUMANITY.

" I give thee sixpence ! I will see thee damn'd first —
Wretch ! whom no sense of wrongs can rouse to vengeance ;
Sordid, unfeeling, reprobate, degraded,
Spiritless outcast !"

Kicks the knife-grinder, overturns his wheel, and exit in a transport
of republican enthusiasm and universal philanthropy.

The dactylics also came in for a fling in some
lines which are described as " the quintescence of
all the dactylics that ever were or ever will be
written."

" Sorely thy dactylics lag on uneven feet ;
Slow is the syllable which thou wouldst urge to speed,
Lame and overburdened, and 'screaming its wretchedness !' "

An " Elegy on Jean Bon St. Andre," a French
Republican, who was put to death by the Dey of
Algiers, and an inscription for the cell of Mrs.
Browning, the 'prenticide, a parody on Southey's
inscription for the cell of Marten the regicide, are
also attributed to Mr. Canning, although the ex-
clusive right in them is said not to be vested in him.
Indeed, all the poems in the " Anti-Jacobin" are
supposed to be the common property of a joint-
stock company of wits ; a circumstance to which
the inequality so remarkable in most of them must
be ascribed.

Various scattered touches seem to indicate a
more brilliant source than the rest, and are likely,
on that account, to be assigned to Canning as the

THE LIFE OF CANNIXG. 137

most celebrated of the contributors. It is also
known that he was the largest contributor, and for
that reason, if there were no better, he has the best
right to the advantage of the doubt. The prison-
er's song in the " Rovers," and parts of the dia-
logue of "that capital satire on the German drama ;
snatches here and there of the " Loves of the Tri-
angles" (which is too labored, as a whole, to have
sprung from Canning) ; and some of the best lines
in the "Progress of Man," come within this spec-
ulation.

No authentic edition of Mr. Canning's poems has
ever been published. He did not write much verse,
and that which he did write was either intended
merely pour V occasion, or was too slight for the
purposes of a collection. His early pieces — of
which some specimens are published in this volume
for the first time — were dispersed in MS., and nev-
er resumed by the author, who would probably
have been sufficiently unwilling to see them drawn
out from their private depositaries. Poetry seems
to have been rather a toil than a pleasure to him,
if we may judge from the scantiness of his produc-
tions in this way, and the severity with which they
are finished. It was only when some happy in-
spiration came that he cared to throw the thought
into the shape of verse, and even then it was too
brief and subtle to reward him for the trouble it
gave. He had too large a critical faculty, and too
small a creative power, to have been a great poet.
But why should we look for miracles 1 Who won-
ders that Demosthenes could not write odes like
Horace 1

In endeavoring to trace through private channels
any fragments of his poetry that may yet chance
to survive, it is very tantalizing to find odds and
ends of numerous pieces (the originals of which

M 2

138 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

are probably lost), carried away in fleeting memo-
ries here and there, with only enough of accuracy
to make us impatient to get the remainder, and
always accompanied by an assurance that what is
forsfotten was so much better than what is remem-
bered ! Mr. Canning wrote a great number of
political pieces, now destroyed or irrecoverable.
Lady Hester Stanhope speaks of some verses he
wrote on Mr. Pitt, in which he compared him to a
chained eagle, and which were so " fine," that Lord
Temple wanted to steal them, and actually ran off
with them into the street without his hat, but was
pursued and captured, and so the verses were re-
stored : this is all we hear about them. Mr. Can-
ning seems to have been very careless of his rhymes,
and not. only to have cast most of them heedlessly
upon the waters, but to have cast off many of them
anonymously.

Notwithstanding, however, that he took so little
pains to establish his authorship of the pieces he
really did write, other people have been at consid-
erable trouble to confer upon him the authorship
of pieces which he certainly did not write. One
of the most conspicuous instances is that of a clever
jeu cfesprit which appeared shortly after the Bat-
tle of Waterloo, entitled " An Epitaph on the Mar-
quis of Anglesea's Leg." This was suspected to
have been written by Mr. Canning, and not only
went the round of the newspapers, but was actual-
ly transferred to the pages of a biography which
appeared after his death, where he was announced
as the author, with this very grave rebuke for the
Dad taste of jesting on such a subject: "Some
minds," says the writer, " are so constituted that
they throw an air of pleasantry over the most se-
rious misfortune, and extract from pain itself the
jest of the bon mot /" But this epitaph, thus au-

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 139

thoritatively asserted to be the production of Mr.
Canning, was written by a gentleman well known
in the world of literature and the public journals.*
• The " Loves of the Triangles" is also given to
him in a Paris edition of his poems, although it is
one of the composite pieces of the "Anti-Jacobin ;"
and other things are ascribed to him in various col-
lections, of a no less apocryphal character. Be-
yond these productions, veritable and spurious,
nothing remains of Mr. Canning's poetry to which
any farther reference need be made, except two
or three pasquinades, which will be noticed in the
places to which they refer.

VI.

THE DOWNWARD STRUGGLE OF THE WAR QUESTION.

THE UNION WITH IRELAND. DISSOLUTION OF

THE PITT MINISTRY. MR. CANNING'S MARRIAGE.

Hitherto we have seen in Mr. Canning's Par-
liamentary career little more than the close and
watchful subtlety of the partisan. The statesman
was yet to come. His early speeches, acute and
brilliant upon small points, and discovering consid-
erable ingenuity in the art of presenting a question
in its most specious and favorable aspects, are de-
ficient in grasp and largeness of purpose. The
argument is every where minute, compact, clear —
never comprehensive ; it is the dialectician, not the
reasoner, who charms you so cunningly. We miss
in these speeches all the great attributes for which
he was afterward famous — generalization, intel-
lectual beauty, and sustained eloquence ; but we

* Mr. Thomas Gaspey, author of the " Life of Lord Cobham,"
" The Lollards," " George Godfrey," and numerous works of fic-
tion and facetiae

140 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

have in them some minor qualities no less charac-
teristic— delicacy and refinement of diction, almost
amounting to prudery, sentences of most musical
structure, the happiest wit, the keenest sarcasm.

The first great occasion on which he put forth
his powers was that of Mr. Tierney's motion, on
the 11th of December, 1798, recommending nego-
tiations for peace. The subject had been repeat-
edly before the House during the last two years —
two years so crowded with distracting events that
it is wonderful how Mr. Canning kept silence.

The activity of the opposition was unparalleled.
No sooner was one motion overthrown by an over-
whelming majority than another was ready to fill
its place. They seemed to acquire fresh vigor
from defeat, and, like Antaeus, to rebound from
every fall with renewed elasticity. Ministers had
scarcely an hour's repose, and, if they slept at all,
it must have been to fight Sheridan and Tierney
over again in their dreams. That phalanx was aw-
ful to gaze upon, arrayed before the treasury bench-
es in implacable hostility and invincible resolution,
and bringing forward night after night a succession
of accusations against the government, which no
conviction of numerical weakness could prevail
upon them to abandon or abate. Motions for the
impeachment of ministers; for addresses to remove
them ; declarations of distrust ; and open charges
of corruption and perfidy, were of perpetual re-
currence. Motions for negotiations with France
were proposed and thrown out, and re-proposed
and thrown out again, regularly every session.
The question of Parliamentary Reform was brought
forward with the same uniform determination, and
met the same invariable fate. And all this time in-
cidents were occurring in doors and out of doors
which considerably heightened the flurry and dra-

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 141

matic interest of public affairs. Mr. Fox and his
friends, wearied out by the hopelessness of making
any impression on the government, seceded from
their attendance at the House, for which Pitt's
friends blamed them severely, but speedily return-
ed again, for which Pitt's friends blamed them still
more. The French were victorious every where,
and fresh taxes were laid on, including the income
tax, to a prodigious amount, to enable us to assist
them to farther triumphs. The discontents of the
navy broke out in a mutiny at the Nore. Ireland,
goaded by ill usage, plunged into a sanguinary re-
bellion ; and Mr. Pitt and Mr. Tierney, having had
a slight difference of opinion in the House of Com-
mons, referred the dispute to Wimbledon Com-
mon, where they fought a duel on Sunday morn-
ing, while Divine service was going on in the church?
Throughout these agitations Mr. Canning never
spoke in Parliament, except to answer some ques-
tion connected with his department, or to explain
something in the absence of a minister. But it
must not be forgotten that his official duties involv-
ed the heaviest and most responsible functions of
the administration.; and that, however much he was
wanted in the House of Commons, he was wanted

* Pitt, who had given the provocation, received Tierney's shot
and fired in the air. Wilberforce was so shocked at this occur-
rence that he gave notice of a motion about it, which he would
have actually brought on if Pitt had not written him a private
note to say that it would render his resignation inevitable. — "Wil-
berforce's Life," ii., 282. Pitt's want of religion was a source of
great trouble to this good, importunate man. Whenever he went
to any of Pitt's parties, he used to come away quite in low spir-
its. " My heart," says he, " has been moved by the society of my
old friends at Pitt's. Alas ! alas ! how sad to see them thought-
less of their immortal souls ; so wise, so acute ! I hope I felt in
some degree properly on the occasion and afterward," ii., 334.
He dines at Dundas's on Pitt's birthday, and declares that he can
not " assimilate." Lady Hester Stanhope says that Pitt was an
infidel, and that the account which Gifford gives of his death-bed
is absolutely false.

142 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

still more in the foreign office. He had more than
enough to do between Pitt and Lord Grenville,
men of totally opposite tempers. The icy haugh-
tiness of Lord Grenville chilled even the premier,
who was not very remarkable for warmth himself.
There was none of that freezing pride about Pitt
which made the manners of Lord Grenville so op-
pressive to his inferiors. Pitt, habitually cold, was
at least distinguished by a plainness and simplici-
ty which put the stranger at his ease. LordGren-
ville's stately isolation, on the contrary, was inex-
plicable for a man in his situation. Windham said
that he knew nobody, and that nobody knew him.
It has been observed that his fine understanding
redeemed his hauteur ; but as fine understandings
do not enter into the details of daily official inter-
course, and the hauteur generally does, it must be
concluded that Mr. Canning had a task of no com-
mon difficulty in keeping his immediate chief and
the head of the government on tolerable terms with
each other.

There was no novelty in Mr. Tierney's motion.
Similar motions had been thrown out over and over
again. But circumstances were changed. Minis-
ters, hunted down by the most persevering of op-
positions, had been making secret attempts to bring
about a negotiation for peace, although they pub-
licly resisted every suggestion of that kind in both
Houses of Parliament. Their argument was this :
that peace or war lay in the province of the crown,
and ought not to be interfered with by Parliament ;
and that it would be unwise to affirm any resolu-
tion on the subject of peace until it had been first
ascertained what prospect there was of obtaining
just and honorable terms. With a view to discov-
er the disposition of the Directory on this moment-
ous question, they had taken sundry steps to sound

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 143

that body through Lord Malmesbury and other
agents in Switzerland, Paris, Lisle, all failing from
the duplicity and overreaching spirit with which
they were conducted.

It would be a wilful injustice, wTith the informa-
tion before us which the lapse of years has permit-
ted its possessors to reveal, not to relieve Mr. Pitt
from the exclusive responsibilities of these double
dealings. He was guilty, in the main, only of be-
ing a consenting party ; but, considering that he
was prime minister, the guilt of yielding to a sys-
tem of deception at such a moment was hardly less
culpable than that of having originated it. Pitt
was forced into acquiescence by Grenville, in whose
department these delicate diplomacies lay. The
inflexible, overbearing Whig insisted upon a peace
which he hnew the French Directory would never
grant. He never intended that the negotiations
should end successfully. Pitt, on the contrary, was
becoming every day more and more anxious for
peace — having at last discovered the necessity for
it — and would have effected it (Lord Malmesbury
testifies that it could have been effected) but for the
obstinacy of his unbending colleague. " It is the
fault of the French," says Canning, in a private
letter to George Ellis, hinting at Pitt's real dispo-
sition, " if they have not a peace as good as to terms
as they can reasonably desire."* If Pitt could
have ventured to risk an open difference with Gren-
ville, the matter might have been settled in the usu-
al way, by an imperative action in the cabinet ; but
he was not in a position to make or to betray a dis-
agreement with his dictatorial allies. He could
not afford it. This state of things placed Lord
Malmesbury (then conducting the negotiation at
Lisle) in a most painful situation. " You must
* " Diaries of Lord Malmesbury," iii., 433.

144 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

have perceived," he observes, in a confidential
communication to Mr. Canning, " that the instruc-
tions and opinions I get from the minister under
whose orders lam hound to act, accord so little with
the sentiments and intentions I heard expressed by
the minister with whom I ivish to act, that I am
placed in a very disagreeable dilemma." But this
was not the worst. It was not merely that he was
required to act in a spirit averse to his inclinations
and convictions, but averse to the object which he
was to pretend to promote. The passage which un-
veils this fraud (divulging the true secret history of
the failure) is remarkable. After stating that he
had no objection to persevere steadily in pursuit of
his object till it was either attained or demonstra-
ted to be unattainable, so long as the original pur-
pose with which he was commissioned (for it seems
that Lord Grenville broke his designs to him only
by wary degrees) was to be sought with sincerity,
he goes on : " But if another opinion has been al-
lowed to prevail ; if the real end is to differ from
the ostensible one ; and if I am only to remain here
in order to break off the negotiation creditably, and
not to terminate it successfully, I then, instead of re-
signing my opinion, must resign my office."

Canning was the sole depository of this piece of
state perfidy. He stood between Pitt and Gren-
ville, and between Malmesbury and both, and pre-
vented the rupture, which, with less discretion,
must have placed the government in a serious dif-
ficulty. The country was indebted to his judg-
ment, temper, and tact, that no worse consequences
ensued from these dangerous confidences than the
frustration of the mission. But the management
of the ministerial intrigues greatly increased the
harassing nature of his duties* The only breaks

* Although he bore with Lord Grenville wonderfully to the end,

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 145

of sunshine he appears to have enjoyed were in
corresponding with his uncle Legh, or with his old
friend Greorge Ellis, who was attached to Lord
Malmesbury's embassy (a correspondence, how-
ever, which was so full of the subjects on which
they were both engrossed, that it consisted of little
else than French politics melted down into private
disclosures) ; an occasional run down to Hollwood,
or Dropmore, or a stray half hour of a morning
with the Freres or the Lavingtons. His time was
almost exclusively passed between his house in
Spring Gardens (where Pitt used frequently to
dine with him) and Downing-street.

The period occupied by these negotiations was
one of intense anxiety to the government. " No
messenger yet from Lisle," writes Mr. Canning to
a private friend. " It is an interval of anxiety and
impatience, such as makes it impossible to think,
speak, or write upon any other subject. I get up,
go to bed, eat, drink, sleep, walk, ride, with noth-
ing but the messenger in my head, and I hear noth-
ing all day long but ' Well, not come yet ! when
will the messenger come ? and what will he bring?
Peace V The fact was, that although, for pru-
dential motives, they still maintained " the fiery
front of war" in the face of Europe, ministers (at
least Pitt and those who originated the war) were
secretly more desirous of peace than the opposition
themselves.*

winning the admiration of every body by his self-control, he sev-
eral times contemplated a retreat from the Foreign Office, and
once told Lord Malmesbury that he hoped to effect a change to the
India Board.

* During the difficulties and delays which arose throughout
these negotiations, Lord Grenville suspected Pitt of getting up
opinions out of doors and in the newspapers to fortify himself in
thp cabinet ; and in order to tie up his tongue, he got a resolution
passed pledging the cabinet to secrecy respecting these matters.
To Canning and Hammond were confided the duty of opening
10 N

146 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

To return to Mr. Tierney's motion. The main
points on which he rested were these : that the
European confederacy against France was already,
to all intents and purposes, broken up ; that we
could no longer pursue the war with the remotest
hope of driving back France to her ancient limits ;
that in six years we had increased our debt by one
hundred and fifty millions, adding eight millions to
our annual burdens (a sum equal to our entire ex-
penditure when George III. ascended the throne);
and that our domestic situation, with the Habeas
Corpus Act suspended, Ireland in rebellion, and
enormous establishments to support, rendered it
imperative upon us to leave Europe to herself, and
look to our own interests at last. As to the objec-
tion that the crown alone had the undoubted power
of making war or peace, he balanced it by the
constitutional right of the Commons to grant or re-
fuse the supplies. The speech was sensible and
to the purpose, but languid and ineffective, and de-
ficient in the caustic acerbity which usually dis-
tinguished Mr. Tierney. No great wonder ; the
subject was thread-bare, and every body knew its
agitation to be a mere waste of lungs.

Mr. Canning rose to reply, and delivered a
speech which, for compass of reasoning and mas-
terly elocution, might well have drawn an expres-
sion of admiration from Mr. Pitt. This magnifi-

and answering the dispatches, and none but the copies made by
Hammond, who wrote an abominable hand, were shown to the
subaltern ministers, hoping that they would not take the trouble
to decipher them. See the " Malmesbury Diaries." Such was
the mystery observed respecting Lord Malmesbury's negotiation,
that the whole cabinet, with the exception of Pitt and Grenville,
were kept in the dark about his dispatches ; and he was obliged
to prepare one for general purposes, besides his special dispatch
to Lord Grenville. The most secret revelations, however, intend-
ed neither for the public nor the minister, came out in the private
letters to Canning, who was the recipient of the complaints and
contentions on all sides.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 147

cent display of eloquence fairly electrified the
House ; the previous dullness disappeared ; mem-
bers crowded in ; and the orator held the senate
suspended in wonder and delight. It is not too
much to say of this speech, that it is one of the great-
est— in some respects, the most complete — that was
delivered on the ministerial side in reference to
the war. We had at that time, too, passed out of
the mere abstract question : it was no longer spec-
ulation ; experience had thrown unexpected lights
upon the subject ; we had tested our strength
through triumphs and reverses ; we had tested our
alliances also, and found some of them frail, selfish,
and cowardly ; Austria and Prussia had at differ-
ent times made peace with France, in violation of
their engagements with us ; Spain, Holland, and
Sardinia were overawed by the arms of the Re-
public ; our situation was no longer the same as
when we commenced the Crusade ; and that which
was at first a question of policy, open to doubts
and difficulties, had now become a point of honor
with ministers — a calculation in which they were
to strike the balance between glory and shame.

Mr. Canning's reply was the best argument for
the prosecution of the war which could be built
upon this altered state of things. The defection
of allies was only an additional reason, if any were
wanted, for the observance of good faith toward
those who still remained true to their engagements ;
and the wanton horrors which every where tracked
the progress of the French arms, furnished another
reason for pursuing hostilities, until such a peace
could be effected as should repose upon a basis
wide enough to include and indemnify all interests.
A separate peace for England would be inadequate
for this purpose. The war was European — the
settlement must be European too.

148 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

The ingenuity of this view of the case consisted
in assuming a chivalric motive for not doing a very-
hazardous thing. The opposition wanted ministers
to enter into a separate peace with France, without
reference to the situation or prospects of other
powers. That circumstances would have justified
such a course, was perfectly true ; at least true to
the extent of supplying undeniable precedents.
But the contingencies of a separate peace were
more dangerous than the war itself. In the first
place, it would have been impossible to obtain
singly as good an arrangement as if the united pow-
ers coalesced in their demands ; and, in the second
place, if it could be obtained, it would have been
impossible to render it secure. In the last place,
it was quite certain that the moment we retired
from the field, France, relieved of her most formi-
dable adversary, would overrun the continent, and
ultimately compel us to the defense, at a great dis-
advantage, of whatever rights we might have ac-
quired by such a treaty. There were, therefore,
many prudential reasons for keeping together as
long as we could the elements of resistance, even
at the risk of prolonging the war indefinitely. Mr.
Canning was careful not to betray to the world —
especially to the Republic — the fact that his real
motive for continuing the war was the impossibility
of establishing a safe and honorable peace ; he put
it upon higher and more popular grounds — the al-
liances by which we were still bound, and the duty
imposed upon us, as the guardians of freedom and
civilization, to succor and redress the countries
which were trodden down by the hoofs of French
despotism. This sort of appeal to the integrity and
humanity of England never failed ; but it was en-
forced on this occasion with such power that it
roused the country into a fit of enthusiasm.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 149

Ministers had latterly spoken of the deliverance
of Europe (referring to the superfluous atrocities
of the French) as the purpose to which they di-
rected their efforts ; but Mr. Tierney rejected the
expression with ridicule, as conveying no determi-
nate idea whatever. Mr. Canning's exposition of
its meaning is one of the happiest passages in the
speech. Its effect on the public mind was extra-
ordinary. It served as a text for every body who
declaimed about the war, and converted many to
that side of the question who had never before been
brought to consider so closely the magnitude of the
French aggressions.

" I can not undertake to answer for other gentlemen's
powers of comprehension. The map of Europe is be-
fore them. I can only say that I do not admire that
man's intellects, and I do not envy that man's feelings,
who can look over that map without gathering some
notion of what is meant by the deliverance of Europe.
I do not envy that man's feelings who can behold the
sufferings of Switzerland, and who derives from that
sight no idea of what is meant by the deliverance of
Europe. I do not envy the feelings of that man who
can look without emotion at Italy — plundered, insulted,
trampled upon, exhausted, covered with ridicule, and
hoiror, and devastation ; who can look at all this, and be
at a loss to guess what is meant by the deliverance of
Europe ? As little do I envy the feelings of that man
who can view the people of the Netherlands, driven into
insurrection and struggling for their freedom against the
heavy hand of a merciless tyranny, without entertaining
any suspicion of what may be the sense of the word
deliverance. Does such a man contemplate Holland,
groaning under arbitrary oppressions and exactions ?
Does he turn his eyes to Spain, trembling at the nod of
a foreign master? and does the word deliverance still
sound unintelligibly in his ears ? Has he heard of the
rescue and salvation of Naples by the appearance and
the triumphs of the British fleet ? Does he know that

N 2

150 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

the monarchy of Naples maintains its existence at the
sword's point ? And is his understanding, is his heart
still impenetrable to the sense and meaning of the deliv-
erance of Europe ?"

It seemed as if people had no suspicion of the
extent of the French conquests, or as if they could
not realize the idea of the carnage and oppression
by which they were accompanied, until this pic-
ture, so crowded, yet so distinct, was thus brought
suddenly before them. Then the whole terrible
truth became apparent, and then, for the first time,
they began to comprehend the shape which this
question of war was taking under the influence of
such events. The forced alliances, or cowering
submissions, into which the French compelled the
weaker states to enter were scarcely less dreadful
to bear than the sacking of towns, the violation of
women, and the other barbarities which descended
upon such as had the heroism to resist ; so that
even the friendship of the Directory was as fatal as
its emnity — another reason against being too eager
about peace. All this was touched upon with
striking effect by Mr. Canning in his allusion to the
allies of France, especially the Cisalpine Republic,
upon whom she was making experiments in the
theory of government ; and Sardinia, whom she
had reduced to a mere mockery of a kingdom.
The description of the position of the King of Sar-
dinia is a masterly piece of history painting.

" By what ties of gratitude is the King of Sardinia
bound to his ally ? The King of Sardinia, it is true,
has not yet been precipitated from his throne ; but he
sits there with the sword of a French garrison suspend-
ed above his head. He retains, indeed, the style and
title of king ; but there is a French general to be vice-
roy over him. A prisoner in his own capital, surrounded
by the spies and agents, and hemmed in by the arms of
the Directory ; compelled to dismiss from his councils

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 151

and his presence all those of his servants who were
most attached to his person and most zealous for his
interests ; compelled to preach daily to his people the
mortifying and degrading lesson of that patience and
humility of which he is himself a melancholy example,
to excuse and extenuate the insults offered bv his allies

as

to his subjects ; to repress, even by force, the resent-
ment of his subjects against his allies. Is this a situa-
tion in which the King of Sardinia can be supposed to
derive comfort from the alliance of France, and repay it
with thankfulness 1 Would he not, even if this were to
be the extent of his suffering and degradation ; would
he not, if he inherits the spirit of his great ancestors, if
their blood flows in his veins ; would he not seize, even
at the risk of his crown and of his life, any opportunity
that might be afforded him to emancipate himself from
a connection so burdensome, to shake off the weight of a
friendship so intolerable ?"

The Cisalpine Republic, shuddering under the
hands of the operator, is equally forcible.

" Are we to look for attachment in the Cisalpine
Republic, whom, in preference to the others, France
appears to have selected as a living subject for her ex-
periments in political anatomy ; whom she has delivered
up, tied and bound, to a series of butchei'ing, bungling,
philosophical professors, to distort, and mangle, and lop,
and stretch its limbs into all sorts of fantastical shapes,
and to hunt through its palpitating frame the vital prin-
ciple of Republicanism?"

This speech established Mr. Canning's reputa-
tion. It placed him in the highest rank of Parlia-
mentary orators, and the few who were close enough
to observe accurately now began to look to him as
one who promised at no remote day to take a lead
among; our statesmen. Others, of the class which
is always jealous of rising men, could not conceal
their vexation at his success. A contemporary
meets him at dinner about this time, and exclaims,
" What envy I saw of him universally."' We learn,

152 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

also, that when he used to get up in the House,
Grey, Tierney, and others generally went out.
The Whigs, of course, disliked him ; but the feel-
incr was not confined to them. The Tories were
incensed at the favor bestowed on him by Pitt ;
they used to say that Pitt encouraged him too
much, and that he was too flippant and ambitious.
The secret of all this is penetrated at a glance.

He spoke on other subjects during the sessions
of 1799 and 1800, principally old topics repro-
duced in new shapes — the war question argued
over again in new disguises. He made a speech
in defense of bull-baiting, which threw poor Wil-
berforce into an agony of distress ; but " to do him
justice," says the good man, " when I showed him
an account of the cruelties that were practiced, he
was quite ashamed of himself!"* Canning had
too much real regard for Wilberforce to be offend-
ed at his well-meant but rather officious advice.
He would have dealt with most other people under
like circumstances as he did with Courtenavin the
debate on the suspension of the Habeas Corpus
Act, when he told him " to keep his humanity for
Smith and Bains, his religion for Newgate, and his
jokes for the hackney coachmen."

The only great questions to which he addressed
himself during this period were the slave- trade
and the union with Ireland. The former may be
deferred for later consideration ; but the latter,
having led to the dismemberment of Pitt's admin-
istration, requires to be treated at some length.

On the 22d of January, 1799, Mr.Dundas brought
down a message from his majesty, setting forth that
our enemies were plotting the separation of Ire-
land from the rest of the kingdom, and recommend-
ing to Parliament the consideration of the most ef-
* " Life of Wilberforce," ii., 366.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 153

fectual means for defeating so heinous a design,
and for improving and perpetuating a connection
essential to the common security of the whole Brit-
ish empire. This message was vigorously debated
both in England and Ireland, and ended in the Act
of Union, which was finally passed in the following
year.

The first thing that must strike the mind of a for-
eigner upon opening this passage of our history is
the curious fact that England should never have
thought of this act of incorporation before. It can
not fail to appear very surprising that upward of
six hundred years of settlement and possession,
checkered by feuds that ought to have furnished
significant hints, should have elapsed before the
necessity of such a step — saying nothing about its
wisdom — happened to strike the government of this
country. And surprise will be worked up into
wonder, " with hair on end," by the discovery that,
within a century, Ireland had actually begged for
this same legislative union as a boon, and had been
refused !• England was always smitten with sus-
picion and indecision in her dealings with Ireland,
acting as one would do who was making bargains
with a usurer : always afraid of appearing too lib-
eral ; always afraid of bidding for the affections of
the people, in the apprehension of raising their

* The English Parliament had so frequently overruled the de-
cisions of the Irish Parliament, that, in ]?07. the Irish Commons
made a proposal, in an address to the queen, for a legislative union
between the two countries ; and this proposal the English gov-
ernment treated with scorn. Upward of four hundred years be-
fore, so strong was the desire of the Irish to participate in the ad-
vantages of the English government, that they offered to pay for
permission to live under the English law ; but although the king was
well disposed to favor so rational a request, his intentions were
intercepted and frustrated by the English lords settled in Ireland.
They thought it was their interest to keep the two races apart,
and labored hard for that end, and, it must be admitted, succeeded
to admiration.

154 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

terms ; always withholding what they asked for,
thinking there must be some sinister design in it ;
and always forcing upon them what they abhorred,
for the same excellent reason.

The consequence was, that as she would not hear
of a union when the Irish wanted it, so, when she
saw fit, for her own safety, to seek it, the Irish re-
fused their consent : the common fate of all legis-
lation that waits upon necessity. An act that might
have been performed with grace was at last effect-
ed by fraud and violence ; and, instead of being
carried with the good will of the people, was forced
upon them by bribes and bayonets.

The policy invariably applied to Ireland was the
policy of fear. Nothing in the way of justice was
ever done to the country, unless there happened to
be a pressure of some kind which rendered it also
a matter of prudence. The experiment of justice,
for its own sake, was never yet tried upon Ireland ;
whenever justice did chance to take that direction,
it was for the sake of England. There was some
fear of disturbances at home, some suspicion of a
descent from abroad, some want to be supplied —
money or soldiers — and then Ireland was sure to
be smiled upon by British justice, but never till
then. On the other hand, when England was
prosperous and secure, Ireland was coerced ; her
conflicting interests set up against each other, her
wrongs re-opened, her prejudices excited, her old
animosities exasperated anew, and every means re-
sorted to, through the intricate machinery of bad
government, to break her spirit and repress her ad-
vancement. It was not an idle figure of speech by
which Grattan described these crimes of choice and
virtues of necessity, when he said that " England's
weakness was Ireland's strength."*

* Speech on moving an Address to the Crown, 1782.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 155

This is an old story. But it is a true story, nev-
ertheless, and must be heard for its truth, as well
as for its intimate bearing upon things as they are.
Indeed, the Past can not be divorced from the
Present and the Future of Ireland. Unhappily
for all parties, there can be no oblivion of bitter
memories which are still kept alive in their visible
effects. That which we see in Ireland to this day
is not a new birth of human folly, but the direct
consequence of acts which were done in Ireland in
former days. "Let by-gones be by-gones" will
not hold here. The connection between existing
evils and continuous misrule is that of cause and
effect ; and it is impossible to legislate for evils of
this nature without a complete knowledge of their
lineage.

Yet there are people — hundreds of thousands
on this side of the Channel — who do not believe
one word of this old story ; who regard it as a
mere raw-head and bloody-bones. People who
judge of Ireland from passing manifestations and
first impressions, who see the social ruin plainly
enough, but throw it all upon the want of nation-
ality, of energy, of any thing and every thing in the
Irish themselves, rather than upon England. They
find it no easy matter to carry their imaginations
back into the history of the past, and to conjure out
of its dismal depths the ghastly bigotries that once
ruled the realms of life, and swayed the courses of
man. They can not get out of the sunshine of the
English homestead, fenced round by paternal in-
stitutions, and connect with it in any way the black
midnight of the Irish hovel, and the children of
famine who stalk about its unsightly heaps. They
can not comprehend the existence of a political
hypocrisy so monstrous as that which, creating free
institutions with one hand, was no less actively em-

156 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

ployed in fomenting anarchy and abetting despot-
ism with the other. They do not see this going on
now, in the old wholesale, barefaced way : they
do not believe, therefore, that it ever did go on.
If you relate to them particular facts, well attested,
of singular tyrannies — such as that of giving re-
wards for shooting an Irishman, instead of hanging
the perpetrator as we should now do; or of making
the nurture of an English infant by an Irish nurse
high treason by law,* they will treat them as they
would ghost-stories, which you may believe if you
are fool enough to put any faith in such absurdi-
ties, but which they have rather too much sense to
swallow.

Nine tenths of the people of England are igno-
rant of the demoralizing atrocities which have been
inflicted in their name upon Ireland, and the re-
maining tenth do not believe in them. The only
comfort to be extracted from this is, that it is cred-
itable to the humanity of to-day to disbelieve in the
inhumanity of yesterday ; and that there is, conse-
quently, some hope that it will act better to-mor-
row.

The Englishman of to-day sees in Ireland the
sister Cinderella (in her survitude) of the British
islands, and thinks that it is her own fault she
should be such a thankless drudge. He sees her
in serge and coarse stockings (or none), while her
more fortunate sisters are flaunting in lace and sat-
in, and attributes all to sloth and poverty of spirit.
He has not witnessed the slow, harassing, uninter-
mitting process of domestic slavery by which she
has been reduced to this ; he only sees the miseries
of her condition, and satisfies his sense of justice
by blaming her who suffers them. He sees in Ire-
land fine harbors and no ships ; spacious docks,
* See " Davis's Tracts." — Plowden.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 157

grand custom-houses, and no commerce ; a region
proverbial for fertility, and a starving population.
He thinks that these anomalies must be the fault
of the people themselves; as if that, were it true,
would not be the greatest anomaly of all !

To suppose that any race of human beings would
voluntarily starve in the midst of plenty ; go volun-
tarily half clad in the midst of their own wool ;
wilfully lie down to sleep on stones and dream of
devouring them, when they might have pillows and
visions of roast pig if they would, is a stretch of
fancy that considerably transcends even the poeti-
cal faculty of the Irish themselves.

There is no country in the world which exhibits
in its actual condition, and in direct circumstances,
possessing present power over that condition, such
irresistible deductions from historical facts as Ire-
land. Every person who has taken the trouble to
investigate the subject has been compelled by the
force of evidence to refer the evils under which
Ireland labors, in the past and in the present, not
to any incomprehensible waywardness in the peo-
ple, or mysterious malediction in the climate, but
to a long course of blind misgovernment. The so-
cial disorganization of sects and parties is a legacy
of that misgovernment ; the curse of absenteeism
is a legacy of that misgovernment ; the double
curse of sub-letting and middlemen, a consequence
flowing out of absenteeism and other causes, them-
selves the effects of misgovernment ; want of prof-
itable employment, a consequence of want of cap-
ital, produced by this conspiracy of impoverishing
circumstances ; low wages, thinly scattered at bro-
ken intervals over some millions of working-men,
a consequence of scanty employment; periodical
famine, periodical typhus, constant misery, con-
stant complaint, constant outrage, hopelessness and

O

158 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

indifference to life, the natural results of these
complicated and raveled grievances ; all having
their common source in an infatuated system of
misgovernment ; prolonged in defiance of experi-
ence, in defiance of justice, in defiance of the gen-
eral safety. Whoever would discover the real
causes of Irish anomalies, must look for them in
Irish history ; and it is because the influences of
time are thrown out of the calculation, that some
people are eternally disappointed at not finding
temporary and special remedies panaceatic in
their effects. These are the class of people, ig-
norant of her history, and of its action upon pass-
ing events, who are always so ready to throw up
Ireland as a confounded bore and a hopeless case,
and who think that the best thing that could hap-
pen to her would be just to sink her under water
for four-and-tvventy hours*

The historical origin of Irish evils has been ac-
knowledged by every politician who understood
the problem involved in them. " It is impossible,"
observes a recent writer of great intelligence, " to
form a fair and impartial judgment on Irish affairs,
or to arrive at sound conclusions upon present po-
litical questions, without knowing and keeping stu-
diously in view the whole course of Irish history."!
Mr. Pitt bore testimony to the chronic character of
the disease, when he stated in the debate on the
Union that for one hundred years England had
pursued a narrow, jealous, and selfish policy to-
ward Ireland ; although he might have extended
his range a little farther, like Bushe, who declared,
that for centuries Great Britain had kept Ireland
down, shackled her commerce, paralyzed her ex-

* It is a strange thing, and somewhat awful to think of, that
poor Sir Joseph Yorke, who made use of this wild observation,
was drowned in the Southampton Water.

t " Past and Present Policy of England toward Ireland," p. 14

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 159

ertions, despised her character, and ridiculed her
pretensions to any privileges, commercial or con-
stitutional; " she never conceded a point to you,"
said that brilliant orator, on the floor of the Irish
House of Commons, when this question of the
Union came before it, " she never conceded a point
to you which she could avoid, or granted a favor
which was not reluctantly distilled."

But the Union was to atone for all past mischiefs,
and to prevent the recurrence of new ones, by
drawing Ireland into such close connection with
England as to identify their interests. This was
the avowed purpose, and, it is charitable to hope,
the real desire of Pitt. Unfortunately, something
more was required to crown this union with the
desiderated felicity than the mere ceremony of pro-
nouncing the bans.

There was scarcely any thing in common be-
tween the two countries. The bulk of the Irish
even spoke a different language.* On the one side
was prosperity, on the other wretchedness, inherit-
ed generation after generation, and leaving its im-
press, mental and physical, behind. With the Eng-
lish, the sense of security in wrongs ; with the Irish,
the rankling feeling of wrongs suffered and unap-
peased. There were different meanings attached
to the same thing's in the two countries — different
manners, different habits, growing out of circum-
stances as contrasted as jocund Plenty and hag-
gard Want. In England there was a public opin-
ion, which restrained the powerful within the lim-

* See " Ireland — Past and Present," a pamphlet published in
Dublin in 1808. This pamphlet excited considerable attention
at the time from its terse and glittering style, and the apparent
impartiality with which it held the scales of party. But, like
most specimens of medium politics, it left all the vexed questions
exactly where it found them. The most interesting point about
the brochure is that, although never avowed, it was the first politi-
cal production of the Right Honorable John Wilson Croker.

160 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

its of defined rights ; in Ireland there was no pub-
lic opinion ; it was extinguished under an indefinite
ascendency. That which was in England a source
of pride — her bold peasantry — was in Ireland a
source of shame. In England men were protect-
ed by the law ; in Ireland the law was either not
executed at all, or used only as an agent of ter-
ror. These things, and a thousand more, were to
be reconciled by Act of Parliament.

But this was not all. The people had been di-
vided among and against themselves, and they
were to be blended into one. Various conflicting
castes were to lie down together in amity under
the roof-tree leaves of this Act of Parliament.
There was the English settler, who had never yet
mixed himself up with the Irishry, and who, to all
intents and purposes, inhabited a Paradise of the
Pale of his own; there was the settler who, through
intermarriage and other commerce with the natives,
stood midway in the shadows of the two camps,
and hardly knew to which he belonged ; then there
was the pure Catholic, who had never mingled with
the Sassenach, and who represented in its integri-
ty the sentiment of national resentment ; the wa-
vering Catholic, who was fluctuating between his
interests and his conscience ; and the reprobate
Catholic, who had already gone over to Protest-
antism and sinecures, with a mental reservation
which rendered him as dangerous to his new pro-
fession as he had already been faithless to his old
one ; and all these discords were to be reduced to
harmony by Act of Parliament.

It may be added, that the situation of the Catho-
lics at this crisis was calculated to kindle novel
jealousies, and to furnish peculiar pretenses for de-
priving this measure of all its healing and concilia-
tory properties. They had recently obtained cer-

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 161

tain ameliorations of the Penal Code, and one of
the inducements held out to them for agreeing to
the Union was, that it would facilitate the repeal
of the remainder. Now this reason, so tempting
and plausible on the one side, was the most unfor-
tunate that could be resorted to on the other. It
wounded the Protestants on the most tender point
— it suggested the only conceivable ground on
which they could seek or discover a pretext for op-
posing the Union, which in all other respects was
quite consonant with their English sympathies.
There was nothing which the Irish Protestants
were not ready to sacrifice rather than consent to
the relief of the Catholics. It was not merely that
they hated popery intrinsically, but because every
diminution of the thraldom under which it groaned
w®uld have been a deduction from their own as-
cendency. And whoever is learned in Irish histo-
ry, and knows what that terrible Protestant ascend-
ency was in the fullness of its power, will be at no
loss to understand why they who lived by the breath
of its nostrils should have been so reluctant to grant
the smallest fraction of human freedom to the pa-
pists. And this ascendency, haughty from long im-
punity, and formidable from long possession, was
now to be brought round to the support of a meas-
ure which indirectly menaced its very foundations.
How was this to be accomplished ]

Mr. Cooke, the under-secretary for Ireland, pub-
lished a pamphlet to prove that the Union would
be equally beneficial to both parties.* The argu-
ment was at least recommended by being thorough-
ly Irish. It fairly cut the ground from under its
own feet. To the Protestants it offered this lure,
that the Union was the only chance they had of

* " Arguments for and against a Union between Great Britain
and Ireland considered." Dublin, 1798.
11 O 2

162 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

resisting the claims of the Catholics, through the
overwhelming influence and known character of
the British Parliament; while to the Catholics it
declared that the only hope of emancipation lay in
this same measure of Union, which would release
them from local tyranny, and facilitate their admis-
sion into the British Constitution.*

It was plain, however, that subterfuges of this
kind, like Macheath's asides to his two mistresses
to make them believe that he was in love with them
both, could not deceive the vigilance of the coun-
try ; and the Cabinet found it necessary to try more
effective arguments. In short, they bought up
both parties — the Catholics by promises of eman-
cipation, t the Protestants by peerages and places,

* Lord Castlereagh employed the same Jesuitical reasoning in
his speech on the Union, in the Irish House of Commons, Feb. 5,
1800. " This measure is one," he observed, " that, by uniting the
Church establishments, and consolidating the legislatures of the
empire, puts an end to religious jealousy, and removes the possi-
bility of separation. It is one which places the great question,
which has so long agitated the country, upon the broad principle of
imperial policy, and divests it of all its local difficulties." This was
the snare which entrapped the Catholics, eager to catch at any
thing that promised to float them into the harbor of the Consti-
tution.

t Some of the more sincere Protestants, who were perfectly
guileless in their horror of contracting promises and engagements
with the Catholics — clean-hearted men, who lived up to the very
letter of the Penal Code — were so shocked at the Machiavelian
conduct of the government in this crisis, that they did not hesitate
to complain of it openly. One of them, in a pamphlet entitled
" Orange Vindicated" (Dublin, 1799), reproves the government
for holding out false hopes to the Catholics, and hints that such
dishonest policy may cost them the allegiance of their best friends.
"I will conclude," says this bold, good man, "by warning the
government against a practice which has been too common among
the parties of this country, namely, that of treating and parleying
with the Catholics as a political body, and making stalking-horses
of them and their claims, for the purpose of mutual embarrassment
and vexation. This weak and wicked policy feeds, and has fed,
unjustifiable pretensions. This has been a sort of game ; but hat
nugce seria ducant in mala." This worthy pamphleteer was evi-
dently ignorant that this " sort of game," of setting " both your

THE LIFE OP CANNING. 163

strengthened, in all instances of official depend-
ence, by threats of dismissal.

The fact was, that the salvation of the British
empire depended at this moment upon the Union,
which was to be carried at any cost by fair means
or foul. Pitt was not the minister to hesitate in
such a juncture, and he had an agent in the person
of Lord Castlereagh who was ready to second him
to the last extremity. The " undertakers" of Ire-
land— the two or three families who were perched
upon the apex of Protestant ascendency, that im-
perium in imperio which drove out Lord Fitzwill-
iam, controlled the law, and overawed the govern-
ment itself — had only one vulnerable spot, and that
spot was struck by Pitt. The sacrifices were of
incredible magnitude — sacrifices of gold, of honor,
of character, of every thing that ordinarily renders
life and station desirable to men of integrity ; but
the enemy was at the gates, and such sacrifices
alone could save the country.

The moment was ill chosen, but it had the ex-
cuse of being also inevitable. If the Union had
been proposed in a season of peace and prosperity,
it would have been free from suspicion, and might
have been consolidated without disgrace. But it
followed upon the smoking track of a rebellion, and
was forced upon the people. It was not a measure
of deliberate benefit, but of sudden and violent ex-
pediency. Like all other Irish measures, which,
however good in themselves, did not come recom-
mended by their goodness, but by their necessity,
the Union was an exigency, not a concession — it
was dictated by England's difficulty, not for Ire-
land's advantage. But it settled forever the ques-
tion which was then taking a palpable and mena-

houses" by the ears, had been the state policy of England toward
Ireland from the very beginning of their connection.

164 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

cing shape, namely, whether Ireland was to be-
come British or French.

Upon this question the Irish themselves never
wavered. They have an instinctive antipathy to
foreign connections. But it was rapidly ceasing
to be a matter of choice. They might at any time
be overborne by events ; and although no country
can be reasonably expected to prefer a neighborly
despotism to a distant rule, there is no doubt that
the Irish would have borne much injustice from
England, and did bear it, rather than suffer the in-
tervention of strange hands between them. Had
Ireland ever fallen under the dominion of France
— should she ever be lost to England — it would
not have been, it will not be, her own seeking.

The expression of opinion in Ireland against the
Union was universal and intense. " It is the most
barefaced, undisguised assault upon our honor, dig-
nity, and character, as a nation, and our liberties, as
a people, that has yet been attempted," said a Prot-
estant writer, who, belonging to neither extreme,
represented the moderate and rational of all par-
ties.* One leading objection to the measure was,
that it destroyed the independence of the country;
another, that it violated the arrangement of 1782,
by which that independence was guarantied. Both
objections were true ; but the need was imperious,
and they were overruled.

It was said of Mr. Grattan, by whom the freedom
of Ireland was achieved in 1782, that " he sat by
its cradle — he followed its hearse." The phrase
depicts the feelings with which the Union was re-
garded. It was looked upon as the grave of Irish
liberty. Yet, honestly carried out, a legislative
union would seem to be the natural issue of the

* " First Letter to a Noble Lord on the Subject of the Union."
Dublin, 1799.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 165

relations in which the two countries stood toward
each other. It is more reconcilable with the prin-
ciples of natural justice that England and Ireland
should be bound up under the same laws, the same
government, and the same system of representation,
than that there should be separation without inde-
pendence, or connection without the benefits of re-
ciprocity.

Whether the Union has been honestly carried
out, is a different consideration.

In the management of the question, the worst
feature of all was the use that was made of the re-
cent rebellion. It was assumed as a pretext for
hurrying forward the Union, before the people
could give vent to the feelings it provoked. Yet
there were not wanting persons who accused the
government of having fomented the rebellion them-
selves for that very purpose. But the English
Cabinet, whatever final responsibility may attach
to them, were hardly answerable for the hideous
details of that insurrection. The blood-guilt be-
longed to the Irish executive alone ; it was the
furious spirit of implacable faction usurping the
functions of authority. Pitt was ignorant of the
iniquitous severity with which the general instruc-
tions of the government were carried out in Ire-
land. He appears to have had no notion of the
extent to which the system of torture was prose-
cuted for the discovery of concealed arms ; and
when these atrocities came out in discussion, and
Lord Clare attempted some sort of reply to the
charge, without being able to deny it, " I shall nev-
er forget Pitt's look," says Wilberforce ; " he turn-
ed round to me with that high indignant stare which
sometimes marked his countenance, and walked
out of the house."*

* «« Life of Wilberforce," ii., 327.

166 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

That the settlement of the Catholic claims was
intended by Pitt to follow the Union, is now mat-
ter of history. In private he was quite open on
the subject — in public, guarded as to details, but
unequivocal as to the principle. He distinctly gave
the Catholics to understand that he contemplated
their emancipation as a consequence of the Union ;
and he assured the Protestants that the concession
would no longer be dangerous after the Catholics
had become incorporated with the whole popula-
tion of the empire. He won the Catholics by
promises of equality, and wooed the Protestants by
promising to swamp the Catholics.

These views were illustrated by Mr. Canning
in two speeches — the one on the king's mes-
sage in January, 1799, the other on the address in
April. He showed that the Popery Code (as it
was called) took its rise from the rejection by the
British government of a proposal for a union
from Ireland ; and that, the contrary course hold-
ing good, the adoption of a union would lead to
the relaxation of that code.

" If it was in consequence of the rejection of a union
in a former period that the laws against popery were
enacted, it is fair to conclude that a union would render
a similar code unnecessary ; that a union would satisfy
the friends of Protestant ascendency, without passing
Jaws against the Catholics, and ivithout maintaining those
which are yet in force."

It must be remembered that the treasury bench-
es were nearly filled with Protestant ascendency-
men, and it required some tact to indicate to them
that their bigotry should be in some sort resj:>ected,
and to convey at the same moment a little hope to
the Catholics. The necessity of caution on this
vital point was overruling; for had the minister
spoken out, he would have roused into fury the

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 167

prejudices of his supporters, and been compelled
to abandon a measure upon which, as upon a thread,
hung the existence of the government. In his sec-
ond speech Mr. Canning again urged the same
considerations, but still clothed in the most careful
language. He showed that the Irish Parliament,
instead of losing something of its power by incor-
poration, would be better qualified to adjust the
animosities arising out of religious differences by
being- removed out of the reach and influence of
every varying gust of popular phrensy.

" Instead of being committed as a party, it becomes an
impartial judge of the conflict, when it is placed in a sit-
uation which enables it to weigh every claim with dis-
passionate calmness and dignity, to resist what may be
extravagant without the appearance of severity, and con-
cede to the Catholics what may remain to he conceded,
without the appearance of intimidation, and without haz-
ard to its own authority and power."

So far as ministerial hints at any time, or under
any circumstances, can be considered binding, such
passages as these must be allowed to have been
broad enough to pledge the administration to the
Catholic question. Mr. Pitt thought so himself,
although his ultra Tory friends thought differently
The greatest misfortune Mr. Pitt labored under
through his life (and his reputation after his death)
was that of having friends — warm, enthusiastic
friends — who insisted upon worshiping him for
opinions and intentions which he not only never
professed, but earnestly disclaimed. It would be
impossible, for instance, to conceive any set of no-
tions more unlike Mr. Pitt's than the general run
of the sentiments of the Pitt Club. The members
of that lively institution have made him responsible
for principles so utterly at variance with his con-

168 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

victions, that Mr. Pitt, as some one said, could not
with any decency dine at his own dinner.*

Upon this question of emancipation, Mr. Pitt's
biographer states, that " no pledge or promise what-
ever was made by Mr. Pitt, or by his authority,
directly or indirectly, to the Romanists of Ireland,
that the few restrictions under which they still la-
bored, and forming the only bars to a full partici-
pation of political power, should be removed if
they would give their consent to the Union."!
The italics are not Mr. Gifford's, but they ought to
have been. How scornfully such men look down
upon the wrongs of others, from their heights of
power and impunity ! These few restrictions,
which appeared so contemptible to Mr. GifFord,
were all sufficient, nevertheless, to shake the tran-
quillity of every succeeding Cabinet for thirty years,
and to compel a confession at last — which must have
thrown Mr. GifFord into fits, if he lived to witness
it — that the government of the country could not
be carried on till they were removed ! Even then it
was not the fault of ministers that the papist was
let loose from his bonds. They would have kept
him in chains if they could ; but events pressed,
and they were forced to choose between that old
rank antipathy and a civil war.

According to this authority, Mr. Pitt never en-
couraged the Catholics to expect that their politi-
cal disabilities would be repealed, if they would
consent to the Union.

Mr. Pitt unquestionably possessed, in almost su-

* It is only fair to observe, that the Pitt Club was not always
so perverse and intolerant. That section of the Tories who would
have nothing to do with it at first, have since become its most
zealous members, not by conforming to the principles in celebra-
tion of which it was established, but by setting up a new set of
principles in their place. The Pitt Club originally held liberal
doctrines on some leading questions, especially Catholic Eman
cipation. t " Gifford's Life of Pitt," vi., 234.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 169

pernatural perfection, the art of appearing to say a
great deal, without saying any thing. His won-
derful fluency, when he had any point to seem to
clear up, but really to confuse, had the effect of
filling the ear without conveying one positive idea
to the mind. Great was his skill in creating a du-
bious impression, which might be admitted or de-
nied at convenience. He was so wonderfully safe
in this way, and had such a miraculous gift of no-
meaning, that Windham once said that " he verily
believed that Mr. Pitt could speak a king's speech
off-hand." It must be allowed, therefore, that if
any man could have successfully produced a uni-
versal conviction that he meant to do a certain thing,
which he had not the slightest intention of doing,
without committing himself to a single act or ex-
pression that could ever be brought in evidence
against him, Mr. Pitt was unquestionably that man.
But as he could not have done so in this case with-
out being guilty of an extraordinary and cruel
stretch of duplicity, we have to decide which is the
more likely — that Mr. Pitt acted in this perfidious
spirit, or that Mr. Gifford's statement is untrue.

There is no doubt that Mr. Pitt held language
calculated to suggest and nourish such expectations
in the Catholic mind. There is no doubt that sim-
ilar language was held by Canning, Dundas, Wind-
ham, and other recognized members and organs of
the government. There is no doubt that these
ministerial manifestoes, which were neither pledges
nor promises, but something a thousand times more
binding in honor and conscience, were actively
circulated all over Ireland, and used as a decoy
for the Catholics. If Mr. Pitt meant nothing by
all this, but merely to carry his object — if he were
ready to avail himself of the want of distinctness
on this special point in his own speeches, or to re-

P

170 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

pudiate, as lacking his sanction, the too much dis-
tinctness of others — it is clear that Mr. Pitt must
have been a man of remarkable hardihood of a cer-
tain kind. But we prefer the other horn of the di-
lemma ; and circumstances fortunately enable us
to go just far enough to rescue Mr. Pitt from the
ruinous friendship of his biographer.

The Union was carried, and became the law of
the land in 1801. The moment was now come for
keeping faith with the Catholics. Mr. Pitt ap-
plied to his majesty, urged upon him the imperious
necessity of adjusting these claims, and intimated
the impossibility of remaining in office unless his
majesty empowered him to carry out the terms
upon which he had been enabled to accomplish the
Union. George III., however, was of opinion that
the coronation oath was an eternal impediment to
the royal assent ; entreated Mr. Pitt not to urge
him on that point ; and offered, as the story books
say, to do any thing for him, except emancipation,
if he would stay in office. Mr. Pitt resigned.*

Nothing can be much clearer than this. Mr.
Pitt resigned because he could not carry Catholic
Emancipation. Now, unless he acknowledged to
himself (although it seems he never communicated
his impressions to Mr. Gifford) that he had led the
Catholics to agree to the Union, on the pledge or
supposition that their disabilities should be remov-
ed, why should he resign upon that question 1

The act of resignation was the only saving grace
in the matter, for it is not to be concealed that Mr.
Pitt ought to have ascertained his majesty's opin-
ions before. Nor will posterity believe that he

* See a correspondence between the king, Mr. Pitt, and Lord
Kenyon, published in 1827, by Dr. Philpotts. This correspond-
ence was published in the hope of annihilating the Catholic claims
forever, but it had the unlooked-for effect of materially accelera-
ting their settlement.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 171

was not already acquainted with them when he
promulgated the scheme of the Union.* If the
great measure was a great hypocrisy, it was not
because he did not deceive the Catholics by false
promises, but because he deluded them by promises
which he knew at the time he could not fulfill.
There is too much reason to believe that the latter
is the true version.t

* However this may be, great blame was cast on Pitt by the
court party, and even by some of his own friends. It was said
that he took his majesty by surprise. " Mr. Pitt," said Lord
Malmesbury, " either from indolence, or from, perhaps, not pay-
ing always a sufficient and due attention to the king's pleasure,
neglected to mention ministerially to his majesty that such a meas-
ure was in agitation till he came at once with it for his approba-
tion."— " Diaries," iv., 1. The enemies of the measure — including
the two chancellors of England and Ireland — took care, however,
that the king should know Pitt's intentions, and in a way the most
likely to displease. The consequence was, that the day after it
was formally proposed (28th January) the king declared he would
consider any man personally indisposed toward him who voted
for it. Canning suspected Lord Westmoreland to have been at the
bottom of this cabal. Hawkesbury, who took office under Ad-
dington, is also open to suspicion. It is satisfactory to know, how-
ever, that Auckland, who was one of the chief plotters, got noth-
ing by it, and that Loughborough, who moved conspicuously in
it, overreached himself, and lost the chancellorship — the lucky
circumstance which lifted Eldon to the woolsack.

t Some light is thrown upon this suspicion from a very unex-
pected quarter. In an article in the " Anti-Jacobin," said, we
know not upon what authority, to be written by Mr. Canning, it is
very clearly stated that the king had never given his ministers the
smallest reason to believe that he would sanction measures of re-
lief for the Catholics ; but that, on the contrary, nearly three
years before, his majesty had declared his determination never to
consent to them, feeling that such consent would involve a viola-
tion of his oath. Yet, notwithstanding their private knowledge
of his majesty's fixed resolution, ministers held out positive hopes
to the Catholics. Mr. Canning stated, in his speech on the Cath-
olic claims in 1812, that ministers all along led the Catholics to
believe that their emancipation was to follow the Union. He dis-
claimed any direct " promises," but allowed that the Catholics
were encouraged to expect a release from their disabilities. " As
to promises," he said, " there have been none ; but as to expecta-
tion, there certainly has been a great deal. Expectations have been
held out, the disappoinhnent of which involves the moral guilt of an a&-
solute breach of faith" — Speech on Lord Morpeth's Motion, 3d Feb.,
1812.

172 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

If Mr. Pitt had been firm, the court faction must
have yielded, and emancipation might have been
carried within a year of the Union. His resigna-
tion threw it back indefinitely ; and honorable as
that resignation was, its luster is much diminished
by his consenting to take office three years after-
ward under the same sovereign, not only without
any stipulations on behalf of the Catholics, but with
the knowledge that he must abandon them. It is
notorious that, during the lifetime of the king, Mr.
Pitt was resolved never to bring forward the Cath-
olic Question ; in fact, he bound himself to sacrifice
it to the good old intolerance of George the Third.
All this goes a great way to reduce the merit of
Mr. Pitt's resignation, if it does not destroy con-
fidence in his sincerity altogether.*

From that moment his course ran through crook-
ed paths, and was no less unfortunate in its prog-
ress than disastrous in its close. Every thing
failed with him. His next administration was
formed of materials so weak, that he was obliged
to do all the work himself. His coalition projects
led to fresh disappointments and distrusts, and the
glory of Trafalgar only shed an expiring gleam on
his last hours. When he died, the feeble remains
of his cabinet fell to pieces without a struggle.

* It is now known that Pitt did voluntarily offer to sacrifice the
Catholic question to the disordered bigotry of the king. The sub-
ject was submitted to his majesty toward the close of January ;
about the middle of February his majesty betrayed the first symp-
toms of his malady ; for a fortnight or so he got worse and worse,
but recovered again early in March, sufficiently, at least, to be
conscious of all that had passed, and capable of talking about it.
In this state of temporary restoration, he desired Willis, his med-
ical attendant, to write to Pitt. " Tell him," said he, " I am now
quite well — quite recovered from my illness ; but what has he not
to answer for who is the cause of my having been ill at all ?"
Willis wrote as he was commanded, and Pitt sent a reply full of
regrets and repentance, and offering to give tip the Catholic question
to please his majesty. In fact, he did give it up. He always spoke
of it afterward as given up. It was plunged into the ministerial
oubliette.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 173

Mr. Canning was too closely identified with Pitt
not to participate in his fortunes at a juncture of
such imminent importance. He followed him into
retirement.* Mr. Huskisson also resigned. Mr.
Pitt had a few close friends who were supersti-
tiously devoted to him. With the desperate at-
tachment of Hindoo widows, they insisted upon
being buried in his grave. The breaking up of
his administration was a sort of political suttee.

So far as Mr. Canning was individually concern-
ed, the respite from the labors of his office was not
altogether undesired on private grounds. A few
months previously he had changed his condition by
an alliance which, fortunately, in addition to the
first essential of mutual attachment, united all the
elements his utmost ambition could desire — con-
nection and fortune. On the 8th of July, 1800, Mr.
Canning was married to Miss Joan Scott, daughter
and co-heiress to General Scott, and sister to the
Marchioness of Titchfield, afterward Duchess of
Portland. General Scott is said to have been a
man of peculiar habits and eccentric character, who
possessed considerable wealth, which he left tied
up by some very singular and stringent conditions.

Miss Scott's fortune was large, and placed Mr.
Canning at once in a position of independence.
The union was, in every point of view, a source of
mutual happiness. The unsullied purity of Mr.
Canning's life, and his love of domestic pleasures
(for, after his marriage, he seldom extended his
intercourse with general society beyond those oc-
casions which his station rendered unavoidable),
were rewarded by as much virtue and devotion as
ever graced the home of an English statesman.

* Mr. Canning resigned his under-secretaryship, and no longer
formed a part of the administration. But he kept the place of re-
ceiver-general of the Alienation Office.

P 2

174 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

In an ante-chamber in Mr. Canning's house there
used to hang over the mantel-piece a painting of
two female figures — the Duchess of Portland and
her sister. The duchess, who was many years the
elder, is represented leaning over her sister, and
caressing her with an expression of affectionate
emotion. From the history attached to the picture,
we learn that this attitude was chosen by the duch-
ess herself, as a memorial of a somewhat romantic
circumstance in the lives of the sisters. It seems
that General Scott made the principal part of his
fortune by play, to which he was passionately ad-
dicted, and which in his time ran high in the fash-
ionable world. He was remarkable for many per-
sonal singularities, odd tastes, and antipathies ; and,
among the rest, he conceived an extraordinary
aversion to the aristocracy. He carried this feel-
ing to such an extreme as to resolve that neither
his family nor his money, if he could prevent them,
should ever be found shining under a coronet ; and,
in order to secure this object, he inserted a strict
condition in his will, that if either of his daughters
should marry a nobleman, her moiety of a sum of
6£200,000, which he divided between them, should
devolve upon her sister. The Duchess of Portland
was the first to disobey this testamentary injunction ;
but her sister, refusing to take advantage of the
will, insisted upon an equal division of the legacy.
She saw no reason why, having married a lord for
love, the duchess should not, at least, be as rich as
if she had married a commoner upon compulsion.

The picture illustrates with touching simplicity
this little episode of magnanimous love.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 175

VII.

THE ADDINGTON ADMINISTRATION. THE RETURN

AND DEATH OF PITT.

Pitt resigned in March, 1801. There were va-
rious rumors about his successor — some named
Grenville ; others Dundas ; Auckland, says one of
his contemporaries, named himself. But there
never was any real hesitation as to who should
succeed. Pitt named Addington, then Speaker of
the Commons; and Addington succeeded accord-
ingly. The Addington administration was merely
a fantoccini ministry, of which Pitt worked the
wires.

There was another reason, besides the Catholic
Question, why Pitt so precipitately quitted office —
the impossibility of extricating himself with credit
from the war. He wanted to throw upon Adding-
ton the ignominy of patching up a disgraceful peace,
and then, when fresh difficulties arose, to return to
office again, " amid thunders of applause," as the
only man who could save the country. His strategy
was betrayed plainly enough in the last verse of
Mr. Canning's famous Pitt lyric :

" And, oh ! if again the rude whirlwind should rise !
The dawning of peace should fresh darkness deform,
The regrets of the good, and the fears of the wise,
Shall turn to the Pilot that weathered the storm."*

* " The Pilot that weathered the Storm" was written for the
first meeting of the Pitt Club, which originated under Mr. Can-
ning's auspices, and was founded by him immediately after Mr.
Pitt's retirement from office. The object of the club was, of
course, to celebrate the glories of the late minister ; and it is a
significant and very curious fact, that not one of the members of
the Addington administration joined it, although their successors
were the persons of whom its meetings were afterward chiefly
composed, and who gave such an unexpected direction to its en-

176 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

But power once relinquished is not so easily re-
called. Followers and parasites have an ugly way
of forsaking the retiring patron, and trooping round
the in-coming minister. Even so it fell out with
Pitt, who was excluded from the government for
upward of three years by this obstacle of his own
making.*

thusiasm. The song was written with great skill for the end it
was designed to serve ; on other grounds, its merit is not above
the average of most patriotic effusions stuffed with stock senti-
ments and huzzas disguised in heroic meter. But it answered its
purpose effectually, and produced a sort of national furor as long
as the war-fever lasted. Lord Brougham objects to this song that
it treats as a "fall" Pitt's sacrifice of power to principle, when,
by retiring from office, he earned the applause of millions. His
lordship ascribes this to Mr. Canning's early official habits, which
seem to have given to place an aspect of power essential to one
who would serve his country. — " Historical Sketches of States-
men," p. 279. But it was not necessary to go so far out of the
way to discover why Canning treated Pitt's retirement as a " fall :"

" Admired in thy zenith, but loved in thy fall :"

Or why he described him in his retirement as

" Virtue, in humble resentment withdrawn."

He wanted to get up a party for him as a martyr to his own in-
tegrity and the king's intolerance. He wanted to keep him alive
in the generous sympathies of the people. Something must be
allowed for political songs that are only written to serve an occa-
sion. " The Pilot that weathered the Storm" was not intended
to be submitted to the criticism of posterity. It may be much
more seriously questioned whether Lord Brougham's opinion, that
Pitt did sacrifice power to principle on this occasion, is founded
upon a correct estimate of all the circumstances of his retreat
from office.

* " The baseness and ingratitude he found in mankind," says
Lady Hester Stanhope, " were inconceivable. All the peers that
he had made deserted him, and half those he had served returned
his kindness by going over to the enemy." — " Memoirs of Lady
Hester Stanhope," iii., 167. The close of all was still more ter-
rible. Mr. Pitt died in the villa on Putney Heath ; his corpse lay
in one of the rooms for a week. " It is a singular and melancholy
circumstance," says Lord Brougham, " resembling the stories told
of William the Conqueror's deserted state at his decease, that
some one in the neighborhood, having sent a message to inquire
after Mr. Pitt's state, he found the wicket open, then the door of
the house, and nobody answering the bell, he walked through the
rooms till he reached the bed on which the minister's body lay
lifeless, the sole tenant of the mansion, of which the doors, a few

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 177

All Pitt's friends were opposed to his resigna-
tion. There was no apparent excuse for it. The
Catholic Question had been already abandoned in
the Cabinet, although set up as a pretext for his-
tory. This was so well understood, that Lord
Cornwallis wrote to Lord Castlereagh immediately
upon hearing of the resignations, to say that, as the
Catholic Question had been " given up," it would
be highly criminal at such a moment to desert his
majesty.* But Pitt was resolved, and every body
thought he was very obstinate, because they could
not comprehend why he went out, and he would
not tell them. He kept his own secret.

On the very evening of his resignation Canning
called upon him. They had a long conversation,
but it ended in nothing. All that Canning could -
extract from him was, that he had the greatest con-
fidence in Addington, and wished his party to
support him ; that, as a private friend, he was
pleased with Canning for having resigned, but
more pleased with those who remained as they
were. This was the way Pitt sustained his wor-
shipers. He entreated them all to stay in under
Addington, and would satisfy none of them as to
the reason why he did not stay in himself. Some
did stay in — such as the Duke of Portland, Lord
Chatham, Lord Westmoreland ; but the strangest
circumstance of all was, that Dundas went out —
that true Scot, to whom place was hardly less vital
than the atmosphere.

It was suspected that Pitt resigned merely to

hours before, were darkened by crowds of suitors alike obse-
quious and importunate, the vultures whose instinct haunts the
carcasses only of living ministers." — " Historical Sketches."
There never was a statesman out of whose hands power passed
so suddenly and so completely. There was no decline, no transi-
tion, no twilight to soften the descent from his meridian glory ; but
darkness, like night in the tropics, set in upon him at once.
* " Diaries of Lord Malmesburv," iv., 42.

12

178 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

show bis strength, and that he could return to
power whenever he wished. For the three years
preceding he had been compelled to make so many
concessions in the royal closet, and the government
had become so weakened by the frequency of this
secret control, that he began to feel that he retained
only a nominal power, while the real power was
wielded by people who influenced the king's mind
out of sight. His choice lay between making a
firm stand on some great public necessity, or going
out and letting his loss be felt. But where was
this public necessity to be found % It was idle to
think of Catholic Emancipation, as that was one of
the subjects on which the royal mind was unap-
proachable. During the king's illness there were
two topics for ever present to his distempered im-
agination— America and the Church. " How can
I," he used to exclaim, "I" that am bom a gentle-
man, ever lay my head on my pillow in peace and
quiet, as long as I remember the loss of my Amer-
ican colonies V At another time he would mutter,
" I will remain true to the Church !" Then back
to America ; and anon he would return to the
Church ; and so swing backward and forward be-
tween these two points of remorse, until they be-
came an absolute part of his moral existence. The
minister who should have attempted to make a stand
upon the Catholic Question, under such circum-
stances, must have been as demented as the king
himself; and so, having nothing else to go upon,
Pitt threw up the seals.

Addington was supposed to be entirely in Pitt's
confidence in this move, from the tone he took at
first. He used to say every where that he was
only Pitt's locum tenens. This was generally be-
lieved in the beginning, and circumstances favored
its likelihood. But as time wore on, and Adding-

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 179

ton, who was a vain and arrogant man at heart,
grew giddy with authority, people began to wonder
whether he really was minister or puppet. The
. mystery became darker and, darker. Pitt's conduct
throughout this period of anxious suspense was un-
intelligible. Soon after his retirement, he sold
Hollwood, his favorite residence, laid down his
carriage and horses ; reduced his establishment,
and paying off as many debts as he could, took a
house in Park Place, where he lived on an income
of less than c£1000 a year. This looked like a
complete farewell to power ; and yet all this time
he was advising the ministers secretly at every step :
they did nothing without his sanction ; and, to in-
sure them still greater security, he was continually
urging his personal friends to support them in their
measures.

Canning was distressed and irritated at all this,.
He could not conceal his vexation that Pitt should
sacrifice himself to bolster up an administration
which had no sooner made its appearance in Par-
liament than it was treated by both houses with
open derision. There was some personal feeling,
also, mixed up in the mortification he felt at Pitt'a
impenetrable reserve. He thought that he was en-
titled to a closer confidence than Pitt was willing
to extend to any body ; but, although he was
wounded at this, his friendship was too sincere to
be susceptible of the small jealousies which some-
times spring from a suspicion of imperfect trust.
His attachment to Pitt was not merely that of the
lover, whose imagination exaggerates the perfec-
tions of his idol, but rather that of the devotee, who
is disposed to believe his idol infallible.

It was from this devotion that, heedless of Pitt's
remonstrances, he insisted upon throwing up office ;
at a period of life, too, when the objects of his am-

180 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

bition, thus placed within his reach, might natu-
rally be expected to exercise a paramount influence
over his decision. His conduct on this occasion
contrasts strongly with that of Lord Castlereagh,
who professed an equal homage to Pitt. Canning
went out — Castlereagh went in. The former felt
himself bound to share the adversity of the states-
man, who was their common leader — the latter was
restless till he got an appointment under the min-
istry that displaced him. Castlereagh was consid-
ered a stanch Pittite, and may have been one.
Perhaps he had a peculiar manner of showing his
attachments. Like the Irishman who went into
the twenty-fourth foot that he might be near his
brother who was in twenty-fifth, his lordship may
have joined Addington for the sake of his love of
Pitt.

For the first year of the new ministry, Canning
almost wholly abstained from attending Parliament,
and, except upon one occasion (his motion respect-
ing the cultivation of Trinidad, 27th May, 1802),
he does not appear to have spoken. He pursued
this line of conduct out of deference to Pitt, to
whom he was indebted for his seat ; but when the
dissolution of 1802 released him from that obliga-
tion, and he was returned on his own account for
the borough of Tralee, he felt himself at liberty to
oppose an administration he despised.

Trinidad was one of the acquisitions of the war.
It possessed two advantages : it was an important
naval station and one of the most fertile islands of
the West India group. Mr. Canning desired to
confer a greater distinction than either upon it, by
making it the scene of an initial experiment in the
gradual process of extinguishing the slave-trade.
The new island — with its breeding climate and lux-
uriant soil — was to be cultivated. How % By ne-

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 181

groes imported from Africa. The object of Mr.
Canning's motion was to make grants to the plant-
ers on the express condition that they should not
import slave labor. He wanted to make a begin-
ning somewhere, and he thought this a favorable
opportunity. His speech, although ostensibly ad-
dressed to a general view of the best means of cul-
tivating and turning Trinidad to account, was a
powerful argument, enforcing a practical proposi-
tion against the slave-trade. The subject was one
in which he felt a deep interest. He had spoken
upon it in 1799, with a fullness of spirit and beauty
of illustration, which, even in his later years, he
never excelled. But rich, various, and powerful
as it was, his speech had produced no practical re-
sult. The motion on Trinidad also fell to the
ground. The time was not yet ripe for this great
step in Christian civilization. But the seed was
sowing, and Mr. Canning happily lived to gather
in the goodly harvest.

In 1803 a rebellion broke out in Ireland — a di-
rect corollary from the Union. Mr. Canning, in a
speech of unusual severity, declared that the Irish
executive ought to be impeached. But it is only
justice to this unfortunate fantoccini ministry to say
for them, what they had not the courage to say for
themselves, that the Irish rebellion was a dying
bequest from their predecessors. Every body
wondered how they could have been induced to
take out letters of administration !

The worst of all was the necessity of winding up
the war. The peace of Amiens was the great end
for which the administration seemed to have been
called into existence ; and, having accomplished its
destiny, the astonishing thing is that it did not sur-
render up its spirit to Pitt. The peace pleased
no bodv- Windham described it as an armed

Q

182 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

truce, entered upon without necessity, negotiated
without wisdom, and concluded without honor ;
Lord Grenville denounced it as a national degra-
dation ; and the only recommendation it had in
Fox's eyes was, that it brought the war to an end
without restoring the Bourbons.

The peace was negotiated by Lord Hawkesbu-
ry, who had committed himself to such exhilara-
ting prophecies of the occupation of Paris ; and
who now, not content with destroying the hopes
he had been all along holding out to his party, add-
ed a sort of private sanction to an act of official
suicide by accepting a present from the First Con-
sul of a superb service of China.* While the hon-
est advocates of the war were grumbling over the
shells, the Foreign Secretary was swallowing the
oyster.

There never occupied the Treasury benches an
administration so hacked and cut to pieces as this
Addington make-shift. Every party assailed it in
turn ; and there were more party sections than
usual, with a greater variegation of political opin-
ions, but all united against the ministry. There
was the pure Fox party — the G-renvilles, with their
mixed doctrines — the Windhamites, who drew be-
tween them — and the young Pitt party, whose espe-
cial function it was to bring about the restoration
of Pitt, even in spite of Pitt himself. Canning

* The fact is stated by Trotter, « Memoirs of Fox," p. 260.
Trotter's book is wretched trash, but it contains two or three
small facts that are not to be found elsewhere. He was employ-
ed by Fox to copy and read for him, and saw a good deal of his
private life, which he mistook his calling in attempting to chron-
icle. It seems that he expected something would have been done
for him, and published the memoirs out of revenge. An observa-
tion of Sheridan's upon the proceedings of the Whigs in 1806 ap-
plies exactly to Trotter's case. " I have heard," says Sheridan,
" of men running their heads against a wall, but this is the first
time I ever heard of a man building a wall on purpose to run his
head against."

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 183

was the leader of this section, the most energetic
of all.

The inherent feebleness of the ministry supplied
their antagonists with perpetual openings for ridi-
cule and defiance. Hawkesbury possessed the
most respectable talents among them, but he was
totally unequal to his position. He had so little
influence as Foreign Secretary that the French
negotiators heaped repeated insults upon England
in their correspondence with him ; demanding at
one time that he should stop the attacks of the press
on the French government ; and at another, that
the French royal family, and other illustrious ex-
iles who had taken refuge here, should be peremp-
torily sent out of the country. With a man of
known ability or established name at the Foreign
Office, such experiments would never have been
tried ; but Hawkesbury was shy, paltering, and
all but unknown. Canning had the lowest opinion
of his capacity ;* Lord Malmesbury spurned his
** weakness and timidity ;" and the king said, that
he had no head for business, no method, no punct-
uality.f Yet, incompetent as he was, and ill as
they could spare him from the Commons, they were
obliged to send him up to the Lords, where they
were still worse off.f

Addington was deficient in every quality neces-
sary to form or control a cabinet. He had no per-
sonal weight — -no ministerial reputation — even his
technical Parliamentary habits were against him.
Great stiffness, without the least natural dignity,

* Lady Hester Stanhope, in her hectoring way, says that
Hawkesbury was a " fool," and that Canning could not conceal
the contempt in which he held him, carrying it so far as to take
wine very reluctantly with him at dinner. — " Memoirs," i., 316.

t " Diaries of Lord Malmesbury," iv., 197.

% Lord Hawkesbury did not, on this occasion, change his title.
He was called to the Upper House, by writ,, as a peer's eldest
eon.

184 TFIE LIFE OF CANNING. *

gave a false lacquer to his manners, which were of-
fensive to men of high breeding ; and his attempts
to supply the want of discrimination and fore-
thought by an assumption of artificial gravity only
rendered him ridiculous. " My Lord Salisbury,"
said Fox, in a public company, speaking of Ad-
dington, " would make a better minister, only that
he is wanted for court dancing-master." Being
asked what Addington would do after the peace,
Fox replied, " I cannot say ; but it will be some-
thing which will render him ridiculous to the end
of time. If Mr. Addington wishes for supreme
authority, let him be King of Bath, if he has inter-
est enough at the rooms ; he will find it more pleas-
ant, and, I am persuaded, more to his reputation."*
To make matters still more deplorable, he was cut
off from the means of strengthening his hands, by
a train of greedy expectants, pressing voraciously
to be provided for — his brother, Bragge, Vansit-
tart, Bond Hopkins, and a dozen others — all offi-
cers, and no soldiers.t " No followers," is found
an excellent rule in certain situations, and would
tell with good effect among higher functionaries.
It would have saved Addington the necessity of
putting his hangers-on into leading appointments,
to the exclusion of men who could have brought
experience and character to the aid of his admin-

* " Circumstantial Details, &c, of the Rt. Hon. C. J. Fox,"
1806.

t " Life of Lord Chancellor Eldon." • Addington's place-hunt-
ing dependents were not forgotten in the lampoons that were
showered upon him ; especially " Brother Bragge and Brother
Hiley."

" Each a gentleman at large,
Lodged and fed at public charge,
Paying (with a grace to charm ye)
This the fleet, and that the army."

11 Brother Hiley" was provided with the situation of secretary to
the treasury.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 185

istration. He never recovered from this original
source of weakness.

Canning nicknamed him the " Doctor," in allu-
sion to the lucky accident which made the fortunes
of his house. Addington's father was a country-
doctor, and happening to be sent for to attend Lord
Chatham's coachman, in the absence of the regular
attendant, grew into such favor, that his lordship
appointed him his family physician * The nick-
name took wings over the kingdom, in the shape of
numerous witty pasquinades, some of which were
attributed to Mr. Canning ;t and it provoked many
a hearty roar in Parliament, where it was fre-
quently introduced by a humorous side-wind in
the debates. On one occasion, when the Scotch
members had deserted the government, Sheridan
stretched across the table, and cried out to the pre-
mier, " Doctor ! the Thanes fly from thee !" to the
infinite amusement of the house. The " Doctor'*
stuck to Addington, until he finally sank his patro-
nymic in a title. Dropping one's family name,
and taking out a peerage, is in some cases as se-
cure an escape from the odium of a nickname as
the grave itself; for nine tenths of the world lose
sight of the commoner in his new glory, as com-
pletely as if he were dead. It was probably for
this reason Addington felt such anxiety to bury

* The anecdote is related on the authority of Lady Hester
Stanhope.—" Memoirs," L, 217.

t One of them is called an " Ode to the Doctor ;" another,
" The Grand Consultation ;" a third, " Moderate Men and Mod-
erate Measures." The best of them is the second, which opens
in this way :

" If the health and strength, and the pure vital breath,
Of old England at last must be doctored to death,
Oh ! why must we die of one doctor alone ?
And why must that doctor be just such a one

As Doctor Henry Addington ?"

These pieces have frequently been printed as Mr. Canning's ; but
it is doubtful whether he wrote a single line of one of them.

0,2

180 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

himself in a peerage. He had already chosen a ti-
tle— Lord Raleigh; an absurdity, probably, which
he never would have relinquished but for a jest of
Lady Hester Stanhope's, in which he was sup-
posed to be represented in a caricature, side by
side with Queen Elizabeth.*

Canning was indefatigable in his efforts to throw
out the paltry ministry, and to bring back Pitt.
At this time he lived in Conduit-street,t and could
scarcely spare leisure, although the strain upon his
constitution needed it, to take a little repose in the
country from his constant exertions. The only sto-
len intervals of rest he appears to have allowed
himself was an occasional visit to South Hill (his
country house) with Mrs. Canning, whose health
had been for some time delicate and precarious.|
He was incessantly moving about among his party
to get up some manifestation of opinion that might
bring about a change ; driving backward and for-
ward from Dropmore to Walmer, and from Wal-
mer to Dropmore ; from George Rose to Tom
Grenville, from Tom Grenville to Lord Malmes-
bury ; inciting every body to action, and putting
every engine he could think of in motion to turn
out Addington. All this while Pitt was as motion-
less, passionless, and mysterious as a stone sphynx.

Several plans were suggested by Canning for
Pitt's restoration. He labored nearly single-hand-
ed, and would have been altogether alone but for
three young friends whom he drew into counsel
with him — Lord G. Leveson, Lord Morpeth, and

* " Memoirs of Lady Hester Stanhope," i., 216.

t At the house No. 37.

X Mr. Canning's eldest son, George Charles, was born on 'the
25th of April, 1801, and died on the 30th of March, 1820. Will-
iam Pitt, the second son, was born on the 27th of December, 1802,
became a captain in the navy, and died in 1828. It was on the
occasion of the birth of her second son that Mrs. Canning's health
suffered.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 187

Mr. Sturges Bourne. These gentlemen were not
of sufficient standing to possess much public influ-
ence, but they were well adapted for the sort of
work they undertook. They were perfectly in earn-
est, had activity and zeal, and enough of prudence
not to commit Pitt, which was all they cared about.
Failure under such circumstances could recoil only
on themselves.

They watched every stir of the government, not-
ed every variation of public opinion, and took ad-
vantage of every circumstance that offered for keep-
ing alive the flagging zeal of Pitt's friends, which
was more than Pitt himself ever troubled his head
about. No man whose ear could be caught in ei-
ther House, or at the drawing-room, or at a din-
ner-party, was suffered to go home without carry-
ing away some gloomy hint about the pitiful con-
duct of ministers, the impossibility of things going
on as they were, and the absolute necessity of a
change ; always ending in the ejaculation that there
was only one man in the kingdom who could re-
deem us from the deep disgrace into which we had
fallen. But this tone was taken up here and there
only by a few scattered old-school politicians, and
even that doubtingly and slowly. There was no
combination, no motive-power in the absence of the
great leader. In fact, it was very difficult to get
up a Pitt party. Personally Pitt repelled all en-
thusiasm, and this movement was entirely a per-
sonal affair.

At one time it was suggested that the Duke of
York should open the matter to the king ; at an-
other time it was proposed that a remonstrance
(which was drawn up by Canning) should be pre-
sented to Addington, signed by a long list of influ-
ential persons, requesting him to resign. But just
as these friendly plots were ready for execution,

188 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

Pitt was sure to hear of them through some med-
dling, good-natured busy-body, and to put a stop to
them at once. He was offended at the officious
zeal of his friends, and especially offended with
Canning, who sinned in this respect beyond all the
rest*

There was some injustice in the severity with
which Pitt regarded these ardent efforts for his re-
call ; but he had a right to judge for himself. Real
anxiety for what he believed to be necessary to the
salvation of the country may have carried Canning
too far, particularly in his speeches. Pitt complain-
ed of this as tending to embroil him with the min-
istry by the assertion of doctrines and opinions in
his name without his authority.! Canning was
rash, headstrong, and even presumptuous in the
course he took, and persisted m it at this period ;
but it was in the exuberance of feelings that were
honorable to his character. Nothing else can ex-
plain or excuse the eagerness and freedom of his
correspondence with Pitt — with a man so lofty, so
cold, so remote. He wrote to him constantly ; lit-
erally fatigued him with long, bold, sincere letters,
in which he fairly lectured him upon his ascetic
resolution, and tried to argue him out of it. To
these letters he sometimes got no reply ; sometimes
an answer that left him more in the dark than ever
by assuring him of the impossibility of entering into
any explanation at that moment ; and sometimes a

* Throughout all these " loving differences" their friendship
continued firm. " My plans," said Pitt, " have not the concur-
rence of my eager and ardent young friends (Canning and G.
Leveson) ; but we are on the best of terms, and it is much more
easy for me to forgive their impetuosity than for them to be in
charity with me for treating office with so little regard, and keep-
ing it at such a distance from those who are disposed to act with
me,"

t " Diaries of Lord Malmesbury," iv., 127. Pitt's complaints
on these points are also alluded to by Lady Hester Stanhope.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 189

short, freezing, polite acknowledgment, that would
have been to any other man a discharge in full from
all such thankless services. Once, in a perplexity
of temper about some unusually urgent matter
which had just arisen, he determined to see Pitt,
and wrote to announce that he would come down
to W aimer ; but Pitt wrote back very plainly to
decline the visit. Still, Canning persevered. But
it was all to no purpose. Pitt was stone to the
end.

Taking into consideration Canning's youth and
position, and the peculiar relation in which he stood
to the ex-minister (circumstances which, after all,
furnish the best apologies for his conduct), it must
be frankly allowed that he trespassed beyond his
legitimate province in taking upon himself the re-
sponsibility of advising Pitt, against his will, in this
crisis, and in endeavoring, whether Pitt liked it or
not, to keep together the broken fragments of his
party. He had not yet acquired sufficient person-
al weight to justify the assumption of so prominent
a part, and the manner of his interference was not
calculated to conciliate the jealousies his prosperi-
ty had already created. His bearing was high and
authoritative in quarters where, from the force of
habit, the assertion of natural advantages over the
advantages of birth was resented as an indignity.
With a person remarkably handsome, a head of
great intellectual power as well as beauty, an aris-
tocratic carriage, which must have been intolerable
to such as were envious of his success, brilliant
abilities, and temper a little quickened, and spoiled
by the admiration which had strewn his path with
chaplets from his boyhood, and rendered his whole
life a progress of ovations, it is easy to understand
how many persons, and what sort of persons they
were, whose self-love he must have offended by

190 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

putting himself forward as the active friend of Pitt
during this interval of doubt and suspense. That
the exigency of the occasion demanded such a
man — with all his vehement contempt for the hesi-
tating forms that wait upon convention, letting the
tide of circumstance run past — with all his youth-
ful daring, and even his haughty vanity — we can
see now clearly enough ; but it was not so appa-
rent then. Dukes, and earls, and honorables were
thinking more of themselves, and of seeing to the
pomp that marshaled the approaches to their great-
ness, than of the one object which night and day
consumed his spirit — an object which is historical
with us, and which was then felt and understood by
him alone in its overwhelming importance.

It is true, he did not set about this darling proj-
ect very coolly. He wondered that every body
did not see it as he did, as quickly and as passion-
ately. He had not been accustomed to impedi-
ments or hinderances, and he could, least of all,
brook the kind of obstacles that fretted him now :
dullness, lukewarmness, reserve, lordly insouciance
— he was impatient of all this, and did not hesitate
to show it. Lord Malmesbury touches the spring-
head of these faults of character in Canning, when
he says that " he had been forced like a thriving
plant in a well-managed hothouse ; had prospered
too luxuriantly ; had felt no check or frost ; and
too early in life had had many and too easy advan-
tages." This was the secret of that confidence,
almost amounting to arrogance, which led to so
much misapprehension and misjudgment of his qual-
ities ; and which prevented him from stooping to
a popularity so easily obtained by men of more
suppliant dispositions, and immeasurably inferior
powers. It was the error of the true nobility of
his nature to look upon such popularity as improper

THE LIFE OF CANNING. l^i

to be cultivated by a statesman. He treated with
a rigorous dignity, very likely to be mistaken for
contempt, the half-informed and class-prejudiced
multitude upon which other public men diligently
fawned. The chastity of his mind took the color
of disdain. He had won his reputation with such
facility — his good fortune had been so rapid, with-
out a break in its ascent — and he had distanced all
his contemporaries so suddenly and completely,
with all their advantages against him, that some-
thing of the flush of conquest was communicated
to his manners. This was sufficient to inflame into
open emnity the suppressed spleen by which he
was suiTOunded. His successes were cause enough
for malice, without this dazzling air, which looked
so like conceit, to recall them at every turn. There
is no difficulty in understanding how the action and
reaction in this case, as in all others, aggravated
the original grounds of resentment on both sides.

But he was not to be discouraged by personal
checks. He never relaxed in his exertions to
bring back Pitt, although frequently baffled, vexed,
and dispirited, and doomed to see one scheme
after another melt into air. Addington grew
firmer in his seat every day, acquiring increased
assurance from the failure of the plots that were
exploding about him on all sides. Numerous sig-
nificant hints were thrown out to him, even by
some members of the cabinet, Lord Camden, Pel-
ham, and the Duke of Portland. But all in vain.
Addington was not to be moved. He was a pro-
digious favorite at Windsor, and stood upon that.
The old king loved him for his anti-Catholicism ;
and his anti-Catholicism became more and more
strenuous for the king's dear love ; and he knew
that nothing short of the apparition of Bonaparte
on the coast, or some equally horrible event, could

192 THE LIFE OP CANNING.

frighten the king into his dismissal to make room
for Pitt, or any one else inclined that way. Of
course, hints were thrown away upon Addington ;
and scoffs and jeers were thrown away upon Ad-
dington : he bore them all with the unruffled com-
placency of one who stood well with his lord, the
king. In vain Sheridan exhausted his wit upon
Addington, and threw the House into convulsions
by his parody on Martial :

" I do not like thee, Doctor Fell,
Tbe reason why, I can not tell ;
But this I'm sure I know full well,
I do not like thee, Doctor Fell."

What did Addington care whether Sheridan liked
him or not, so long as he knew the king loved him 1
He rose with the impunity of possession, and the
king's dotage.*

But this could not last. Cardhouses have a ca-
pacity of standing only just so long as the air is
perfectly motionless around them. The moment a
breath comes, they tumble down. Such was the
fall of the Addington ministry.

On the 23d of June, 1803, Colonel Patten
brought forward a motion of want of confidence in
the administration. Pitt, to avoid an expression
of opinion either way, moved the previous question ;
and, on this occasion, for the first and only time in
his life, Canning voted against him. He declared
that he could not conscientiously vote otherwise ;
that the conduct of ministers was as disgraceful to
themselves as it was mischievous to the people ;
that they had either duped England into a peace,
which had turned out to be mere waste paper, or
had themselves been duped by France ; and that
they were utterly incapable of administering the

* Lord Malmesbury says " that he latterly persuaded himself
he had actually saved the king and the country by taking office."

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 193

affairs of the country, which could no longer be in-
trusted with safety to their hands. Pitt's amend-
ment was negatived ; and he and his friends walked
out of the House. Fox and his supporters refused
to vote, and the original motion was lost by a large
majority. But the debate disclosed a state of opin-
ion from which ministers never recovered. The
victory indoors was that of mere skeleton figures—
the usual ministerial procession of placemen and
boroughmongers. There was no soul beneath
those numerical ribs. Even Pitt, from this time
forth, began to distrust, and finally to oppose the
administration. This was all that was wanted, at
any moment, to bring it down crumbling to the dust.
So that, though long deferred, Canning had his
triumph in full at last.

The issue of sundry blind diplomacies on both
sides was, that Pitt and Addington met ; but
whether the meeting was originally sought by Ad-
dington or by Pitt, or whether it was official or
private, can not be determined, as the only two per-
sons who were competent to decide could not
agree upon those points. The substance, however,
of what passed at the interviews was mutually ad-
mitted. Addington wanted to get Pitt into the
ministry ; for it seems he had stiffened latterly to-
ward Pitt, and wrought himself into a notion that
he could keep the control of the cabinet, with Pitt
working under him ! Pitt, on the other hand,
would have nothing to do with the ministry unless
he were the head of it;* and not even on that
condition unless he were directly commissioned by
the king. They differed no less widely upon the
elements of which the new government was to be

* Pitt had made a resolution from the beginning of his public
life never to join any administration except as chief. He stood out
for his market value at once.

R

194 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

composed. Addington insisted upon the old sys-
tem, and the old hands, Bragge, " Brother Hiley,"
and the rest of his troop. Pitt demanded a broader
basis, a larger constituency of opinion, a wider
compass of parties and talents. At Pitt's own de-
sire, for the purpose of preventing misconception,
the articles were set down and. submitted to the
king; but his majesty received at the same time
such an account of Pitt's exorbitant demands, that
he was more displeased with him than ever. " He
carries his removals," said his majesty, " so far and
so high, that he will turn me out at last." And
thus the negotiation ended.

But the Addington sands were run. Even if the
chief had not himself resigned, every other mem-
ber of the cabinet must have gone out from the
sheer impossibility of keeping the timbers of the
wreck together. Matters having clearly come to
this pass, Addington submitted with the best grace
he could, but not without a little ill temper. He
quarreled with Lord Hawkesbury before he gave
up, and put the king out of humor by talking of
personal bickerings, which his majesty very prop-
erly told him he had nothing to do with. Adding-
ton was no sooner gone than the king sent Lord
Eldon to Pitt with a friendly message. Pitt, who
had all this time kept aloof from the king's pres-
ence, waiting with austerity to be summoned, drew
up at Lord Eldon's request a paper, containing the
heads of what he should require from the king, lay-
ing down the plan of an administration on a scale
so comprehensive as to embrace persons of the
highest ability of all parties. This paper gave
great offense to his majesty, who wrote back an
answer to Lord Eldon, in which he spoke of Pitt
in such terms that the letter could not be shown to
him. The consequence was, that the negotiation

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 195

halted for a week, and Parliament was kept in a
condition of suspended animation : Addington un-
able to go on, and nobody knowing what was to
happen next.

Bv some means, however, Pitt and the king- were

v i ~

brought together. This was on the 7th of May,
1804. Pitt, unmoved by the disturbance that was
going on in the frame of royalty, proposed his broad
administration, including Fox.

The king's hatred of Fox was a passion. Lord
Eldon was accused of having- taken advantage of
the weak state of his majesty's mind to prejudice
him against Fox, and prevent his admission into
the cabinet. The accusation was made by Lord
Grey and Lord Grenville. The chancellor denied
it. Who could tell what had taken place with a
crazy old man in the sanctuary of the royal closet 1
But there is no doubt that the chancellor had as
profound an aversion to Fox as the king himself,
for he admitted that he threatened to resign if Fox
were brought in* All the old court bigotry was
concentrated upon this point; but had Pitt kept his
ground, the king must have given way, as he was
compelled to do only two years afterward. Unfor-
tunately, he again sacrificed the country to the su-
perstitions of the sovereign. This was Pitt's in-
firmity. He could not resist the tender melan-
choly of the king — he who was like a bleak rock
amid the roaring surge of popular discontent.

As soon as he withdrew from the king he sent
for Canning. Their confidence in each other had
never suffered flaw. His impetuous young friend
was the first person he thought of the moment he
accepted office. Canning was dispatched to Lord
Grenville, and Granville Leveson to Fox, to ac-
quaint them with what had passed. Fox knew he
* " Life of Lord Eldon," ii., 17,

196 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

was proscribed, and although Pitt made a distinct
overture to him, he declined office. All his friends
refused to go in without him. Grenville, Wind-
ham, Spencer, would have nothing to do with the
administration unless it were based upon the com-
prehensive principle, which the exclusion of Fox
rendered impossible. Pitt stood alone. In vain
he negotiated with Grenville, and he was so indig-
nant at the rejection of his offers, that he said he
would " teach that proud man he could do without
him if it cost him his life."* He kept his word too
well. It did cost him his life.

In this dilemma, he had nothing left but to patch
up an administration from the wretched debris of
the Addington cabinet, and was even obliged in a
few months to call in Addington himself. But this
connection did not last, although the minister tried
to cement it with a peerage.f Addington resigned
in a pet, because Pitt would not all at once appoint
Bond Hopkins and other joints of his tail to lucra-
tive places.| Personally, this was no great loss ;
but Lord Buckingham resigned at the same time,
and poor old Dundas, now Lord Melville, so long
the indefatigable coadjutor of Pitt, was impeached
for appropriating certain balances of the public
money to his own use. These domestic disasters
came heavily upon a ministry already suffering se-
verely from external failures.

Canning's opinion of Pitt's position was made up
even before his attempts at coalition failed. He
saw that Pitt could not form a strong government;
that the opportunity was lost for that union of par-
ties which recent circumstances had so singularly
conspired to favor ; and that a cabinet constructed

! * " Life of Lord Eldon," i., 449.

t It was on this occasion Addington was created Viscount Sid-
mouth. % " Diaries of Lord Malmesbury," iv.. 338.

the life of Canning. 197

upon any other principle must inevitably fail. He
communicated his impressions to Pitt before a sin-
gle appointment was made out, assuring him, at the
same time, that, for his own part, he would rather
not take office, but that he was quite ready, if he
could be of use, to do any thing Pitt desired ; that
the cabinet was out of the question, as he did not
yet consider himself qualified, and that there were
only two offices which seemed to come to him in
the regular course of promotion — those of the treas-
urer of the navy and the secretary at war. Pitt re-
ceived this communication with his usual caution,
went into the country, and, in a day or two, wrote
to Canning, offering him his choice of the two offi-
ces he had pointed out. He selected the former.

There was probably a little reserve on both sides.
Pitt had miscalculated his resources, and Canning
had all along pertinaciously warned him of his dan-
ger. Neither of them could have been very well
satisfied with the result, which was not the less
mortifying to the minister because it had been fore-
seen by the more active sagacity of his friend.

The last effort of the Pitt cabinet, after strug-
gling through two uncomfortable sessions, was
the defense of Lord Melville, in which Mr. Can-
nine, not less from his official connection with
the subject than from old associations, bore a con-
spicuous share. The feeling against Lord Melville
was perfectly savage. It was not the shout of par-
tisans that rang in his ears when the articles of im-
peachment were carried against him, but the yell
of blood-hounds. He was no sooner condemned
than the House of Commons burst out with a growl,
and one Sir Thomas Mostyn is said to have given
a view hollo ! and to have exclaimed, " We have
killed the Fox !"

Mr. Whitbread moved the articles of impeach-

R 2

198 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

merit. His speech was clear and able, but some
passages struck Mr. Canning's acute sense of the
ridiculous so forcibly, that he scribbled a parody on
them while Mr. Whitbread was yet speaking. The
following is the impromptu, now printed for the first
time :

FRAGMENT OF AN ORATION.

Part of Mr. Whitbread's Speech, on the Trial of Lord Melville,
put into verse by Mr. Canning at the time it was delivered.

" I'm like Archimedes for science and skill,
I'm like a young prince going straight up a hill ;
I'm like (with respect to the fair be it said),
I'm like a young lady just bringing to bed.
If you ask why the 11th of June I remember,
Much better than April, or May, or November,
On that day, my lords, with truth I assure ye,
My sainted progenitor set up his brewery ;
On that day, in the mom, he began brewing beer ;
On that day, too, commenced his connubial career ;
On that day he received and he issued his bills ;
On that day he cleared out all the cash from his tills ;
On that day he died, having finished his summing,
And the angels all cried ' Here's old Whitbread a-coming !'
So that day still I hail with a smile and a sigh,
For his beer with an E, and his bier with an I ;
And still on that day, in the hottest of weather,
The whole Whitbread family dine altogether.
So long as the beams of this house shall support
The roof which o'ershades this respectable court,
When Hastings was tried for oppressing the Hindoos ;
So long as that sun shall shine in at those windows,
My name shall shine bright as my ancestor's shines,
Mine recorded in journals, his blazoned on signs !"

The issue of this trial, by which Lord Melville
lost his office at the Admiralty, was erased from
the list of the Privy Council, and fell into total dis-
grace, seriously affected Pitt's spirits. His health
was already giving way under the undue anxieties
that devolved upon him ; and he was so oppressed
by the difficulties of his progress, that he reopened
the negotiations with the Grenvilles toward the
close of 1805. But they would not move with-
out Fox ; and all that remained was to strengthen

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 199

his administration from his own stock. With this
view he made arrangements to bring- Canning; and
Charles Yorke into the cabinet on the opening of the
following session. Events on the Continent were
beginning to favor him. The victory of Trafalgar,
darkened only by the loss of Nelson, had been re-
ceived throughout the country with joy, and the
hopes of the people were beginning to revive. But
in the midst of their hopes, Pitt was dying. Ex-
traordinary mental exertions, imbittered in the end
by the failure of all his plans, had done upon him
the heavy work of time in the very flower of his
manhood. The battle of Austerlitz finally crushed
him. He died of old age, at forty-six*

No man was more misunderstood on some points
than Pitt. No minister was ever so strangely
praised for the worst parts of his policy, or so
slighted for the best. No man ever got credit so
largely for opinions he did not hold. These curi-
osities of fame are illustrated with wonderful suc-
cess in that famous epitaph upon him in the Guild-
hall, written by Mr. Canning.

Leaving the Sinking Fund and the War to the
admiration of the Pitt Club, let us linger a mo-
ment over a trait or two of Pitt's character, which
are not so well known as they ought to be. This
icy man, who was the cause of so much bloodshed
and misery, was tenderly attached to Lady Eleanor
Eden, and it nearly broke his heart to give her up,
which he did from a conviction that the demands
made upon his time by public affairs were incom-
patible with the attentions due to such a woman.
She is said to have been of a lofty style of beauty ;
quite dazzling, from the grandeur of her forehead.

* " Sir William Farquhar told me that he preserved his facul-
ties till within twelve or fourteen hours of his death, which came
on rapidly, and that Pitt died of old age at forty-six as much as if
he had been ninetv."— " Diaries of Lord Malmesbury," iv., 346.

200 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

Lord Malmesbury tells us that there was a report that
he was going to be married to her, his attachment
had so far betrayed itself in society. He was gra-
cious in all companies to women, and possessed an
instinctive taste in matters of costume — he who was
himself so plain and careless. Wraxall speaks of
his " inclination" for one of the Duke of Richmond's
daughters ; and Lady Hester Stanhope says there
was a young lady he admired so much that he drank
out of her shoe. Then he was fond of round games
with young people, and used to play at speculation
with the eagerness of a child. His private inter-
course was full of little humanities, which nobody
dreams of who regards him only as a statue mount-
ed on a pedestal, with some hard state-paper rolled
up and clutched in his hand. His manner was
partly constitutional, and had something to do with
the integrity of his mind, which did not deal in pro-
fessions. All travelers in the highest regions of
the Alps have observed that it is the property of
the purest snow to be the coldest to the touch.

Whatever this proud minister may have appear-
ed to strangers, he certainly had the power of at-
tracting the affections of people immediately about
him. Canning was devoted to him. It was not
attachment — it was allegiance. During Pitt's life-
time he followed him with reverence — after his
death he declared himself hrs disciple.* " To one
man, while he lived," said he, " I was devoted with
all my heart, and all my soul. Since the death of
Mr. Pitt, I acknowledge no leader; my political
allegiance lies buried in his grave."t

There was a closer resemblance between them
than between Pitt and any other English states-
man. In Canning, the points of similarity were

* Speech at Lisbon in 1816. j Speech at Liverpool in 1812.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 201

more graceful and refined — in Pitt, more original
and vigorous. They both possessed that faculty
called genius ; but Pitt's genius was more practical
and diffusive. He was nearer to the people, and
understood them better. Canning had less sym-
pathy with them, treated them rather en prince,
and dealt with popular topics more rhetorically.
Pitt could afford to do things out of the openness
of his intellect, which Canning was obliged to ap-
proach dextrously. Pitt gave you the impression
of a man who stood clearly on his purpose, and
was too much in earnest to be conscious of any am-
bition beyond it. Canning always had the classical
air about him of an orator who felt he was address-
ing posterity.

The death of Pitt was an irretrievable calamity to
his party, and no attempt was made to keep the
cabinet together. The king was once more alone
in the royal closet. Even Lord Eldon could not
comfort him.

VIII.

ALL THE TALENTS. THE SLAVE-TRADE.

It was the beginning of the year 1806, and the
opening of Parliament was at hand. Time pressed ;
an administration was to be formed on a sudden
that should be able to conquer the difficulties that
killed Pitt. But cabinet makers can not make cab-
inets without materials ; and they were not to be
found on that side to which the king was accus-
tomed to look for help, and to which his heart, pal-
pitating under the weight of the coronation oath,
now yearned more beseechingly than ever.

202 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

In this extremity Lord Hawkesbury was sent
for — the young gentleman whom the king himself
used to say had no head. Great must have been
the royal need when this headless nobleman was
to be put at the head of the government. His
lordship, however, feeling that his head was not
quite strong enough for the responsibility, very
wisely showed his heels ; and there was no alter-
native left but Fox and the Grenvilles.

This might have been seized upon as a signal
triumph over kingly prejudices, to see such a man
as Fox borne into office on the shoulders of the
people against the will of the monarch. But Fox
had too fine a nature, too large, and liberal, and
benevolent a spirit to exhibit or permit any exul-
tation in such circumstances. His majesty had al-
ways been haunted by a notion that Fox was a fe-
rocious Republican, and that he would behave like
a sort of wild Orson if he got into the cabinet. But
his majesty lived to alter his opinion, and he often
afterward declared that Fox acted toward him with
the utmost personal deference, and never like a
minister who had been forced upon him.

The new government, with Lord Grenville at
its head, and Fox as Foreign Seci^etary, presented
a powerful array, no less remarkable for ability
than for a strong Whig aristocratical leaven fer-
menting through the mass. This was the ministry
that was designated All the Talents — a title which
Mr. Fox, in an admirable rebuke to Mr. Canning,
gently repudiated by saying that it was impossible
they could arrogate such a description to them-
selves when they saw him on the opposite side of
the House.

There was one rueful mistake in the structure
of the ministry — tRe admission of Lord Sidmouth.
It brought, as usual, a train of evils with it, for

THE LU'E OF CANNING. *-203

Lord Sidmouth was a noun of multitude, and when
he was appointed, it was necessary also to appoint
his friends. On this occasion he stipulated that the
chief-justice, Lord Ellenborough, should have a
seat in the cabinet. Lord Ellenborougrh was a
man of unquestionable merit ; but the union of the
judicial and executive functions in one person was
a bad precedent, and furnished the opposition with
a legitimate topic of complaint. The arrangement
is said to have been effected through the agency of
Sheridan, at the express desire of the Prince of
Wales, which gives it rather a worse complexion.
His royal highness was beginning to turn before
his time. It was not long since he had attempted
to interfere, through the same channel, to prevent
the presentation of the Catholic petition. The
change in the prince's politics was at least prema-
ture. Decomposition had begun to set in too soon
upon his royal highness's principles. His father
still " sat crowned and sceptered."

Mr. Canning took his stand upon this appoint-
ment at once, and set up the ensign of hostility,
which he never lowered until the administration
was dissolved. He did not become simply a mem-
ber of the opposition, but its influencing spirit and
vital principle. He now presents himself for the
first time as a bold and able party leader, seizing
every opportunity for improving the prospects of
his own side, and for surprising and damaging the
enemy. In this new character he discovered un-
expected practical talent in the business of debate,
and was recognized without hesitation as the head
of the movement. There was nobody else quali-
fied to succeed to the great vacancy, nobody else
in whose capacity his party placed sufficient reli-
ance, or who was known to have so entirely pos-

204 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

sessed the confidence, or inherited the opinions of
Pitt.

That opposition was one of the most determined
ever witnessed in Parliament. It spared no means
or materials by which the administration could be
effectually assailed. Among other weapons to
which it resorted was the " No Popery" cry. Mr.
Canning can scarcely have had any thing to do
with this war-whoop. He was himself an advo-
cate for emancipation ; and although at this period
he had never voted on the subject but once, and
that against the measure — or, more technically,
against the expediency of its introduction in 1804 —
he can not be suspected of having had any share in
getting up a senseless clamor, which the entire
tendency of his conduct proves him to have held
in odium and contempt.

But this cry, dishonest as it was, materially as-
sisted the aims of the opposition, who were not
loth to avail themselves of it to the full extent of
all the mischief it might produce. As upon for-
mer occasions, the aid of ridicule was drawn in, to
strengthen out of doors the labors of the restless
malcontents within; and Mr. Canning's reputation
was again put into requisition as sponsor for cer-
tain verses that appeared at this time in the public
journals.

The best of these is a piece called " Elijah's

Mantle," which contains, among other scraps of

pleasant malice, the following passage on Lord

Henry Petty (the present Marquis of Lansdown),

who held the office of chancellor of the exchequer

in the new cabinet.

" Illustrious Roscius of the State !
New breech'd and harness'd for debate,

Thou wonder of thy age !
Petty or Betty art thou hight ?
By Granta sent to strut thy night

On Stephens' bustling stage.

THE LIFE OF CANNINfi. 205

" Pitt's 'Chequer robe 'tis thine to wear ;
Take of his mantle, too, a share,

'Twill aid thy Ways and Means

And should Fat Jack and his Cabal
Cry ' Rob us the Exchequer, Hal !'

'Twill charm away the fiends."

Another piece, called " Blue and Buff," is less
in the manner of Canning, although attributed to
him with equal confidence. Whether such squibs
were really written by the brilliant leader of the
opposition, was of little consequence, so long as
thev were received as his, and obtained influence
and circulation under the sanction of his name ;
and as Mr. Canning himself never interfered to
claim or disavow them, the members of his party
could scarcely be expected to repudiate a decep-
tion so serviceable to their interests.

One of Mr. Canning's most effective speeches
was in reply to a motion made by Windham for
the repeal of the Additional Force Bill. In this,
as in other motions brought forward by the admin-
istration, especially the United Service Bill, the
new ministers developed a military system which
differed materially from that of Pitt, which pro-
ceeded upon opposite and more popular princi-
ples, proposing to mitigate the severities of com-
pulsory enlistment, and to introduce periodical
terms of service, at the end of which the soldier
would be at liberty to demand his discharge. All
these measures were opposed ineffectually by Mr.
Cannino-. He maintained the superior efficacy of
Mr. Pitt's iron rule, which converted a soldier into
a shooting machine, and was convinced, should it
ever be relaxed, that there would be no resource
left but the conscription. His speeches on these
questions are among the most successful he ever
delivered as party speeches ; rapid in argumenta-
tion, crowded with the happiest images, splendid in

200 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

retort, and satirical to a height of bitterness, which
would have been intolerable but for the wit which
lighted up and carried off the invective.

This bitterness, unfortunately, lay at the bottom
of the hostility with which the administration was
uniformly assailed from first to last. It was not
ordinary party warfare. It was a contest of exter-
mination— war to the knife, and no quarter. Wind-
ham was especially the object of vituperation, be-
cause he had been Pitt's colleague for eight years,
had invariably supported his Continental System,
and was now to be found in the ranks of his oppo-
nents. Mr. Canning endeavored to provoke disun-
ion between Windham and his new allies, by show-
ing how widely they differed on some essential
points. One of these was the total separation of
the civil and the military character, which Wind-
ham maintained was indispensable to the discipline
of the army. The soldier, he asserted, should be
cut off from the rest of the population, shut up in
his own world, and never permitted to approxi-
mate toward the immunities of the citizen. Yet
all the principal Whigs set up the opposite doctrine,
and espoused Mr. Windham's military measures,
on grounds the very reverse of those on which Mr.
Windham introduced them.

" He has heard it asserted," exclaimed Mr. Canning,
" as the main principle and chief praise of his measure,
that it promotes and secures this contaminating union ;
and, to my astonishment, he has accepted in silence the
panegyrics which his feelings must have disavowed. I
can excuse him for having disdained to answer the at-
tacks of his opponents, but I am surprised that he should
not have vindicated himself from the support of his
friends."

The key-note of the opposition was, the dispro-
portion between the professions and the perform-
ances of ministers.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 207

" A story," said Mr. Canning, " has been related by one
of his majesty's ministers of an old Roman moralist, who
wished to build his house in such a style of architecture
that every person could see into it. Like this man's
house, the transactions of the present ministry are to be;
but I am inclined to believe that the architecture of the
house is not Roman, but Gothic ; and that it is only re-
markable for its huge windows that exclude the light,
and its narrow passages that lead to nothing."

The taunt was uncandid. But we must not look
for candor from an angry opposition. The embar-
rassments by which ministers were impeded on all
sides were not of their own making. They found
them ready made ; and before they could take any
decisive step in advance, it was necessary to re-
lieve their feet of the meshes in which their pred-
ecessors had entangled them.

Were it possible to have obtained a solid peace
with France, Fox alone could have negotiated it
with success. He was personally known to Bona-
parte,* and idolized by the French people on ac-
count of the noble stand he had made against the
European confederacy in the time of the Revolu-
tion. His opinions on that subject were well un-
derstood and appreciated on the Continent, and will-
fully misrepresented at home. Burke once said
that the Revolution had shaken Fox's heart into
the wrong place. Fox, more wise and generous,
speaking of Burke's book on the Revolution, said,
" Burke is right after all ; but Burke is often right
— only lie is right too soonT This was the real
difference between them.

If any English minister had a chance of being
received in a cordial spirit by the French govern-

* Mr. Fox took advantage of the short peace of Amiens to con-
sult the archives at Paris for materials connected with his histo-
ry, and, in common with the rest of the English, waited upon the
First Consul at thp Tuilerips.

208 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

ment, it was unquestionably Fox. But he failed in
his object — an object very near to his heart in tak-
ing office. Why did he fail 1 Because he had all
the Pitt disputes to clear up first ; and it was not
easy to restore a good understanding where Pitt
had been embroiling the negotiation beforehand ;
for, of all men in the world, Pitt was the fondest of
troubled waters, perhaps on account of his extra-
ordinary skill in fishing in them.

For this failure, Mr. Canning ungenerously at-
tempted to cast a slur on Mr. Fox's memory, and,
in an amendment on the address in December (read,
but not moved), he deliberately censured one of
the noblest acts of that minister's life — the intima-
tion Fox conveyed to M. Talleyrand of a plot which
had been communicated to him for the assassina-
tion of the First C onsul. Mr. C anning's conduct to-
ward Mr. Fox, upon all occasions after the death
of Pitt, was irreconcilable with the general tenor
of his Parliamentary life ; it was irascible and vin-
dictive, and not always ingenuous. Some allow-
ance, perhaps, ought to be made for the heats of
political controversy, although it is hard to find any
excuse for temporizing with justice. But every
public man discloses his human frailty in leaving
us something to forgive ; so let these faults of Mr.
Canning's — and serious faults they were — be con-
signed to oblivion along with the multitudes of fu-
gitive political errors which have their origin in
temporary excitements, and expire with the occa-
sion that gave them birth.

If Fox failed in exacting a peace to satisfy Mr.
Canning, he had the higher glory of bringing for-
ward measures for the abolition of the slave-trade,
for which his name will be held in veneration by
the latest posterity. " The ardent wishes of his
mind," said Lord Hovvick, speaking of him with

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 209

deep emotion shortly after his death, " were to con-
summate, before he died, two great works on which
he had set his heart ; and these were the restora-
tion of a solid and honorable peace, and the aboli-
tion of the slave-trade." His last effort was upon
this question, when he made that memorable dec-
laration, that if, during the forty years he had sat in
Parliament, he had accomplished nothing else, he
should think he had done enough !

How strange it is to look back upon the odd fan-
cies people formerly entertained on this question
of the abolition ! They had no clear conception of
its bearings. The agitation of it seemed to disturb
all fixed ideas. "When it was first started, it had
much the same sort of effect as a proposal for un-
loosening the settlements of landed property, or an-
nihilating the funds. People looked upon it in
vague dismay as a movement against vested rights
and long-established privileges. They had got con-
fused notions into their heads about the slave-trade
and slavery ; they confounded them at first, scarce-
ly knew there was any difference between them or
what it was, and so fell into a state of crude, mop-
ing superstition, very difficult to be dealt with by
the vulgar processes of reasoning.

Wilberforce was the Parliamentary apostle of
abolition. He worked at it day and night, and
prayed for it with his daily bread. Honor to him
for that, in spite of all his crotchety little ways and
eccentricities ! But he was a sad bore to Pitt, al-
ways popping in his fears and misgivings at the
most inopportune moments ; a sort of philanthropic
Paul Pry, perpetually forgetting his umbrella, and
hoping he didn't intrude. Nobody ever had such
an inobtrusive way of obtruding his advice upon
every body. No matter what the question was, or
who the person, or how slight the acquaintance,

S 2

210 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

Wilberforce was sure to find some excuse for a
hint or a warning with such excellent intentions,
that it was impossible to give vent to the vexation
he occasioned. He had no suspicion of the possi-
bility of doing mischief, but went blundering on
with the most amiable sincerity of purpose, good-
naturedly setting all his friends right, and knocking
his head against every body's business, with a sim-
plicity of character upon which experience was
wasted in vain.

The dull integrity of Wilberforce was always for
going forward in and out of season ; all he looked
to was the truth and justice of the matter, and that
he thought would carry it against all obstacles ; he
had no idea of the low struggle of passions and in-
terests which renders the cunning use of means
even more essential to success than the purity of
the end ; he never could be brought to understand
the value of timing and economizing his efforts ;
and, like an unpracticed rower, he expended a hun-
dred-fold more strength upon the oar than, skilfully
employed, was necessary to propel the boat.

To Pitt, when he was in office, all this was quite
fearful ; for Wilberforce had not the remotest no-
tion of ministerial machinery, of Parliamentary
tact, or the necessity of management, and he used
to be struck with amazement at Pitt's sagacity and
cleverness in that way, which seemed to him like
an inspiration. Whenever he saw any thing wrong,
or what he supposed to be wrong, he could no
more help himself from just pointing it out than
faithful watch-dogs can help their instinct in bark-
ing at footsteps in the night. He would make the
most awkward motions out of sheer benevolence
and good-heartedness to the indescribable embar-
rassment of government, or the total discomfiture
of his own friends, and once was on the point of

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 211

■

makincr a motion which would have broken up the
administration — a result as far from his intention as
the destruction of the monarchy itself — and was
only prevented by a private entreaty from Pitt.
But what was to be done with this charitable, un-
wise man — this gentle, impracticable being 1 To
oppose him openly was out of the question, for
there was really no gainsaying him on principle :
he was propriety itself carried to a fault ; it would
be like opposing one of the decencies of life, al-
though every body must feel how inconvenient it
is to have even the decencies themselves thrust un-
der one's eyes, and wrung in one's ears every hour
in the day.

But those very qualities which rendered Wilber-
force so unsafe and so tantalizing on all other ques-
tions made him the fittest man in the world for the
slave-trade. It required all his perseverance, all
his enthusiasm, all that faculty of resistance to the
petty harassing difficulties which eternally rose up
against him, increasing as he advanced; that happy
constitution of mind which kept him still fresh and
sanguine in the midst of disappointments ; that for-
tunate blindness of zeal which enabled him not to
see impediments of a kind which would have seri-
ously interfered with the amour propre of other
men ; that enduring faith which sustained him
through- good and evil ; and that vanity — for vani-
ty he had, supreme and towering — which carried
him like a butterflv to the end. Wilberforce was
the only man who could have worked on ra Parlia-
ment for the abolition with the requisite one-idead
enero-y. He was not a man for a crisis, but a man
for a continuance ; a great man for a committee —
a great sitter — a great sifter of small facts — a man
not to be put down by fatigue so long as it bore
upon his own paramount object — a man who had

212 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

always a quantity of papers and correspondence in
his pocket about cruelties and atrocities, which he
whipped out and read at every opportunity — who
never met you in the street, but he had a new fact
to tell you about the horrors of slavery — who con-
trived to insinuate that one subject into every com-
pany and every topic of conversation — and who
grew so completely identified with it, that, when-
ever he made his appearance, or wherever you fell
in with his name, he at once brought the question
to your mind, and set you thinking about the poor
blacks. All this made Wilberforce, personally,
very troublesome ; and, in spite of the toleration
which the amenity of his manners secured for him,
people often tried to keep clear of him as well as
they could without offense. But this ivas the only
way in which the abolition could have been carried.
It was this that diffused the feeling of indignation
throughout the upper classes, and brought them to
a familiar knowledge of the crimes which their hu-
manity, thus perpetually urged, prohibited at last.
But even this constancy of Wilberforce 's could not
have achieved its object, had it not been seconded
by the moral influence of his character. No weight
of personal authority alone could have effected it,
and mere perseverance, without high character,
would have gone for nothing. Wilberforce happi-
ly united both.

The noblest eloquence was long expended upon
this subject in vain. What could eloquence do
against the phalanx of prejudice and selfishness by
which it was opposed 1 Slavery was looked upon
as a right — one of the rights of property. The slave-
trade was, of course, essential to its maintenance.
At first all the country gentlemen rose en masse
against any interference with it. The commercial
body fought for it as if it were a balance of ex-

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 213

changes in perpetuity. The lawyers defended it
as they would an entail. The army and navy stood
up for it as they would for the honor of the British
flag. Lord Eldon flatly denied the doctrine that
the principle of slavery was incompatible with our
Constitution ; in fact, he seemed to think that the
Constitution couldn't get on without it ; and Gen-
eral Gascoigne — brave General Gascoigne ! — de-
cs . o

dared that, so far from abolishing the slave-trade,
it ought to be increased ; and that if slavery had
never before existed in the world, it ought to be
begun now ! All the strong old monopolies and
superstitions were up against the abolition, headed
by the giant West India interest, and followed by
all the other ogre monopolies, none knowing whose
turn might come next. And then there were many
strictly Christian people, who, like ants, made it a
solemn law to themselves to follow in the track over
which the burden of their faith was first carried,
and who, holding the same belief that was held be-
fore the Flood, were convinced, and not to be put
out of their conviction by any human means, that
the slave-trade (or slavery, for it was all one to
them) was an old Scriptural institution ; and these
faithful people would as soon have thought of knock-
ing down the parish churches, or putting the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury on short commons, or any
other imaginable sacrilege, as of preventing a free
trade in the blood, bones, and muscles of the blacks,
or black-a-moors, as some of the funny members
of the opposition used to call them. The friends
of abolition had to contend against these fierce and
motley cohorts, who were themselves the bitterest
opponents on general questions, but united in total
blindness upon this, like enemies who met in the
dark and kept close together for mutual protection.
In spite of this extensive conspiracy, Mr. Fox's

214 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

resolution was agreed to in the Commons by a ma-
jority of 114 to 15, then sent up to the Lords and
carried. Lord Castlereagh voted against it. That
was faction. Mr. Canning declared that it was im-
possible for the ingenuity of man to devise a form
of words for the repeal of the slave-trade in which
he should not concur ; but he censured ministers
for not bringing the subject more fully before Par-
liament. It was necessary to find some objection,
and it is hardly to be regretted that the objection
which he did find was so little to the purpose.

Under the malignant spell of party spirit, he
carped at every proposition that came from the op-
posite side. He was an uncompromising champion,
nevertheless, in this great cause. His speech in
1799 demolished most of the dogmas upon which
the defenders of the slave-trade relied. A glance
at one or two passages will show how thoroughly
he had entered into the subject.

One of the points set up was that of the right —
an unfortunate assumption at a time when the
French had brought rights of all kinds into disre-
pute.

" The right ! I have learned, indeed, by painful experi-
ence of what has of late years passed in the world, to as-
sociate the word right with ideas very different from those
which, in old times, it was calculated to convey. I have
learned to regard the mention of rights as prefatory to
bloody, destructive, and desolating doctrines, hostile to the
happiness and to the freedom of mankind. Such has been
the lesson which I have learned from the rights of man.
But never, even in the practical application of that de-
tested and pernicious doctrine, never, I believe, has the
word right been so shamefully affixed to murder, to dev-
astation, to the invasion of public independence, to the
pollution and destruction of private happiness, to gross
and unpalliated injustice, to the spreading of misery and
mourning over the earth, to the massacre of innocent in-

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 215

dividuals, and to the extermination of unoffending nations :
never before was the word right so prostituted and mis-
applied, as when the right to trade in man's blood was
asserted by the enlightened government of a civilized
country. It is not wonderful that the slavery of Africa
should be described by a term consecrated to French
freedom."

Another argument was, that the slave-trade was
the means of rescuing the negroes from a worse
fate, because they were all either convicts or pris-
oners of war at home, and if not sold for slaves,
would be put to death. The Legislature of Jamai-
ca, with this general assertion on their lips, had just
passed an act to prohibit the importation of slaves
above twenty-five years old. Mr. Canning treated
this act with scorn and derision. How were the
custom-house officers to distinguish the contraband
importation 1 How was the age to be known ?
By what parish register ] By what testimony %
By mark of mouth 1

" All this has been gravely argued. But mark how
the Assembly of Jamaica has put it down. They will
take nothing above twenty-five years old. How is this?
Have they found some secret by which they can pre-
vent any African from being guilty of a crime, any Afri-
can from being made a prisoner of war, after he was five-
and-twenty ? Or did they mean to consign all those who
were above that age, and were yet, in spite of this salu-
tary regulation, which precluded them from all escape
from their country, so headstrong as to become convicts
and captives, to consign them unpityingly to their fate ?
The women, too — they were not to be more than twen-
ty-five. Their crime, the House had often been told (as
they could not be prisoners of war), was witchcraft. What
secret had the Assembly of Jamaica found by which the
practice of that dark act (which I am far from meaning
to defend) could be confined within the limits of five-
and-twenty ? Or were they determined to rescue none
but the voiing witches, and to leave the old ones to their

216 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

fate ? I am ashamed to appear to treat with levity a
subject at which I can not look without horror and disgust ;
but when the most absurd and unreasonable pretenses
are set up in defense of the most abominable practices,
it is impossible not to feel the attempt to impose on one's
understanding as an aggravation of the outrage to one's
feelings."

Now that the slave-trade and its ghastly horrors,
and its train of shattered fallacies and impudent
pretenses, have all vanished, the attempts that used
to be made in Parliament to prop up the iniquity
appear nearly incredible. One gentleman — be his
name immortal ! — Sir W.Young, defended slavery
on the ground that it had produced some of the
greatest men among the ancients. " If," said he,
" gentlemen would look into their ' Ma'crobius,'
they would find that half the ancient philosophers
had been slaves." Another gentleman, in the same
debate, objected to a fact stated by Mr. Wilber-
force, that there were parts of Africa where civili-
zation was making such progress, that books were
not uncommon among the inhabitants. " Books !"
exclaimed Mr. Dent, in the utmost alarm; " books !
the black-a-moor have books ! and this given, too,
as a reason why they should not be exported as
slaves ! What produced the French Revolution 1
Books ! He hoped whatever the House did, it
would not be induced to stop the slave-trade, in or-
der that the inhabitants of Africa might stay at
home to be corrupted by books !" " Now I must
complain," said Mr. Canning, " of a little unfair-
ness in the arguments of the honorable baronet and.
the honorable gentleman, thus contrasted with each
other. ' Export the natives of Africa,' said the
honorable gentleman, ' lest they become literati at
home.' ' Bring them away,' said the honorable
baronet, ' that they may become philosophers in the
West Indies.' I much doubt whether the remedy

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 217

or the disease be the worse for the patient ; but,
undoubtedly, it does seem a little hard that no
means could be found to prevent the dangers of
African literature except in the practical philoso-
phy of the West Indies."

The greatest stress of all was laid upon the an-
tiquity of slavery. This was a difficulty which
paralyzed many persons of tender conscience.
They felt with you that slavery was cruel, that it
blighted human beings, crushed the godlike part
of them, and reduced them to the condition of the
lower animals. But it was a sacred institution ; it
had flourished in the earliest ages ; it had a divine
origin, and was tabooed by the consecrating hand
of time. Mr. Canning did not forget to deal with
this hoary superstition. It is one of the happiest
passages in the speech.

" Little, indeed, did I expect to hear the remote ori-
gin and long duration of the slave-trade brought forward
with triumph ; to hear the advocates of the slave-trade
put in their claim for the venerableness of age and the
sacredness of prescription. What are the principles
upon which we allow a certain claim to our respect to
belong to any institution which has subsisted from remote
time ? What is the reason why, when any such insti-
tutions had, by the change of circumstances or manners,
become useless, we still tolerated them, nay cherished
them with something of affectionate regard, and even
when they became burdensome, did not remove them
without regret? What, but because in such institu-
tions, for the most part, we saw the shadow of departed
worth or usefulness, the monument and memorial of
what had, in its origin, or during its vigor, been of serv-
ice or of credit to mankind ? Was this the case with
the slave-trade ? Was the slave-trade originally begun
upon some principle of public justice or national honor,
which the lapse of time, which the mutations of the world
have alone impaired and done away ? Has it to plead
former merits, services, and glories, in behalf of its pres-

T

218 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

ent foulness and disgrace ? Was its infancy lovely, or
its manhood useful, though in its age it is become thus
loathsome and perverse ? No. Its infant lips were
stained with blood. Its whole existence has been a se-
ries of rapacity, cruelty, and murder. It rests with the
House to decide whether it will allow to such a life the
honors of old age, or endeavor to extend its duration."

If Mr. Canning did not lend the aid of his elo-
quence to assist the triumph of Mr. Fox's abolition
resolution, it was because he believed that the ne-
cessity of getting rid of the new administration was
paramount to every other consideration. But he
could not withdraw the influence of his opinion,
which was explicitly announced in a declaration
that he was " decidedly in favor of the speedy ex-
tinction of that disgraceful traffic."

That there were some grounds for Mr. Canning's
sleepless hostility against these ministers, must, of
course, be conceded. No administration is perfect.
The Grenville administration contained elements
which were extremely difficult of combination.
Windham was theoretical, hasty, and sometimes
impracticable. Grenville kept in check the tend-
ency of his colleagues toward one class of do-
mestic improvements, and Sidmouth suppressed
another. There were balances to be consulted and
poised before any measure could be agreed upon;
and this led to delays in some instances, and to an
imperfect utterance of the real designs of the cab-
inet in others. Nor were these the only personal
impediments that acted as a drag upon the progress
of the government. Sheridan had latterly grown
careless, and had fallen into the prince's interest, and
given so little support to Fox, that an estrangement
gradually grew up between them.* Differences

* Sheridan called on Fox during his illness, when the latter
requested Lord Grey to remain in the room, in order to prevent
any private conversation; The interview was cold and short,

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 219

of temper, too, became apparent between Fox,
whose composure was never ruffled even by the
attacks of Canning, and Grenville, whose haughty
conduct throughout the war was not well calculated
to promote the happy issue of the negotiations with
France. Yet, notwithstanding all this, the spirit
of the administration was comprehensive and en-
lightened ; and the proceedings of the opposition
were factious, harassing, and vindictive.

Mr. Pitt would never have carried on an op-
position with so little candor and so much bitter-
ness. He had a higher sense of what was due to
Mr. Fox and to himself. Mr. Canning, in this
sinsrle instance, sacrificed every thing: to his attach-
ment to Mr. Pitt's memory. He went beyond Mr.
Pitt in his defense of Mr. Pitt's principles. It
could not have been more ably done — it might have
been done more fairly. Justice had greater claims
upon him than Pitt.*

The effect of this incessant warfare upon the en-
feebled frame of Fox, already sinking under a se-
vere illness, was fatal in the end. He strup-p-lcd as

* on

long as he could ; attended the House night after
night to answer Canning; but his opponent was
too young and elastic for him ; and at last he was
missed from his accustomed seat. These debates
had broken him down. He wished to breathe the
air of St. Anne's Hill, but the journey, short as it
is, was impossible in his state ; and the Duke of
Devonshire proposed that he should break it by
resting on the way at the duke's villa at Chiswick.
He was removed to Chiswick, where he lingered
a few davs, and died. What solemn thoughts must
have pressed themselves upon Mr. Canning's mind,

* Mr. Canning's numerous speeches during this period must be
traced through the regular Parliamentary records. They are not
preserved in any other collection.

220 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

could he have looked onward and foreseen an event
which was to happen within a few years in the
same chamber, produced, in.a great degree, by very
similar causes ! But it is wisely ordained that the
practical admonitions of life shall be gathered from
the experiences of the past, and not from the terrors
of the future.

The death of Mr. Fox, following so soon upon
the death of Pitt, broke up the close masses known
as the two great parties in this country. They
were no longer to be distinguished by the same
marks — they were no longer bound together by the
same obligations. Hitherto people were not to
say Tories or Whigs, but Pittites or Foxites. It
was not that they believed in this or that set of
principles, but that they believed in Pitt or Fox.
It was the ruling mind that led them. Now they
were to be guided by other means, and the means
were yet to be devised.

Lord Howick succeeded Fox at the Foreign
Office, and discharged his trust with great ability.
To his hands was committed the introduction of a
bill in the Commons for securing to all his majesty's
subjects in common the privilege of serving in the
army or navy. By the Irish Act of 1793, Catholics
were already qualified to serve in Ireland ; but the
provisions of that act applied only to Ireland. This
incongruity consequently arose, that should an Irish
regiment be called into England (to which con-
tingency all Irish regiments were liable under the
Union), the Catholics would be compelled to leave
the service, the English law not permitting Catho-
lics to carry arms in defense of the country ! The
new bill proposed to extend the Irish Act to Eng-
land. It also proposed to allow Catholics and Dis-
senters to attain the highest ranks in both services.
Upon the latter provision his majesty quarreled
with his ministers.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 221

Lord Grenville declared in his place in the
House, that the bill had been, in the first instance,
submitted to his majesty, and approved of by him.
Lord Sidmouth declared that his majesty did not
understand it, and that he was under the impres-
sion that it did nothing more than extend the Irish
law to England. Mr. Perceval, who was beginning
just about this time to make himself very conspic-
uous on all subjects relating to religious tests, as-
serted that the question at issue really was, whether
the Legislature should give up Protestant ascend-
ency or not !

His majesty's distress on the slightest allusion to
a Catholic concession must be referred to the state
of his nerves. He was kind-hearted and benevo-
lent on other subjects. But the mention of a Cath-
olic produced upon him much the same sort of ef-
fect which Gulliver tells us is produced upon Eng-
lish ladies by the sight of a toad. This one settled
abhorrence was forever agitating: his mind. Sorae-
thing of the same sort seems to have danced in the
blood of a few of his ancestors ; and in this respect
he particularly resembled his grand-father, who is
said to have had a horror of vampires.

Ministers withdrew the bill. They could not
force the royal conscience, but they were resolved
to vindicate their own. Lord Grenville and Lord
Howick expressed their desire to reserve, in the
minutes of the cabinet, a right to declare their
opinions on this measure, and to renew.it at any
time they thought proper. The king was terrified,
and demanded a written pledge that they would
never agitate the subject again. The demand was
refused. After this it was impossible the king, who
would not be advised, and his advisers, who would
not be coerced, could keep together. Mr. Perce-
val sprang the rattle of Church in Danger ! and,

T 2

222 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

to use Mr. Windham's phrase, the old intolerant
party, after having abdicated their claims for two
successive Parliaments, " stole into power under
the despicable cry of ' No Popery !' "

On the 24th of March, 1807, the retiring min-
isters delivered up the seals of office, and had the
satisfaction of closing their labors by obtaining the
king's assent, in their last interview with him, to
the bill for abolishing the slave-trade.

This able administration was driven out by
clamor, and through the insidious power exerted
over the poor old king by men as bigoted as him-
self, but more capable and cunning. Lord Eldon
and Lord Hawkesbury enjoy the historical honor
of being considered as his majesty's chief instiga-
tors on this occasion. Mr. Canning stands clear
of it : indeed, so far from having participated in the
underhand means that were employed to procure
the dismissal of ministers, he no sooner learned that
such a result was likely to take place than he com-
municated it, with what delicacy he might, to that
section of the government with whom he happened
to be on terms of private friendship, urging them
to the necessity of adopting some course to avert
his majesty's displeasure. His enmity, however it
is to be lamented on other grounds, was at least
open, loud, and public. Nor did it die with its ob-
ject, if the following lines, which may be described
as the epitaph of the Grenville administration,
written by its bitterest opponent, were justly as-
cribed to him.

ALL THE TALENTS.

When the broad-bottom'd junta, with reason at strife,
Resign'd, with a sigh, its political life;
When converted to Rome, and of honesty tired,
They gave back to the devil the soul he inspired ;

The demon of faction that over them hung,
In *ccents of horror their epitaph sung ;

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 223

While Pride and Venality join'd in the stave,
And canting Democracy wept at the grave.

" Here lies in the tomb that we hollow'd for Pitt,
Consistence of Grenville, of Temple the wit ;
Of Sidmouth the firmness, the temper of Grey,
And Treasurer Sheridan's promise to pay.

" Here Petty's finance, from the evils to come,
With Fitzpatrick's sobriety creeps to the tomb ;
And Chancellor Ego,* now left in the lurch,
Neither dines with the Jordan! nor whines for the Church.

" Then huzza for the party that here is at rest,
By the fools of a faction regretted and bless'd ;
Though they sleep with the devil, yet theirs is the hope,
On the downfall of Britain to rise with the pope."

Other stinging satires on the same subject were
also attributed to him, but without much apparent
justification. |

In the strife of parties, as in love, all things are
considered fair. But if the verses above cited were
really written by Canning, they are not creditable
to him. It is bad enough to make war upon the
dead ; but it is worse to employ weapons which
would have been despised in the lifetime of the
adversary. In these rabid lines the " No Popery"
cry is revived, and shouted with frantic exultation
over the grave of the Whig Cabinet. We can fancy
it all to belong to Mr. Canning — except the use
which is made of that most unworthy expedient.

The great crime of the Grenville ministry was,
that it took office at a wrong moment. It was im-
possible, under the influence of the then existing
circumstances, to complete any of their objects, or
even to open them with any reasonable chance of

* Lord Erskine. + Mrs. Jordan.

t The well-known satire called "All the Talents," published
during the existence of the ministry, was attributed to various
people. The secret of the authorship was well kept, while this
poem was passing rapidly through several editions. Stockdale
himself, who published it, is said not to have known from whence
the MS. came. The author was Eaton Stannard Barrett, who
wrote the " Heroine," " Woman," and other works.

224 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

making an impression. The transition from Pitt
to a government of peace and liberal amelioration
was too sudden. Fox and his party assumed the
government too soon for their own glory and the
permanent good of the country. Their failure may
be ascribed to the single fact that they allowed
themselves to be placed in a false position.

IX.

THE DUKE OF PORTLAND'S ADMINISTRATION. MR.

CANNING APPOINTED SECRETARY OF STATE FOR
FOREIGN AFFAIRS. THE DUEL.

There was some difficulty in getting up a new
administration. The " Church in Danger" and the
" No Popery" cry had already determined which
way it was to march ; but recruits were wanted.
The parts were settled, but it was necessary to find
actors to fill them.

Fifteen years before, the difficulty would have
been insuperable ; but ever since the Duke of
Portland's coalition with Pitt the intermixture of
parties afforded a convenient escape from the em-
barrassment of choice. The sacrifice of opinion
■ on some points for the sake of strength upon others
began now to be considered legitimate in the for-
mation of an efficient government. This easy virtue
of public men was very lucky for the king ; for if
his majesty had been thrown upon the Church and
State party exclusively, he could not have con-
structed a cabinet that would have lasted a week.

The Duke of Portland was selected as the nom-
inal head — a highly respectable nobleman in bad
health, who never made his appearance in Parlia-
ment, and sustained himself by opiates and lauda-
num through the fatigues of forming' a government

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 225

which he was unable to control. The duke was
an indolent man, and possessed, in an eminent de-
gree, the talent of dead silence. He was afflicted
with the stone, and this physical agony, added to
the mental anxiety of office, ultimately broke him
down. He used to drop asleep in his chair over
his state papers from exhaustion and infirmity.
And this was so visible from the first, that Lord
Chatham (out of pretended respect to the memory
of Pitt) was actually associated with him, by the
king's desire, in the formation of the ministry. He
suffered this without remonstrance, and tacitly al-
lowed Lords Eldon and Hawkesbury to go between
him and the king at a moment when the whole re-
sponsibility of the government was about to be de-
volved upon him. It was not surprising that his
colleagues soon began to disavow his authority and
set up for themselves in their own departments ; so
that, although Burlington House continued to be
resorted to by the adherents of the administration,
it was to all intents and purposes nothing more than
the ministerial rendezvous.

The real head of the government was Mr. Per-
ceval, a gentleman expressly engaged to do the
hard work. The only recommendation he pos-
sessed was his profound intolerance, the depths of
which even his majesty's plummet could not sound.
Mr. Perceval was a practicing barrister, and it was
not to be expected that he would give up business
without a consideration. His majesty accordingly
offered him the Chancellorship of the Duchy of
Lancaster for life, if he would take the Chancellor-
ship of the Exchequer for as long as he could
manage to keep it. The Commons of England
thought this too high a price to pay for the services
of " a second-rate lawyer," and voted an address
to his majestv praving that neither the said office,

is r

226 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

nor any other not usually held for life, should be
granted for any other term than during pleasure.
His majesty wisely submitted to this unequivocal
expression of opinion, and the new ministry opened
with a defeat.* This was a more inauspicious be-
ginning than the elevation of Lord Ellenborough
to the cabinet, which, although indefensible in prin-
ciple, was at least sanctioned without a division by
the Upper House, and carried in the Lower by an
overwhelming majority.

The cabinet was finally made up before the close
of March, 1807. Lord Eldon succeeded Lord
Erskine on the woolsack ; Mr. Canning was ap-
pointed Foreign Secretary, Lord Hawkesbury
Home Secretary, and Lord Castlereagh Secretary
at War. In other places were to be found Lords
Camden, Mulgrave, and Chatham, and Mr. George
Rose. The Duke of Richmond — the most agreea-
ble of boon companions ! — with Sir Arthur Welles-
ley (now Duke of Wellington) as secretary, under-
took the government of Ireland, at a crisis which
demanded the greatest sagacity, discretion, and for-
titude. The hazardous honor had been previously
declined by the Dukes of Rutland and Beaufort,
and Lord Powis.

Mr. Canning is said to have coqueted for office
with the Grenville party just on the eve of their
dismissal, and then, finding the case hopeless, to
have surrendered himself to the Tories.t This as-

* There is a strange mistake upon this subject in Lord Malmes-
bury's Diaries. It is there stated in a note [vol. iv., p. 376] that
the motion was made by Mr. Martin, and lost by a majority of 93.
The motion was made by Mr. Pank.es, and carried by a majority
of 113. This was on the 25th of March, and on the 8th of April
his majesty forwarded an answer to the Jiouse tp the effect that
he had granted the office " only during hjs royal pleasure.''

t " This political Killigrew, just before the breaking up qf the
last administration, was in actual treaty with them for a place ;
and if they had survived four-and4wenty hours logger, he would
have been now declaiming against the cry of ' No Popery !' ipstead
of inflaming it."—" Peter Plvmley's Letters."

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 227

sertion, impudently put forth at the time, is not only
false, but the very reverse of the fact. Instead of
coqueting with the Grenville ministry, he firmly
resisted the temptations they held out to him. In
the November of 1806, there was a general elec-
tion ; and Lord Grenville, desirous of strengthen-
ino- his government by the addition of some of Pitt's
followers, made splendid offers to Canning, with
carte blanche for any three or four friends he would
name. The negotiation was intrusted to Lord
Wellesley, who conducted it with skill and deli-
cacy ; but Canning peremptorily refused to join the
administration upon any terms.*

It was a more serious charge against him, that
he joined this Perceval-Portland Ministry, from
which the Catholic Question must have been ex-
cluded by a pledge, either actually given or clear-
ly understood.

To this charge there is no answer to be made
but that Mr. Canning strictly followed the exam-
ple of Mr. Pitt. He knew that during the king's
lifetime that question could not be carried, and he
bowed to the necessity. He could not reconcile
it with his sense of duty to decline office because
his majesty's determination was fixed on that sub-
ject ; or, having taken office, to make a useless re-
sistance to his majesty's convictions. This is all
the defense or palliation that need be offered for
his connection with this Ultra-Protestant Ascend-
ency Administration. Like Pitt, he resigned, be-
cause he could not effect the emancipation of the
Catholics; like Pitt, he took office again, knowing
that such a measure could not even be proposed.

It must be remembered, also, that Mr. Canning,
like Pitt, considered emancipation as a question of
expediency, and not of right ; never to be insisted
* " Diaries of Lord Malmesbury," iv., 354.

228 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

upon against the free will of the people, the mon-
arch, and the Parliament, and to be promoted only
as the development of^opinion and opportunity be-
came favorable to its success. This view of the
question may have been wrong ; but Mr. Can-
ning's conduct must be tried by his own opinions,
and not by the opinions of others.

If the precedent of antagonist elements in for-
mer cabinets could be admitted as an excuse, he
had an ample apology. Even the ministry which
had been just displaced exhibited the most dis-
cordant materials. Sheridan, the knight-errand of
annual Parliaments; Grenville, the inflexible ene-
my of all reform ; Fox, the consistent advocate of
peace ; Windham, who had abandoned his own
party to support the war ; Grey, the ardent friend
of religious freedom ; Sidmouth, the representative
of the king's zealotry, and heretofore the object
of the unlimited ridicule and contempt of all those
with whom he was now associated. If Mr. Can-
ning had waited until a ministry perfectly agree-
ing on all points could have been formed, he might
have waited till doomsday.

The new ministry had to contend against sever-
al adverse circumstances.

They had to meet a Parliament convoked by
their opponents only in the preceding December.

They labored under the imputation of having
got into office by a discreditable intrigue, and they
had to face its consequences in the fury of their
adversaries. The imputation was true. The Duke
of Portland had no sooner heard of the Catholic
Bill, than he protested against it in a private letter
to his majesty, offering his services, at the same
time, in the formation of a new administration,
should such an alternative become necessary. A
clearer case of factious intrigue never was made

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 229

out, although the proofs of its existence did not
transpire until many years after the chief actors in
it had gone to their graves.

They were also accused of allowing themselves
to be fettered with pledges which rendered them
the slaves, not the advisers, of the crown. The
fact was self-evident. The new ministers avowed-
ly went into office on the pledge which had been
constitutionally rejected by their predecessors.

These disadvantages were enhanced by their
want of personal weight. None of them possess-
ed enough of the public confidence to qualify them
for the high and responsible offices to which they
were called. They all wanted reputation ; and
some of them — Hawkesbury and Castlereagh in
particular — also wanted ability. Canning was
dreaded for his sarcasm, his ready powers of de-
bate, his unflinching courage, and the extraordina-
ry tact he possessed in justifying his conduct ; but
even Canning, although hated, feared, and envied
quite enough to make him of importance to any
administration, was not yet considered to have at-
tained the full rank of a statesman. " He is un-
questionably," observes Lord Malmesbury, " very
clever, and very essential to government ; but he
is hardly yet a statesman, and his dangerous habit
of quizzing (which he can not restrain) would be
most unpopular in any department which required
pliancy, tact, and conciliatory behavior. He is hon-
orable and honest, with a dash of the Irishman ;
and all his plans and ideas of governing would par-
take of this, and might be as dangerous in prac-
tice as he makes them appear plausible by the el-
oquent way in which he expresses them."* This
was written immediately before the government
was organized. During the progress of its forma-

* " Diaries," iv., 367.

u

230 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

tion, the Duke of Portland offered Canning his
choice of the Foreign Office or the Admiralty.
Canning went immediately to consult his friend,
Lord Malmesbury ; and it is a curious commenta-
ry on his lordship's opinion, as to his fitness for a
department requiring pliancy, tact, and conciliato-
ry behavior, that he instantly recommended him to
take the Foreign Office, where these qualities are
indispensable. Canning had never before had an
opportunity of acting upon his own responsibility ;
and Lord Malmesbury, judging of him in moments
of excitement and suspense, feared rather than an-
ticipated that his spirits would carry him away.
But Canning was scarcely established in the For-
eign Office, when his able diplomatic friend had
occasion to bear testimony to his judgment, cool-
ness, and promptitude under new and singularly
trying circumstances.

When Parliament met in April, ministers were
simultaneously attacked in both houses ; and sep-
arate motions were made, to the effect that it was
unconstitutional in the confidential servants of the
crown to fetter themselves by pledges to the sov-
ereign. Mr. Canning, in reply, turned the argu-
ment against the late ministers, who had insisted
upon the right of proposing a measure which they
knew the king would never allow to pass into law.

" What was required in the stipulations claimed by
the late ministers ? That they should be allowed to rec-
ommend one policy, while they pursued another. The
terms upon which they wished to hold their offices were,
that they should be allowed to propose measures, that
they might afterward abandon them. The yearly mov-
ing of this question would have the effect of making an
unfair division of the popularity and odium. The odium
would be great, and all fall upon the crown : the benefit
would be small, and that the Catholics might have ; but
the whole of the popularity the ministers were to have."

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 231

Having thus made it appear that his colleagues,
instead of coming in upon a pledge, had rescued
his majesty from a plot, he concluded by threaten-
ing an appeal to the country, a threat which fright-
ened the cabinet a great deal more than the oppo-
sition. Even Lord Malmesbury was alarmed.
"Canning," says he, "was too imperious last night
about the threat of dissolution." But events proved
that Canning was right. Parliament was dissolved
before the end of the month. The extremity was
forced upon them. And what was the result 1
Scarcely a single member of the opposition was re-
turned for the place he had previously filled. In
the division which had tested the strength of min-
isters in the preceding Parliament, they mustered
with difficulty a surplus of 32. In the new Par-
liament they commanded an easy majority of 195.

The state of Europe, when Mr. Canning under-
took the office of Foreign Secretary, was more pre-
carious than it had been at any previous period.
The power of Napoleon was supreme, and that su-
premacy was crowned by the peace of Tilsit, nom-
inally entered into between France, Russia, and
Prussia, but really between Napoleon and Alex-
ander. The poor Queen of Prussia was invited to
attend, but it was only that she might be the more
effectually cheated. Napoleon asked her to din-
ner, then suddenly pretended to be so fascinated
by her naive and charming coquetry that he desired
Talleyrand to get the treaty signed after dinner
without her knowledge, lest her bewitching beauty
might tempt him to give up too much !

By that treaty, signed on the 8th of July, 1807,
Europe was divided between the two potentates.
The whole of the south was surrendered to Napo-
leon, already master of Italy and arbiter of Germa-
ny, and pushing his advanced posts as far as the

232 THE LiEE OE CANNING.

Vistula ; and the crowns of Naples, Holland, and
Westphalia were conferred on his three brothers.
. While the emperors were thus partitioning Chris-
tendom on a raft on the Niemen, Mr. Canning was
forming a plan for the protection of England against
the imperial conspiracy. The first intimation the
world had of his design was the sudden appear-
ance, in the month of August, of an English fleet
in the Sound, the bombardment of Copenhagen,
and the capture of the whole navy of Denmark.

Intelligence of this event had scarcely arrived
when it was followed by the gallant victors convey-
ing the Danish fleet into the harbor of Portsmouth.
This extraordinary and apparently unprovoked ag-
gression upon a neutral power who had at that mo-
ment, peacefully floating in our waters, merchant-
men with their rich cargoes, to the value of upward
of 662,000,000 sterling, naturally enough provoked
much astonishment and indignation.

Upon the opening of the session the speech from
the throne announced, that no sooner had the peace
of Tilsit confirmed the control of France over the
powers of the Continent, than his majesty ivas ap-
prized of the intentions of the enemy to combine those
powers in one general confederacy against England,
and that, for that purpose, it was intended to force
the neutral states into hostility against his majesty,
so as to bring to bear upon England the whole na-
val force of Europe, and specifically the fleets of
Portugal and Denmark* It became, therefore, the
indispensable duty of his majesty to place those
fleets out of the reach of such a confederacy.

Such was the ministerial explanation. The fleet
of Portugal would have been seized, also, but for
the promptitude of Napoleon, who intercepted the
intentions of ministers by detaining the Portuguese
shipping in the ports of France. The issue of the

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 233

affairs of Portugal is well known. The unfortunate
prince regent, unable to resist the tyranny of Napo-
leon, transported himself and the members of his
family to Brazil.

The opposition denounced the conduct of gov-
ernment in unmeasured language, and called upon
ministers to show the grounds upon which they had
committed so flagrant a violation of the law of na-
tions. Ministers contented themselves with stating
that the measure had not been adopted without no-
tice to the Prince Royal of Denmark, who was
duly warned that if he did not avow himself an ally,
or guaranty his neutrality by placing his fleet in
the hands of the English government, to be deliv-
ered up at the close of the war, England must pro-
tect herself by seizing upon his navy.

To all this it was objected that ministers had no
justification for adopting such a course. Mr.Pon-
sonby declared '' that no writer on the law of na-
tions, or on any other law, had ever maintained that
one power could be justified in taking from anoth-
er power what belonged to it, unless a third pow-
er meant and was able to take the same thins: : the
justification, therefore, rested on the necessity."
But this was exactly Mr. Canning's case. He
maintained that it was an act of necessity, and that
if England had not seized upon the Danish navy,
France would have seized upon it (which she was
notoriously able to do), and would have used it
against England.

But where, demanded the opposition, was the
proof 'that such an intention existed'? Ministers
stated, in reply, that they had received private in-
formation that there were secret articles in the treaty
of Tilsit sanctioning Bonaparte's plan for combin-
ing the navies of Europe to crush the maritime
power of Great Britain. This astounding state-
ly 2

234 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

ment was met on all sides by explicit and circum-
stantial contradictions. France denied it — Russia
denied it* — the opposition discredited it, and, cov-
ering the government with opprobrium, succeeded
in carrying along with them a strong and angry
feeling out of doors. " Ministers," exclaimed Lord
Grenville, " have asserted that there are secret ar-
ticles in the treaty of Tilsit affecting the interests
of this country, and the French government have
asserted that there are none. Here, then, is a chal-
lenge, and it is incumbent upon ministers to prove
their assertion." But ministers could not prove
their assertion without violating their honor.

In this exigency Mr. Canning relied upon the
general necessity of the case. He bore the taunts
of his opponents, now grown insolent in their at-
tacks on his public character, with calmness and
dignity, and to every renewed demand for the pro-
duction of his information he replied by repeating
his determination never to reveal it. " Though the
conduct of his majesty's ministers," he said, " might
be held up in a few speeches in that House to the
execration of the country, they would run that risk,
and incur that penalty, rather than suffer the secret
to he torn from their bosoms." At length Mr. Adam
made a specific motion, the purport of which was,
that the Foreign Secretary had violated his trust to
the crown in reference to the communications of
government with their accredited ministers abroad.
Mr. Canning answered him and withdrew, stating
that, as a high criminal charge was preferred against
him, he should retire and throw himself upon the

* When our ambassador at St. Petersburgh, acting under the in-
structions of Mr. Canning (which, says Lord Malmesbury, were
" incomparable"), demanded of the Russian minister to be shown
the secret articles, the minister, after being much pressed, de-
clared that none of them were injurious to the interests of Eng-
land.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 235

judgment of the House. The judgment of the
House vindicated him by a sweeping majority of
168 to 67.

There were many persons who firmly believed
that there were no secret articles ; that the govern-
ment had never received any secret information ;
that ministers had committed the outrage in a par-
oxysm of fear. Time passed away, and the oblo-
quy still hung suspended over their heads.

Seventeen years afterward, in 1824, a book was
published in Paris — a sort of confession of the life
of a man who had been much mixed up in the po-
litical intrigues of his day — and this book, to the
astonishment of every person who had taken any
interest in the matter, and who yet survived to learn
its solution, contained the following revelation. It
is the famous Fouche who speaks :

"About this time it was that we learned the success of
the attack upon Copenhagen by the English, which was
the first derangement of the secret stipulations of Tilsil%
by virtue of which the Danish fleet was to be placed at
tiie disposal of France ! Since the death of Paul I., I
never saw Napoleon give himself up to such violent trans-
ports of passion. That which astounded him most in
that vigorous stroke (vigoureux coup de main) was the
promptitude with which the English ministry took their
resolution. He began to suspect some new treachery in
the cabinet, and gave me orders to ascertain if it had noth-
ing to do with the ill-will created by a late removal, that
of Talleyrand from the office of Foreign Secretary."*

The suspicion was unjust to Talleyrand, and a
comparison of dates ought to have satisfied the em-
peror that the resentment of his minister could
have had nothing to do with the attack upon Co-
penhagen. Talleyrand wras removed on the 8th of
August,f at which time the English fleet must have
been under weigh for Zealand.

* " Memoirs of Fouche."

f " Life of Prince Talleyrand," iv., 121.

236 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

This passage confirmed the statement of minis-
ters by the evidence of a most unexpected witness ;
but it still left the source of their information in im-
penetrable darkness. The mystery, however, has
been subsequently cleared up, so that we are now
enabled, putting these discoveries together, to show,
not only the correctness of the intelligence, but the
pressure of the necessity upon which the govern-
ment acted.

Government, it appears, was in possession of Na-
poleon's designs nearly two months before the trea-
ty was signed. The most singular incident in the
transaction is, that the first intimation on the sub-
ject was communicated to the Duke of Portland by
the Prince of Wales, in an audience at Carlton
House in the month of May. Ministers learned
through this channel that a plan was formed by Na-
poleon for surprising the Danish fleet, with the as-
sistance of which he intended to invade the north-
east coast of England, and that he also meant to
avail himself of the Portuguese fleet for the same
purpose. The proposal had, in fact, been made to
Denmark to include her in the Continental system
of blockading England, and she accepted it either
from cowardice or ill-will, although she afterward
denied that she had ever assented. The same pro-
posal was made to the Regent of Portugal, who re-
jected it, and at once communicated the notable
project to the Prince of Wales.*

Such was the nature of the disclosures which
were made to the British government, and such
the channel through which they were received.
The confidence reposed by the regent in the honor
of an English minister was safe. Mr. Canning left
his vindication to time, which has already rendered
full justice to the secrecy, foresight, and sagacity
* " Diaries of Lord Malmesbury," iv., 391.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 237

he displayed on an occasion when the existence of
England depended upon the celerity and success
with which the project was executed.

The seizure of the Danish navy was an act of
imperative necessity ; one of those master-strokes
of policy which, instead of being justified, which
hints a doubt, ought to be commemorated in col-
umns and statues. The Danes were in this posi-
tion, that they could not remain neutral. They re-
fused to become our allies, and must have become
our enemies. We deprived them of the means of
hostility in mere self-defense. The question was,
not whether it was justifiable to take their ships,
but whether we or Napoleon should take them — a
question of a few hours, which Napoleon would
have solved had we delaved. It was not a moment

■I

for an English minister to turn doctor-in-law. His
business was to save the country first, and find ar-
guments for it afterward.

The affairs of Spain next occupied attention.
The French had crossed the Pyrenees, expelled the
authorities, and taken possession of all the strong-
holds. The king and the royal family had been
first cajoled, then kidnapped ; the coffers of the
state had been plundered ; the towns given up to
rapine and the brutal lusts of the soldiery; the gov-
ernment was usurped ; and the whole country was
in a state of insurrection. In this deplorable ex-
tremity, the provincial juntas sent over delegates to
England for the purpose of soliciting aid. The en-
terprise was one of great danger, certain to be ac-
companied by great losses, and, worse than all, ex-
ceedingly doubtful in its results. But Mr. Canning
felt that the necessity of resisting the encroach-
ments of Napoleon was paramount over all other
considerations ; that it was the peculiar duty of
England to protect the aggrieved; and that our in-

238 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

terests, as well as our honor, justified the sacrifices
we were now called upon to make. He not only,
therefore, encouraged the spirit of resistance in
Spain by every assurance of sympathy and sup-
port, but proceeded to collect a force for the pur-
pose of acting against the French wherever its serv-
ices might be most available. At the head of this
force he placed Sir Arthur Wellesley, whose great
military talents he was the first minister to recog-
nize, employ, and reward.* These proceedings,
and the noble stand he made on behalf of the de-
throned sovereigns and outraged nations of Europe,
led him into a protracted course of diplomatic ne-
gotiation with France and Russia, arising out of
the joint application of the two emperors to Eng-
land to put an end to the horrors of the war.
Throughout the whole of the correspondence, he

* " It was Mr. Canning," says Mr. Stapleton, " who discerned
the great military talents of Sir Arthur Wellesley, and insisted
upon their employment in the peninsula." — " Political Life of the
Right Honorable George Canning from 1822 to 1827," i., 291. It
is unnecessary to fortify, by additional evidence, a fact obvious
enough from Mr. Canning's position in the government ; but it is
desirable to correct a strange misstatement in the " Military Life
of the Duke of Wellington," written by Major Jackson and Cap-
tain Scott, in which it is asserted that the command of the army
on this occasion was given to Sir Arthur Wellesley " at the in-
stance of Lord Castlereagh." The gallant authors took up this no-
tion apparently from a mistake they had fallen into about his lord-
ship, as the next sentence implies. Sir Arthur's " extraordinary
military talents," they inform us, had not been sufficiently appre-
ciated by the nation, or by the most exalted personages in the
realm, but fortunately were not " overlooked by the talented no-
bleman above named, who, at the time of which we write (1808),
held the office of Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs ;" and then they
run on into a panegyric upon his " immovable firmness," which
has nothing to do with this part of the subject. — (" Military Life
of the Duke of Wellington," i , 296.) It is clear that these gen-
tlemen assigned to Lord Castlereagh the merit of having first rec-
ognized Sir Arthur's talents under the supposition that his lord-
ship was then Secretary for Foreign Affairs. The passage would
be set right at once by transferring the inference to the minister
who did fill that office.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 239

persisted in refusing to negotiate a peace unless the
lights of Spain were fully admitted ; and he dis-
played such ability, high principle, and firmness in
the conduct of these transactions, as to wring from
the most reluctant of his adversaries repeated tes-
timonies of admiration.

Our active interference on behalf of Spain fortu-
nately united the suffrage of all parties in Parlia-
ment ; and if the bitterness occasioned by the ag-
gression on Denmark had been allowed to pass
away, a closer union of public men for the com-
mon defense of the country might have been effect-
ed at this juncture. Mr. Canning showed his de-
sire to cultivate this amicable disposition during
the discussions which arose on the state of Spain ;
but the opposition, rankling under the severity of
his wit, refused his advances. The widest politi-
cal differences may be compromised — heresies may
be reconciled ; but scathing personalities, which
wound men's self-love and vanity, are never to be
forgiven ! They looked upon him as a man who
spared nobody — which was true ; and they were
determined, opportunely and inopportunely, never
to spare him.

This was a harassing session with him. He was
not wholly with the ultra-Tory party, which was
now in the ascendant in the government ; there
were many minor points on which he differed from
them. On the other hand, there were some ques-
tions on which he agreed with the opposition. His
spirit was clearly on that side of the House, and he
would have been there himself, could he have con-
trolled its excesses and governed Whig tendencies
with a Tory judgment. As it was, although the
station he occupied afforded him the means of car-
rying out his views to a certain extent, it also forced
him into an occasional struggle between his pri-

240 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

vate convictions and the necessity for defending
the general policy of the government. Dr. Dui-
genan was appointed a privy -councillor — a new in-
sult to the Irish Catholics ; and Mr. Canning, who
had nothing to do with the appointment, was oblig-
ed to endure his share of the obloquy and disgrace.
The Catholic petition was introduced by Mr. Grat-
tan, and it was necessary that Mr. Canning should
deprecate discussion, at the risk of being misun-
derstood and misrepresented. He was called
upon, also, to vindicate the Duke of York in the
matter of his low amours, and to draw the Parlia-
mentary distinction between the virtues of the com-
mander-in-chief and the miserable depravities of
Mrs. Clarke's paramour. It became his duty, also,
to oppose Mr. Whitbread's motion for the exclu-
sion from Parliament of all placemen and pension-
ers ; Mr. Canning contending, as a minister of the
crown, that it was necessary for the good of the
country that public men who were pensioned off
out of office, but who looked to office again, should
continue to enjoy the advantage of assisting in the
labor of legislation. Through the mire of topics
such as these he was condemned to drag his elo-
quence, which did double duty in the arduous po-
sition in which he was placed, of answering not
only for his own acts and opinions, but for the big-
otry and blunders of his colleagues.

Unfortunately, the greatest blunderer of them
all, Lord Castlereagh, was thrown, by his situation
as Secretary at War, into such close relations with
the Foreign department as to make his errors and
his incapacity a source of constant irritation to Mr.
Canning;. The feelings of the latter toward a min-
ister whom he considered to be inadequate to the
grave responsibilities of his office were not much
improved by two charges of corruption which were

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 241

\

brought forward against his lordship in the House
of Commons. One of them was for being party
to the sale of a seat in Parliament, and then re-
quiring the gentleman who had purchased it either
to vote for the government on the inquiry respect-
ing the Duke of York, or to resign.* The other
was for attempting to traffic for a borough.

Mr. Canning opposed the former motion, because
it was avowed to be a first step toward Parliament-
ary reform. But in voting on the latter question
he took care to protect himself against being sus-
pected of sheltering Lord Castlereagh's misconduct
under his approbation ; observing that, " while he
would vote for the order of the day, he would by
no means be understood to pronounce the case as
not of very serious importance." This expression
of opinion had more weight with the House than
the vote which accompanied it, and the order of
the day was negatived. Mr. Canning hastened to
repair this unlucky mcsaventure by moving that,
under all circumstances, the House saw no neces-
sity for a criminating resolution, which was carried.
This was on the 25th of April, 1S09 ; and it be-
trayed that uneasiness in his own position, and that
entire want of confidence in the discretion of his
colleague, which shortly afterward led to more
serious results.

If the glory — lingering as it was — of Copenha-

* The members of the Grenville administration joined the gov-
ernment in resisting this motion against Lord Castlereagh. It
seems that such things were done by all administrations, and they
were consequently bound to protect each other. Sir Samuel
Romilly observes that, considered merely with reference to their
own interest, it was impolitic. li Nothing that can be proved
against them," says that upright man, " will do them more injury
in public opinion than this screening of political offenses through
fear of recrimination. It will do more toward disposing the na-
tion in favor of Parliamentary reform than all the speeches that
have been, or ever will be made, in any popular assemblies." —
" Memoirs of Sir Samuel Romilly." ii., 287.
16 X'

242 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

gen belonged to Mr. Canning, the ignominy of Wal-
cheren attaches almost exclusively to Lord Castle-
reagh. That unfortunate expedition, indeed, in-
volved the whole administration in disgrace, but
chiefly the minister who presided over its execution.

Several months had been occupied in secret prep-
arations, and at length, toward the close of July,
1809, one of the most formidable armaments that
ever left the shores of England — consisting of an
army of 40,000 men and a fleet of seventy-nine
ships of the line, thirty-six frigates, and numerous
small craft, amounting altogether to between 400
and 500 pendants — set sail for the Low Countries.

The objects were the reduction of Flushing, the
capture of the French ships of war in the Scheldt,
and the destruction of their arsenals and dock-yards.
Lord Chatham (who was wholly Unknown as a
soldier, and had no reputation as a civilian) com-
manded the army, and Sir Richard Strachan the
fleet. Flushing surrendered, and the troops took
possession of the Island of Walcheren. From this
moment a paralysis appears to have descended
upon the counsels of ministers, and to have stricken
both commanders. Nothing more was done. No
attempt was made to proceed up the river. Ant-
werp, the emporium, was abandoned to the enemy ;
Flushing, a plague-town in a swamp, was held fast.
Autumn set in, and brought with it the usual epi-
demic. Still the commanders stirred not, although
the pestilence had already commenced its havoc,
and the men were dropping by scores and by hund-
reds into the grave. The possession of Flushing
for any conceivable purpose, offensive or defensive,
was so utterly useless, that it was impossible to
comprehend why it was not evacuated. Some
threw the blame upon the military commander —
others, upon the admiral ; the public, more just

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 243

than the partisans of either, condemned both in the
well-known epigram,

" Lord Chatham, witn his sword undrawn,
Stood waiting for Sir Richard Strachan ;
Sir Richard, longing to be at 'em,
Stood waiting for the Earl of Chatham."

In December the troops returned home — or all
that was left alive of them, escaping an inglorious
death, only to linger on in hopeless decrepitude.
Between the 1st of January and the 1st of June,
1810, including relapses, there were admitted into
the hospitals, from the corps which had served in
Walcheren, 35,000 patients !

There are some considerations connected with
this expedition which are indispensable to the for-
mation of a correct estimate of the sagacity of the
minister who was charged with its management.

The same expedition had been suggested during
the war to three different administrations, and re-
jected as impracticable by each. The opinions of
several experienced military men were taken upon
its policy and practicability, and they were all
against it. Yet Lord Castlereagh, cognizant of
these facts, issued orders for the embarkation of an
enormous army, which he placed under the com-
mand of a nobleman who was entirely ignorant of
the service ; and, as if his lordship were resolved
that nothing should be omitted to render the failure
conspicuous and complete, the expedition was dis-
patched just as the sickly season was setting in,
and recalled jus? as it ended.

It was notorious that Walcheren was one of the
most unhealthy spots in the world, yet not one
medical authority was consulted on the subject,
and no unusual precautions were adopted. One
hospital ship was provided ; the surgeon-general
implored Lord Castlereagh to furnish two more,

244 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

and was refused. Walcheren was taken on the
15th of August. On the 29th, Lord Chatham wrote
home that the progress of the army was at an end.
The men were taking the infection at the rate of
200 a day : it appeared farther, that if Walcheren
was to be retained, it would become necessary to
build defenses, and to feed the inhabitants, 37,000
in number. His lordship, finding that the govern-
ment would do nothing, returned home on the 14th
of September, and left the army to its fate. His
successors wrote again and again to entreat for a
decision, but it was not until the middle of No-
vember that the first order for evacuation was is-
sued, and it was not until the 28th of December it
was carried into effect. The results of this mem-
orable expedition may be thus summed up : loss in
lives, eight or nine thousand men ; in money, be-
tween two and three millions sterling ; gain, a poor
Flemish town, which we were only too glad to give
back again to its famished population.*

It was impossible that Mr. Canning could regard
with indifference the danger of committing the
country to a project which Mr. Pitt had long be-
fore rejected, unless it was carried out with fore-
sight and energy at least equal to the risk. It was
one of those hazardous undertakings the success
or failure of which depend mainly on the skill, de-
cision, and vigilance with which they are conducted.
Influenced by such impressions, Mr. Canning was
placed in a painful situation : as Foreign Secretary,
administering the external affairs of the kingdom,
he was brought into constant intercourse with Lord
Castlereagh. His plans, in fact, were at the mercy

* All the documents and evidence concerning the expedition
were laid before Parliament and published. See, also, " Observa-
tions, &c, on the Subject of the late Expedition to the Scheldt,"
1810.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 245

of the executive genius of the war department ; a
state of things to which Mr. Canning, injustice to
himself, felt it impossible to submit. He accord-
ingly signified to the Duke of Portland the abso-
lute necessity of making a change in the war de-
partment, tendering his own resignation as the al-
ternative. No circumstance can more distinctly
mark Mr. Canning's objection to the expedition,
and his sense of Lord Castlereagh's unfitness to
conduct it, than the fact that this announcement
was made early in April, three months before it
sailed.

The duke required a little delay. It was de-
sirable to wait, at all events, until the charge against
Lord Castlereagh for trafficking for a seat in Par-
liament should be disposed of; to which Mr. Can-
ning consented. The matter was then broken to
Lord Camden, Lord Castlereagh's uncle, through
whose influence his lordship had been hitherto pro-
moted to and sustained in his various offices. Lord
Camden admitted that such a change was necessary.
In May, the whole subject was laid before the king,
and his majesty agreed to the necessity of a new
distribution of the business of the war department,
by which the political correspondence would be
transferred to the Foreign Office. But this arrange-
ment, which would still have left in Lord Castle-
reagh's hands the superintendence of the expedi-
tion, was not effected. New arrangements were
proposed from time to time ; fresh delays were
created ; the members of the cabinet being fully
aware of Mr. Canning's feelings on the subject, and
Lord Castlereagh being all this time allowed to
suppose that he carried into his official duties the
entire confidence of his colleagues. Finding that
no communication had been made to Lord Castle-
reagh, and objecting alike to the concealment and

X 2

240 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

the delay, Mr. Canning obtained an interview with
his majesty in June, and tendered his resignation.
But the moment was inconvenient, and he was as-
sured that the communication would be made to
Lord Castlereagh as soon as the expedition had
sailed. Farther delays took place, and at length
Mr. Canning was prevailed upon against his judg-
ment, but in deference to the scruples and anxieties
of others to let the matter lie over until after the
result of the expedition should be known, it being
then distinctly understood that the Marquis Welles-
ley was to be appointed to the war department.
The moment the intelligence of the surrender of
Flushing reached England, Mr. Canning reminded
the Duke of Portland that the time was now come
for putting the new arrangement into execution ;
and he then discovered that no intimation whatever
had been conveyed to Lord Castlereagh of the in-
tended change, and that the consequence of per-
sisting in it would be to break up the administra-
tion. Under these unexpected circumstances, Mr.
Canning reverted at once to his original alternative,
and, declining to attend the cabinet, informed his
grace that he held office only till his successor was
appointed. The facts were now communicated to
Lord Castlereagh for the first time, although his
uncle and other personal friends had been in pos-
session of them for months. His lordship imme-
diately sent in his resignation.

ThatLord Castlereagh was ill-treated all through-
out, is quite certain ; but not by Mr. Canning. That
his lordship had good reason to complain of the
secrecy and insincerity that were practiced toward
him, can not be denied ; but Mr. Canning, instead
of being a consenting party to the deceit, protested
against it over and over again, and in vain pressed
his resignation as the only alternative left. The

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 247

excuse was the critical state of public affairs, and
the danger of a disruption in the ministry.*

All the members of the cabinet, or all who were
consulted, agreed in their ojnnion of Lord Castle-
reagh's incapacity ; yet they suffered him to origi-
nate! and conduct this important expedition, and
then, when it failed, they announced to him that he
had been all along distrusted by his colleagues.
This was not a pleasant discovery to make at a
moment when his ostentatious plans had just ter-
minated in disgrace and humiliation. Irritated at
the treatment he had received, his chivalrous logic
resolved it into a personal quarrel, and, in a long
letter abounding in " misapprehensions," he sent
a message to Mr. Canning.

Lord Castlereagh's method of dealing with the
subject was curiously characteristic. He admitted
Mr. Canning's right to demand his removal, and
objected only to the mode in which it was proposed
to be carried out. His words are these :

" I have no right, as a public man, to resent your de-
manding upon public grounds my removal from the par-
ticular office I have held, or even from the administration,

* The poor Duke of Portland seems to have been frightened all
throughout by the two imperious gentlemen he had to deal with,
and the fear of losing Canning. When Canning originally an-
nounced his determination to resign unless the conduct of the war
was taken out of the hands of Lord Castlereagh, the duke wrote
privately to Lord Eldon, saying, " If it can not be prevented, I see
nothing but ruin to the country and to Europe, and so I told him
plainly and distinctly."—" Life of Lord Eldon," ii., 80. The king
expressed the same opinion. The source of all the evil that follow-
ed was timidity, and indecision, and delay on the part of the duke,
in which he was encouraged by the chancellor, to whom procras-
tination was the breath of life. He should either have accepted
Mr. Canning's resignation at once, or at once have complied with
his demand. Lord Eldon, who disliked Canning, threw the whole
blame upon the vanity of the Foreign Secretary.

t We have Lord Castlereagh's own authority for the assertion
that he " originated" the Walcheren Expedition. In his letter to
Mr. Canning, he observes, "You allowed me to originate and pro-
ceed in the execution of a new enterprise," &c.

248 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

as a condition of your continuing a member of the gov-
ernment ; but I have a distinct right- to expect that a
proposition, justifiable in itself, shall not be executed in
an unjustifiable manner, and at the expense of my hon-
or and reputation."

It is clear that it was the mode of executing the
proposition, and not the proposition itself, which
Lord Castlereagh professed to consider objection-
able. He admitted that the original proposition was
that which he had no right to resent, but contended
that the mode of executing it afforded just ground
of offense ;, and he visited this offense, not on the
persons who committed it, but on the author of the
proposition, which he had disclaimed the right of
resenting. It is a pity, if duels must be resorted to
for the vindication of personal honor, that personal
honor should not be a little more exact in fixing
the responsibility. So far as Lord Castlereagh's
honor was concerned, it stood in the same predica-
ment after the duel as before, seeing that he ob-
tained no satisfaction whatever, except from the
only person concerned in the transaction, who, on
his own showing, stood clear of the imputed offense.

Mr. Canning had nothing to do with the execu-
tion of the proposition, which Lord Castlereagh ad-
mitted he had a right to make. The mode of put-
ting that proposition into effect rested with others,
who alone were responsible for it. Mr. Canning
might have declined Lord Castlereagh's hostile
invitation on this very obvious ground ; but he
thought that the terms of Lord Castlereagh's let-
ter precluded explanation, and he surrendered his
judgment to a very foolish custom, which proved
nothing either way.*

* Contemporary opinion ran strongly against Lord Castlereagh.
Wilberforce blames him for having sent the challenge, not on the
impulse of the first angry feelings, but after chewing the cud of
his resentment for twelve days. — "Life," iii., 431. In another

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 249

The parties met on the 21st of September, near
the telegraph on Putney Heath, Lord Castlereagh
attended by Lord Yarmouth (afterward Marquis
of Hertford), and Mr. Canning by Charles Ellis
(afterward Lord Seaford). Having taken their
ground (in sight of the windows of the house where
Pitt died !), they fired by signal, and missed. The
seconds endeavored to effect an accommodation,
but failed, and they then declared that, after a sec-
ond shot, they would retire from the field. The
principals again fired, and Lord Castlereagh's ball
entered Mr. Canning's thigh on the outer side of
the bone. According to some accounts of the meet-
ing, they were placed to fire again, when the sec-
onds, seeing the blood streaming from Mr. Canning's
wound, interfered, and so the affair ended.* Mr.
Canning afterward published an account of the
whole transaction, which was rendered necessary
by certain statements published by Lord Camden.
Lord Castlereagh's secretary also issued a " detail,"
as he described it, " of the original cause of the
animosity," which was answered by a " statement"
from Mr. Canning.

Mr. Canning's wound was fortunately slight, and
after a short confinement at his house, Gloucester

place, he ascribes the challenge to his lordship's " Irish education
and habits," p. 427. These censures are inconsistent. The Irish
habit is more hasty and hot-blooded. If Lord Castlereagh did de-
liberate for twelve days, it must have been because his quick na-
ture had undergone a sea-change. Sir Samuel Romilly blamed
both parties. He says that Lord Castlereagh's " honor" was in
no way impeached by what had happened, and that Mr. Canning
deserves censure for accepting a challenge upon such grounds. —
" Memoirs," ii., 300. The leading Tory publication took the same
view of the false conclusion drawn by Lord Castlereagh from his
own premises.

* Wilberforce tells us that two pistols, thrown away by the

combatants, were found upon the ground, and that Lord

picked up one of them and carried it off, his gardener securing
the other.

250 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

Lodge, in Brompton, he was sufficiently recovered
to attend the Levee on the 11th of October, and
resign the seals of the Foreign Office into the hands
of his majesty. Mr. Huskisson resigned with him,
nobly sacrificing his ambition to his friendship.*
The infirm Duke of Portland, shattered and
wrecked by these disasters, went into retirement
and died. The administration was at an end.

X.

GLOUCESTER LODGE. MEMORABILIA.

Ranelagh was in its meridian glory about the
middle of the eighteenth century. The crowds of
people it drew westward, steaming along the roads
on horseback and afoot, suggested to some enter-
prising spectator the manifest want of a place of
half-way entertainment that might tempt the tired
pleasure-hunter to rest a while on his way home,
or, perhaps, entice him from the prosecution of his
remoter expedition on his way out. The spot was
well chosen for the execution of this sinister design.
It lay between Brompton and Kensington, just far
enough from town to make it a pleasant resting-
point for the pedestrian, and near enough to Ran-
elagh to make it a formidable rival. Sometimes
of a summer's evening there might be heard the
voices of brass instruments, coming singing in the
wind over the heads of the gay groups that were
flaunting on the high road, or through the fields on

* " Speeches of the Rt. Hon. W. Huskisson," p. 51. There
never was a more disinterested proof of attachment, for Mr. Hus-
kisson's office (under-eecretary to the treasury) was in no way in-
volved in the quarrel, and Mr. Perceval in vain entreated him to
remain. Mr. Sturges Bourne gave a similar testimony of his
friendship by resigning at the same time.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 251

their excursion to Ranelagh ; and sometimes, de-
coyed by the sound, they would follow it, thinking
they, had mistaken the path, and never discover
their mistake until they found themselves in the
bosky recesses of Florida Gardens.

Florida Gardens, laid out in the manner of Ran-
elagh and Vauxhall, and the Mulberry Garden of
old, flourished about sixty years ago : after that
time, the place fell into waste and neglect, although
the site was agreeable and even picturesque in its
arrangements. It was bought by the Duchess of
Gloucester, who built a handsome residence upon
it, which, being in the Italian style, was at first
called Villa Maria; but subsequently, in conse-
quence of the duchess making the house her con-
stant resort in the summer months, became gen-
erally known by the name of Gloucester Lodge.
Her royal highness died here in 1S07, and Mr. Can-
ning purchased her interest in the estate from her
daughter, the Princess Sophia.

It was in this charming retreat — profoundly still,

" With overarching elms,
And violet banks where sweet dreams brood" —

that Mr. Canning, during the long interval which
now elapsed before he returned to office, passed
the greater part of his leisure. We avail ourselves
of this interval of repose to group together, with a
disregard for chronological unity, which we hope
the reader will not be disinclined to tolerate, a few
waifs and strays of personal and domestic interest,
otherwise inadmissible to an audience without risk
of intrusion. There are parentheses of idle fancy
and memory-gossip in every man's life — wet days
when he turns over old letters at the fireside — or
indolent sunny days, when he can do nothing but
bask in the golden mists and run the round of his
youth over again in his imagination. Such lazy

252 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

hours may be fairly represented by a few indulgent
pages of disjointed memorabilia.

The grounds of Gloucester Lodge were shut in
by trees. All was seclusion the moment the gates
closed. " The drawing-room," says Mr. Rush,
" opened on a portico from which you walked out
upon one of those smoothly-shaven lawns which
Johnson, speaking of Pope's poetry, likens to vel-
vet." Here Mr. Canning received the most dis-
tinguished persons of his time, Gloucester Lodge
acquiring, under the influence of his accomplished
taste, the highest celebrity for its intellectual re-
unions. His own feelings always led him to prefer
home parties, and, as has already been noticed, he
rarely went abroad, except among close friends or
on occasions of ceremony. His private life was
not merely blameless, but quite admirable ; he was
idolized by his family ; and yet, says a noble con-
temporary, such was the ignorance or malevolence
of the paragraph writers, that he was described as
a " diner-out."*

The wit which sparkled at these entertainments
was of the highest order : but there was something
even better than wit — a spirit of enjoyment, gay,
genial, and playful. Mr. Rush gives us an amusing
account of a scene which took place at a dinner at
Gloucester Lodge, immediately after the breaking
up of Parliament. Several members of the dip-
lomatic corps were present. Canning, Huskisson,
and Robinson were like birds let out of a cage.
There was a great deal of sprightly small talk, and
after sitting a long time at table, Canning proposed
that they should play at " Twenty Questions."
They had never heard of this game, which con-
sisted in putting twenty questions to find out the
object of your thoughts, something to be selected
* " Historical Sketches," &c. By Lord Brougham.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 253

within certain prescribed limits. It was arranged
that Mr. Canning, assisted by the chancellor of the
exchequer, was to ask the questions, and Mr. Rush,
assisted by Lord Grenville, was to give the answers
— the representatives of, probably, nearly all the
monarchs of Europe, and the principal ministers
of England, watching the result in absolute sus-
pense. The secret was hunted through a variety
of dextrous shifts and evasions, until Canning had
at last exhausted his twenty questions. " He sat
silent for a minute or two," says Mr. Rush ; " then,
rolling his rich eye about, and with his countenance
a little anxious, and, in an accent by no means over-
confident, he exclaimed, ' I think it must be the
wand of the lord-high-steward !' " And it was even
so. A burst of approbation followed his success,
and the diplomatic people pleasantly observed that
they must not let him ask them too many questions
at the Foreign Office, lest he might find out every
secret they had !

But Mr. Canning was not always in such glorious
moods after dinner. His animal spirits sometimes
sank under the weight of his public responsibilities.
Rush was dining with him one day, when he held
the seals of the Foreign Office, and the conversa-
tion happening to turn upon Swift, he desired Mr.
Planta to take down " Gulliver's Travels" and
read the account of the storm on the passage to
Brobdignag, so remarkable for its nautical accuracy.
It describes the sailors when " the sea broke strange
and dangerous, hauling off the laniard of the whip-
staff, and helping the man at the helm." Canning
sat silent for a few moments, and then, in arevery,
repeated several times, " And helped the man at
the helm — and helped the man at the helm !"

On another occasion, Mr. Rush takes us after
dinner into the drawing-room, where " some of the

Y

254 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

company found pastime in turning over the leaves
of caricatures bound in large volumes. They went
back to the French Revolutionary period. Kings,
princes, cabinet ministers, members of Parliament,
every body figured in them. It was a kind of his-
tory of England, in caricature, for five-and-twenty
years. Need I add, that our accomplished host
was on many a page? He stood by. Now and
then he threw in a word, giving new point to the
scenes."* Mr. Rush does not appear to have been
aware that these volumes of caricatures contained
the works of the famous Gilray, an artist of coarse
mind, but of rapid invention, great humor, and
original genius. Gilray helped very materially to
sustain Mr. Canning's popularity, if he did not act-
ually extend and improve it. Mr. Canning fre-
quently gave him valuable suggestions, which he
worked out with unfailing tact and whimsicality,
making it a point of honor, as well as of gratitude
and admiration, to give Mr. Canning in return, on
all occasions, an advantageous position in his de-
signs. The importance of having the great cari-
caturist of the day on his side is nearly as great to
a public man, especially to one assailed by envy and
detraction, as that ascribed by Swift to the ballads
of a nation. Gilray always turned the laugh against
Mr. Canning's opponents, and never forgot to dis-
play his friend and patron in an attitude that car-
ried off the applause of the spectators. In one of
his sketches he represents Mr. Canning aloft in the
chariot of Anti-Jacobinism, radiant with glory,
driving the sans culotte mob before him ; nor did
Mr. Canning, on the other hand, omit any opportu-
nity of drawing Mr. Gilray into favorable notice.
In the satire upon Addington, called " The Grand
Consultation," Gilray's caricature of " Dramatic
* " Residence at the Court of London, First Series," p. 233-4.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 255

Royalty ; or, the Patriotic Courage of Sherry An-
drew," is particularly alluded to in the following
verse :

" And instead of the jack-pudding bluster of Sherry,
And his ' dagger of lath,' and his speeches so merry !
Let us bring to the field — every foe to appall —
Aldini's galvanic deceptions, and all

The sleight of hand tricks of Conjuror Val."

Canning's passion for literature entered into all
his pursuits. It colored his whole life. Every mo-
ment of leisure was given up to books. He and
Pitt were passionately fond of the classics, and we
find them together of an evening, after a dinner at
Pitt's, poring over some old Grecian in a corner of
the drawing-room, while the rest of the company
are dispersed in conversation.* Fox had a similar
love of classical literature, but his wider sympathies
embraced a class of works in which Pitt never ap-
pears to have exhibited any interest. Fox was a
devourer of novels, and into this region Mr. Can-
ning entered with gusto. In English writings, his
judgment was pure and strict ; and no man was a
more perfect master of all the varieties of compo-
sition. He was the first English minister who ban-
ished the French language from our diplomatic cor-
respondence, and vindicated before Europe the co-
piousness and dignity of our native tongue.t He
had a high zest for the early vigorous models in all
styles, and held in less estimation the more ornate
and refined. Writing to Scott about the " Lady of
the Lake," he says that, on a repeated perusal, he
is more and more delighted with it ; but that he
wishes he could induce him to try the effect of " a
more full and sweeping style" — to present himself
" in a Drydenic habit. "£ His admiration of Dry-
den, whom he pronounced to be " the perfection of

* " Life of Wilberforce," ii, 34. t " Quarterly Review," 1827.
% " Life of Scott," hi., 265-G.

256 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

harmony,"* and his preference of that poet of gi-
gantic mould over the melodists of the French
school, may be suggested as an evidence of the
soundness and strength of his judgment.

Yet it is remarkable, that with this broad sense
of great faculties in others, he was himself fastidi-
ous to excess about the slightest turns of expres-
sion. He would correct his speeches, and amend
their verbal graces, till he nearly polished out the
original spirit. He was not singular in this. Burke,
whom he is said to have closely studied, did the
same. Sheridan always prepared his speeches ;
the highly-wrought passages in the speech on Hast-
ing's impeachment were written beforehand and
committed to memory; and the differences were so
marked, that the audience could readily distinguish
between the extemporaneous passages and those
that were premeditated. Mr. Canning's alterations
were frequently so minute and extensive, that the
printers found it easier to recompose the matter
afresh in type than to correct it. This difficulty of
choice in diction sometimes springs from Vembar-
ras des richcsses, but oftener from poverty of re-
sources, and generally indicates a class of intellect
which is more occupied with costume than ideas.
But here are three instances which set all popular
notions on this question of verbal fastidiousness by
the ears; for certainly Burke, Canning, and Sher-
idan were men of capacious talents, and two of
them, at least, present extraordinary examples of im-
agination and practical judgment, running together
neck and neck in the race of life to the very goal.

Mr. Canning's opinions on the subject of public
speaking afford a useful commentary upon his prac-
tice. He used to say that speaking in the House
of Commons must take conversation for its basis ;
* "Life of Scott,' iii., 321.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 257

tnat a studious treatment of topics was out of place.
The House of Commons is a working body, jeal-
ous and suspicious of embellishments in debate,
which, if used at all, ought to be spontaneous and
unpremeditated. Method is indispensable. Top-
ics ought to be clearly distributed and arranged ;
but this arrangement should be felt in the effect,
and not betrayed in the manner. But above all
things, first and last, he maintained that reasoning
was the one essential element. Oratory in the
House of Lords was totally different ; it was ad-
dressed to a different atmosphere — a different class
of intellects — more elevated, more conventional.
It was necessary to be more ambitious and elabo-
rate, although some of the chief speakers had been
formed in the Commons. He thought the average
speaking in the Peers better than that in the Low-
er House, one reason for which was, perhaps, that
the House was less miscellaneous, and better
stocked with thoroughly-educated men.

His own speeches can never be cited in illustra-
tion of the system he recommended for the popular
branch of the Legislature. Yet, although his elo-
quence was elevated far above the average imagi-
nation and acquirements of his audience, it never
perplexed their understandings. The argument
was always clear ; he kept that to the level of their
practical intelligence, and all the rest only went to
raise their enthusiasm or to provoke their passions.
Wilberforce, who was at least unprejudiced, says
that Canning " never drew you to him in spite of
yourself," as Pitt and Fox used to do, yet that he
was a more finished orator than either. As far as
this goes, it is quite just. Canning had less earn-
estness than Pitt or Fox ; there was less abandon
in his speeches, less real emotion ; but he was a
greater master of his art, and commanded remoter
17 Y 2

258 THE L.1EE OF CANNING.

and more various resources. His wit transcended
all comparison with any orator of his time. His
humor was irresistible. Wilberforce went home
crying with laughter after his account of Lord
Nu gent's journey to lend the succor of his person
(Lord Nugent being, as every body knows, not a
very light weight) to constitutional Spain. The
light horseman's uniform — the heavy Falmouth
coach — threw the House into convulsions, just as
if it had been an assembly of pantomimic imps
lighted up with laughing gas. The passage will
stand by itself, without introduction, as a capital
specimen of the best-humored political raillery.
There is not a particle of ill-nature in it ; and it
had no other effect on Lord Nugent (whose own
nature was incapable of a small resentment) than
that of increasing his high opinion of Mr. Canning's
great powers. Lord Nugent was long afterward
one or Mr. Canning's warmest supporters.

" It was about the middle of last July that the heavy
Falmouth coach — (loud and long-continued laughter) —
that the heavy Falmouth coach — (laughter) — was ob-
served traveling to its destination through the roads of
Cornwall with more than its usual gravity. (Very loud
laughter.) There were, according to the best advices,
two inside passengers — (laughter) — one a lady of no con-
siderable dimensions — (laughter) — and a gentleman, who,
as it had been since ascertained, was conveying the suc-
cor of his person to Spain. (Cheers and laughter.) I
am informed, and, having no reason to doubt my inform
ant, I firmly believe it, that in the van belonging to the
coach — (gentlemen must know the nature and uses of
that auxiliary to the regular stage-coaches) — was a box,
more bulky than ordinary, and of most portentous eon-
tents — it was observed, that after their arrival; this box
and the passenger before mentioned became inseparable.
The box was known to have contained the uniform of a
Spanish general of cavalry — (much laughter) — and it was
said of the helmet, which was leyond the usual size, that

I*HE LIFE OF CANNING. 259

it exceeded all other helmets spoken of in history, not
excepting the celebrated helmet in the ' Castle of Otran-
to.' (Cheers and laughter.) The idea of going to the
relief of a fortress blockaded by sea, and besieged by
land, with jhe uniform of a light cavalry officer, was
new, to say the least, of it. About this time the force
offered by the hon. gentleman, which had never existed
but on paper, was in all probability expected — I will not
stay to determine whether it was to have cons-isted of
10,000 or 5000 men. No doubt, upon the arrival of the
general and his uniform, the Cortes must have rubbed
their hands with satisfaction, and concluded that now the
promised force was come, they would have little more
to fear. (Laughter.) It did come, as much of it as
ever would be seen by the Cortes or the king; but it
came in that sense and no other, which was described
by a witty nobleman, George, duke of Buckingham, whom
the noble lord opposite (Lord Nugent) reckoned among
his lineal ancestors. In the play of the Rehearsal, there
was a scene occupied with the designs of two usurpers,
to whom one of their party, entering, says,

« Sirs,
The army at the door, but in disguise,
Entreats a word of both your majesties.'

(Very loud and continued laughter.) Such must have
been the effect of the arrival of the noble lord. How he
was received, or what effect he operated on the coun-
sels and affairs of the Cortes by his arrival, I do not know.
Things were at that juncture moving too rapidly to their
final issue. How far the noble lord conduced to the ter-
mination by plumping his weight into the sinking scale
of the Cortes, is too nice a question for me just now to
settle." (Loud cheers and laughter.)

" Canning's drollery of voice and manner," says
Wilberforce, " were inimitable. There is a lisrht-
ing up of his features, and a comic play about the
mouth, when the full force of the approaching wit-
ticism strikes his own mind, which prepares you
for the burst which is to follow."* This quality
of humor was not within the range of Pitt or Fox.

* " Life of Wilberforce," v., 217.

260 TI1U LIFE OF CANNING.

In descriptive power, and in the higher uses of
imagination, Canning certainly excelled all his
contemporaries, except Burke ; and it is doubtful
whether he was not more judicious even than
Burke in his choice of the occasion. The follow-
ing well-known passage from his speech at Plym-
outh, in 1823, may be cited as perfect in its kind:

" Our present repose is no more a proof of inability to
act than the state of inertness and inactivity in which I
have seen those mighty masses that float in the waters
above your town is a proof they are devoid of strength,
and incapable of being fitted out for action. You well
know, gentlemen, how soon one of those stupendous mass-
es, now reposing in their shadows, in perfect stillness —
how soon, upon any call of patriotism or necessity, it
would assume the likeness of an animated being, instinct
with life and motion — how soon it would ruffle, as it were,
its swelling plumage — how quickly it would put forth all
its beauty and its bravery, collect its scattered elements
of strength, and awaken its dormant thunder ; such is
one of those magnificent machines when springing from
inaction into a display of its might ; such is England her-
self, while, apparently passive and motionless, she silent-
ly concentrates the power to be put forth on an adequate
occasion."

The facility with which Canning could bring his
fancy to bear upon the driest subjects, without suf-
fering them to lose a jot of their importance, is
marvel ously illustrated in his speech on the Re-
port of the Bullion Committee. " Of hit; powers
of argumentation," observes Lord Brougham, "his
capacity for the pursuits of abstract science, his
genius for adorning the least attractive subjects,
there remains an imperishable record in his cele-
brated speeches on the currency, of all his efforts
the most brilliant and the most happy."* Mackin-
tosh said to him, that he incorporated in his mind

* <»

Historical Sketches." Art. Canning, p. 278.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 261

all the eloquence and wisdom of ancient literature.
He thought Canning and Plunkett the finest ora-
tors of their time ; and that Canning, especially,
excelled in language.

Had he cultivated the bar, his great talents for
speaking to evidence, and for dissecting the cir-
cumstantial bearings of a case — developed so suc-
cessfully in his speech on Colonel Wardle's motion
respecting the Duke of York — must have carried
him to the highest eminence. But he never liked
the profession, although he struggled hard in his
youth to devote himself to it, and to overcome his
early 'passion for the House of Commons. In a
private letter written to a college friend,* while
he was at Oxford (Sept. 1st, 1788), he fully con-
fesses this besetting desire, and his resolution to
wrestle with its influence. The glimpse of char-
acter we get in the following passage from this let-
ter is striking :

" I am already, God knows, too much inclined, both by
my own sanguine wishes and the connection withw hom
1 am most intimate, and whom I, above all others, re-
vere, to aim at the House of Commons as the only path
to the only desirable thing in this world — the gratification
of ambition ; while at the same time every tie of com-
mon sense, of fortune, and of duty, draws me to the study
of a profession. The former propensity, I hope, reflec-
tion, necessity, and the friendly advice and very marked
attention of the deanf will enable me to overcome ; and
to the law I look as the profession which, in this coun-
try, holds out every enticement that can nerve the ex-
ertions, and give vigor to the power of a young man.
The way, indeed, is long, toilsome, and rugged ; but it
leads to honors solid and lasting ; to independence, with-

* Mr. John Frank Newton.

t The gentleman here alluded to was Dr. Cyril Jackson, dean
of Christ Church, who entertained the highest opinion of Mr.
Canning's talents, and looked forward confidently to the high des-
tiny which awaited him.

262 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

out which no blessings of fortune, however profuse, no
distinctions of station, however splendid, can afford a lib-
eral mind true satisfaction; to power, for which no task
can be too hard, no labors too trying."

The serious aims of eighteen, expressed in so di-
dactic and formal a style, are characteristic. With
what concentrated power and perseverance the
writer followed up his purpose, we have seen; and
had it not been for the unfortunate difference with
Lord Castlereagh, and for that irascible and haugh-
ty temper which kept Mr. Canning so long aloof
from the government, while Lord Castlereagh's
more ductile disposition speedily accommodated it-
self to every change, he would have attained the
summit of his ambition much earlier, and with less
cost of suffering and resentment.

At this time Mr. Canning, strange to say, was ig-
norant of French. He had frequently resolved to
set about it, but never could find the right moment
to begin. In this letter to his friend he expresses
his determination to carry into effect a plan he had
formerly laid down for accomplishing his purpose.
Mr. Newton (to whom the letter was addressed)
had invited his correspondent to accompany him on
his return to the West Indies, where Mr. Newton's
family lived. The object of the invitation was to
give Mr. Canning, who had taken a great interest
in the slave question while he was at Oxford, the
opportunity of personally investigating the condi-
tion of the negro.

" The return you mention to me with you is a pleas-
ing fairy scheme, but which, then at least, will not be
put in execution. My plans for next summer are fixed,
and I think will be improving and agreeable. You may
know that I am shamefully ignorant of French, and
though I have fifty times formed the intention of learn-
ing it, I never yet have brought my intention to the ma-
turity of practical application. By this time twelve-

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 263

month I intend to procure a smattering sufficient to call
a coach or swear at a waiter, and then to put into exe-
cution a plan formed long ago, in happier days, of going
abroad with my three fellow-scribes the Microcosmopol-
itans. Our idea is not that of scampering through France
and ranting in Paris, but a sober sort of thing — to go and
settle for two months in some provincial town, remark-
able for the salubrity of its climate, the respectability of
its inhabitants, and the purity of its language ; there to
improve our constitutions by the first ; to extend our ac-
quaintance with men and manners by the second, and to
qualify ourselves for a farther extension of it by perfect-
ing ourselves in the third."

This sensible design, so very much in the spirit
of the " Microcosm" itself, Mr. Canning is said to
have fulfilled.* Be that as it may, he was a perfect
master of French long before he made his way into
the Foreign Office under Lord Grenville.

* " New Monthly Magazine," 1828. A writer in this publica-
tion says that Mr. Canning carried the project into effect, and
mentions Mr. R. Smith, Mr. Frere, and Mr. George Ellis as the
three Microcosrnopolitans who accompanied him. There must
be some mistake in this statement. Mr. George Ellis was not a
Microcosmopolitan. He was educated at Westminster School
and Trinity College, Cambridge ; and although a close intimacy
afterward existed between him and Mr. Canning, there is no evi-
dence to show that they ever met until after both had left college.
Mr. Ellis was one of the wits of the " Rolliad," and afterward, on
the other side, of the " Anti-Jacobin." There is an anecdote re-
lated of him and Pitt, that, at their first interview, Canning made
some amusing allusions to the " Rolliad," which embarrassed El-
lis, as they were probably intended to do, when Pitt very good-
humoredly turned round and said,

" Immo age et a prima, die hospes origine nobis.
Mr. Ellis, however, is remembered by more permanent contribu-
tions to our literature — 'his " Specimens" of the early English Po-
ets, and of the early Prose Romances. Of his labors in these
works it has been judiciously remarked, that " others dug deeper
for materials ; but he alone gave vivacity to antiquities, and dif-
fused those graces of literature and society, which were peculiar-
ly his own, over the rudest remains of barbarism." Mr. Ellis was
known to have been engaged for some time on a life of Windham,
but ill health appears to have interrupted its completion. The
latter part of his life was imbittered by severe maladies, and his
sick-chamber was often cheered by the presence of his friend
Canning. He died in 1815. at the age of seventy.

264 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

The letter runs on in the same gossiping confi-
dential vein, giving us a glimpse of some of his
contemporaries, and of that college weariness
which grows out of the departure of familiar faces.

" This scheme I have always looked forward to with
delight, and do so now more than ever, on account of the
dull avenue of. four Oxford terms through which I have
to approach its execution. To say the truth, Oxford is
so completely uncongenial with my wishes and habits of
mind and body, that I dread, even at this distance, my
return to it. There are literally not five faces there
which I have any very ardent desire ever to behold
again. "Wallace is gone, Western is gone, Newton is
gone, and why am not I gone ? I expect, however, at
my return, a small cargo of Etonians, who will in some
measure comfort me for the utter emptiness and unami-
ableness of the generality of the good folks whom Christ
Church can boast. I have also taken it into my head
that I shall receive * * * into favor again. The truth
about him is, that he is not without good points ; his
heart has some worth, his abilities very considerable em-
inence. . . . His character is far above that most nause-
ous of all things — insipidity, and negative good or evil.
As a competitor, he was troublesome and worth crush-
ing ; but that once done, and I can assure you it cost me
some pains to accomplish it, 'his good now blazes; all
his bad is in the grave,' as Zanga says. W. S. has
again left Oxford, and I fancy forever. He is, I hear,
gone abroad, but whither I know not. Pity that abili-
ties so great should be rendered useless to himself and
to society by such an eccentricity of temper and unac-
countableness of behavior as characterizes him."*

The letter from which these extracts have been
taken presents another feature of interest — an ac-

* The W. S. was, no doubt, William Spencer, the Devonshire
House poet, who was a member of Christ Church. Mr. Wallace
was afterward raised to the peerage, with the title of Baron Wal-
lace. He was a son of a former attorney-general. Western (the
only son of Mr. Western, of Cokethorpe Hall, Oxfordshire) dis-
tinguished himself at Eton, and was one of Canning's most inti-
mate associates. He died early.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 265

count of the fate of a little debating club which was
formed at Christ Church, and to which allusion has
been already made * Mr. Newton, who was one
of the members, tells us that it was established in
17S7, and consisted of Jenkinson, Canning, Lord
Henry Spencer, Drummond (afterward Sir Will-
iam, and some time British embassador at Con-
stantinople), Charles Goddard,f and himself. It
was, in fact, a " Speaking Society," and came to
be called a club by courtesy.

" This club," says Mr. Newton, " in which were heard
the first speeches ever composed or delivered by Lord
Liverpool and Mr. Canning, met every Thursday even-
ing at the rooms of the members, who were at its first
establishment limited to the number of six. Before our
separation at night, or frequently at one or two o'clock in
the morning, we voted and recorded the question which
we were to debate on the ensuing Thursday ."J

Mr. Newton is probably correct in assigning to
Christ Church the honor of Lord Liverpool's first
speeches; but Canning had appeared as an orator
at a still earlier period in the Debating Society at
Eton. This Oxford Club was a close secret. Its
members adopted a uniform — a brown coat of a
singular shade, with velvet cuffs and collar, and but-
tons bearing the initials of Demosthenes, Cicero,
Pitt, and Fox ! The members used to dine some-
times in their club costume in the hall, to pique
the curiosity of their fellow-students. The mystery
was well kept for a time ; but it seems from the
following narrative that it was betrayed at last.

The whole passage possesses a peculiar value.

* Ante, p. 60.

f Goddard became private secretary to Lord Grenville, at whose
house, in St. James's Square, his college friends used to visit him.
He was afterward Archdeacon of Lincoln.

X " Early Days of the Right Honorable George Canning. By
John Frank Newton, Esq." 1828.

z

266 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

It shows clearly and unequivocally Mr. Canning's
college politics ; establishes his connection with
the party in opposition to that with which Jenkin-
son was associated ; and goes even so far as to
make a distinct " profession" of principles. Can-
ning and Jenkinson were, in fact, looked upon at
Christ Church as the representatives of Tory and
Whig opinions, and were " pitted" against each
other accordingly, with all the amicable rivalry and
emulation natural to such youthful struggles. The
Parliamentary tact with which Canning acted in
this matter of the club must strike the reader as
the foreshadowing of his spirit, looking out into its
future career. Had the interests of Europe been
at stake, he could not have conducted himself with
more diplomatic caution.

" You will be a good deal surprised at the answer
which your questions relative to the club will receive.
That club, Newton, is no more. ' And what dread event ?
what sacrilegious hand?' you will exclaim. Newton,
mine. My reasons I never gave to any of the members,
but I will open them to you. What my reasons for first
becoming a part of the institution were, I protest I can
not at present call to mind. Perhaps I was inflamed by
the novelty of the plan, perhaps influenced by your ex-
ample ; perhaps I was not quite without an idea of try-
ing my strength with Jenkinson. Connected with men
of avowed enmity in the political world, professing oppo-
site principles, and looking forward to some distant pe-
riod when we might be ranged against each other on a
larger field, we were, perhaps, neither of us without the
vanity of wishing to obtain an early ascendency over the

other.

*****

" So long as the purport and usage of the club were a
secret, I was very well contented to be of it ; but when
it became notoriously known, when the dean to me (and
to me only) in private recommended some reasons against
its propriety to my serious consideration — (for had he

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 267

presumed to interpose authoritatively, that single cir-
cumstance, ' albeit considerations infinite did make against
it,' would have been sufficient to determine me upon its
continuance) — when he represented it to me in a very
strong light, as being almost an absolute avowal of Par-
liamentary views — to a professional man an avowal the
most dangerous — this representation made me resolve to
abandon an undertaking which I saw evidently would
neither promise eventual advantage nor maintain a tem-
porary respectability. Thus resolved, at my return af-
ter the Easter vacation, without any previous confiden-
tial communication of my reasons or my intentions, I
sent my resignation by Lord Henry on the first night of
their meeting. William Spencer was now come, and
was that night to take his seat. The message which
Lord Henry brought occasioned, as it were, a combus-
tion, which ended in the moving of some very violent
resolutions. Among others, I was summoned to the bar ;
of course, refused to obey the summons. A deputation
was then sent to interrogate me respecting the causes
of my resignation, which of course I refused to reveal ;
and they were at last satisfied by my declaring that the
reason of my resignation did not affect them collectively
or individually. I of course was anxious that every body
should know that I was no longer a member of the club ;
and therefore, whenever it was a subject of conversa-
tion, disavowed my connection with it. Lord Henry I
with much difficulty prevented from resigning at the
same time that I did. He, however, attended but two
more debates, and then formally ' accepted the Chiltern
Hundreds,' to use a Parliamentary phrase. They now
all unanimously gave out that there had been a complete
dissolution, and that the thing was no longer in exist-
ence ; altered their times and modes of meeting : abol-
ished the uniform, and suspended their assemblies for a
time. This, it seems, was intended to punish me, by
carrying the face of a common, and not a particular se-
cession. It was not long, however, before the truth came
out, and their mighty debates are again renewed, not
undiscovered ; but with less pomp, regularity, numbers,
and vociferation. This, then, is a full and true account

268 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

of the decline and fall, and of the revival also, of the so-
ciety. I do not think you can blame my conduct when
you recollect that the imputation of Parliamentary pros-
pects, already too much fixed upon me, is what, of all
others, a person in my situation ought to avoid."

Mr. Canning's humor was incessantly exploding
in hon-mots and repartees. He could talk epigrams.
He was so prolific a producer of " good things,"
that if he had not been pre-eminently distinguished
as an orator and statesman, he might have descend-
ed to us with a more dazzling social reputation
than Buckingham or Waller. The lines on Mr.
Whitbread's speech, thrown off like flashes of light,
show how rapidly and successfully he could cast
his jest into any shape he pleased. Here are two
more trifles redeemed from manuscript, and pre-
served in this place, not for their merit, but their
flavor; as certain common herbs are dropped into
the daintiest potage, merely to impart to it a soupqon
of their aroma.

The subject of this epigram was a Mr. Douglas,
son of the Bishop of Salisbury, a man six feet two
inches in height, and of enormous bulk. This im-
mense gentleman was one of the greatest gour-
mands of his day, and used to move onward, not
walk, like a mountain. The little boys at Oxford
always gathered about him when he went into the
streets, to gaze upward at his towering bulk ; when
he would cry out, characteristically enough, " Get
out of my way, you little scamps, or I will roll upon

you."

I.

" That the stones of our chapel are both black and white
Is most undeniably true,
But as Douglas walks over them morning and night,
It's a wonder they're not black and blue."

II.

" There's a difference between
A bishop and a dean,

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 269

And I'll tell you the reason why :

A dean can not dish up
A dinner like a bishop,

Or breed such a fat son as I."

Mr. Canning's political occupations absorbed too
much time to permit him to indulge his literary am-
bition in any extensive undertaking ; but he always
manifested a zealous interest in the advancement
of letters. The " Quarterly Review" received its
first impulse from his hand. The plan was sub-
mitted to him, and having received his approval,
was carried out under his sanction, assisted by the
Ellises, Malthus, Mathias, Gifford, and Heber. Mr.
Canning- himself was one of its most distinguished
contributors.

He was one of the forty members of the Literary
Club founded by Reynolds and Johnson ; but he
did not content himself with the holyday processions
and festivals of literature. The Royal Institution
of Liverpool was largely assisted by his active ex-
ertions ; and he was a liberal patron of the Liter-
ary Fund, which reckons among its white days an
anniversary at which Canning and Chateaubriand
met. It was on this occasion that the latter, at that
time the representative of his sovereign in this
country, publicly stated, with a frankness no less
honorable to himself than to the admirable institu-
tion he addressed, that when he had formerly been
an exile in England, without friends or resources,
he was indebted to the prompt sympathy of the
Literary Fund for the most efficient assistance,
without which timely aid, he said, he should never
have lived to enjoy the honors which afterward
awaited him at home. There was a strong senti-
ment of personal regard between Chateaubriand
and Mr. Canning, generated by mutual tastes and
accomplishments. During a part of the time when

Z2

270 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

Canning was Foreign Secretary, Chateaubriand
held a similar office in France ; and the correspond-
ence of the two secretaries was conducted through-
out this period with extraordinary care. Canning
used to set up till two or three o'clock in the morn-
ing over his dispatches, to give them a more elab-
orate finish than usual, from his high sense of the
literary character of his correspondent. To this
feeling of emulation we owe some of the noblest
state documents in our national archives.

He never suffered an opportunity to escape of
promoting the welfare of literary men or their con-
nections. Soon after Sir Walter Scott had become
involved in pecuniary troubles, Mr. Canning, under-
standing that he was to meet him at dinner at Mr.
Croker's, wrote privately to Sir William Knighton,
for the purpose of interesting his majesty before-
hand on behalf of Sir Walter's son. " I shall be
glad," he said, " to have the protection of the king's
commands in doing an act of kindness by Malachi
Malagrowther." On another occasion, James Mill,
the historian of India, a conspicuous Radical, a man
of distinguished intellectual power, the friend of
Bentham, and the most prominent writer in the
" Westminster Review" (items not very recom-
mendatory to the government of the day), was one
of the candidates for the examinership in the civil
service of the East India Company, a situation of
c£2500 per annum. The Tories besought Canning
to use all his influence against him. Canning re-
fused. He could not see why Mill's Radicalism
should prevent him from being the best of all pos-
sible examiners. These are slight facts, but they
disclose fine traits of character, as fragments of ore
on the surface indicate the rich veins that lie below.

The concern he felt in the interests of persons
who possessed any claims to be considered as con-

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 271

.nected with literature exposed him occasionally to
some misrepresentations. He was charged by his
political enemies with exercising a closer influence
over particular newspapers than was consistent
with his position. Lady Hester Stanhope tells us
that Pitt used to complain of him for repeating his
conversations to people who published them in the
" Oracle." But Lady Hester's anecdotes must be
taken with due allowance for her constitutional vol-
ubility, and her tumultuous memory, which always
seemed at full flood, carrying down every thing that
fell into it with velocity and confusion. It is a curi-
ous set-off to this story that Lord Grenville made
the same complaint of Pitt, and actually took meas-
ures in the cabinet to put a stop to his talking.
Mr. Canning at that time was young, and may have
committed himself (although it is very unlikely) to
some indiscreet confidences : but he had high ex-
amples before him. If he admitted some of the
journalists to his acquaintance, with any view to
create or preserve a salutary influence in the press,
he acted upon a policy which had been practiced
by some of his most distinguished predecessors —
especially Sir Robert Walpole — to a much greater
extent.

There is one feature in Mr. Canning's life which
ought not to be forgotten in these desultory recol-
lections— his habitual observance of religious du-
ties. In this matter his character contrasts strong-
ly with that of Mr. Pitt, who was indifferent even
to the forms of religion. Mr. Canning was perfect-
ly sincere and unostentatious in his Christianity ;
maintaining its ordinances in his household with-
out a tincture of austerity or display. Wilberforce
confesses that he was surprised at Mr. Canning's
devotional sensibility. It happened, in 1817, that
he went with Canning, Huskisson, Lord Binning,

272 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

and others, to hear Dr. Chalmers preach at the-
Scotch Church, London Wall ; and he observed
Canning so deeply affected at times as to shed tears.
Wilberforce, who had a habit of thinking (like too
many very pious people) that religious emotion
and divine grace are special monopolies, was as-
tonished, and could hardly believe his eyes. " I
should have thought," he exclaimed, " that Can-
ning had been too much hardened in debate to
show such signs of feeling !"*

Mr. Canning's temper was irritable and anx-
ious, but wholly free from pettiness or malice. He
held no ill-will, he concealed no rancor. The real
fault was less in what he felt than in the heat and
arrogance of his manner and expressions. He
was the most open, but the most unsparing adver-
sary. He treated his opponents with haughtiness,
amounting sometimes almost to scorn. They could
have found some escape for their spleen from ev-
ery species of offense except this. Carried on too
fast by his genius, too proudly by his prosperity,
and by the homage that fluttered round his steps
wherever he moved, it was not much to wonder
at that he should have insensibly acquired a tone
of confidence and superiority which occasionally
betrayed him into disdainful excesses in debate.
It was thus when Mr. Brougham accused him of
gross tergiversation, that he started to his feet, and
in a voice of thunder, with fire flashing from his
eyes, exclaimed, " It is false !" But the provoca-
tion was heavy, and unexpected, and unwarrant-
ed, and no milder answer could have met the full
measure of the wrong.

Another instance was his encounter with Mr.
Hobhouse. But here there was a supposititious
ground of injury, which drew that fierce rejoinder
* " Life of Wilberforce," iv., 325.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 273

from Mr. Canning, in which he heaped scorn upon
scorn on " the honorable baronet and his man,"
and said that " in six months the demagogue, ad-
mitted to this assembly, finds his level and shrinks
to his proper dimensions." The cause of this ex-
plosion was a violent pamphlet grossly falsifying a
speech of Mr. Canning's, and denouncing the ut-
terer of it with the most furious invectives.* When
Mr. Canning read this philippic, he wrote a letter
to the anonymous author, through the medium of
the publisher, telling him " that he was a liar and
a slanderer, and wanted courage only to be an as-
sassin;" that no man knew of his writing to him,
and that he would wait for an answer till the fol-
lowing night. Of course no answer was ever re-
turned. This pamphlet was generally ascribed to
Mr. Hobhouse, and acting upon that impression,
Mr. Canning did not omit to deal summarily with
the supposed offender. Mr. Hobhouse took his re-
venge in his own way, by drawing a sketch of Mr.
Canning, in which it would not be very easy to
discover the likeness.

"A smart, six-form boy, the little hero of a little
world, matures his precocious parts at college, and sends
before him his fame to the metropolis : a minister, or
some borough-holder of the day, thinks him worth sav-
ing from his democratic associates, and from the unprof-
itable principles which the thoughtless enthusiasm of
youth may have inclined him hitherto to adopt. The
hopeless youth yields at once, and placed in the true line

* The speech was in reference to the case of a person named
William Ogden, who had been imprisoned during the suspension
of the Habeas Corpus Act. Great pains were taken to make it ap-
pear that this Ogden had endured the most monstrous cruelty
from his jailers, that he was seventy-four years of age, had sev-
enteen children, and was laboring under a painful malady which
the injuries he had suffered had greatly aggravated. There was
not a syllable of truth in the whole statement, and Mr. Canning
was accused of trifling with human suffering because he exposed
the impudent attempt to impose this audacious fabrication on the
credulity of Parliament.

18

274 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

of promotion, he takes his place with the more veteran
prostitutes of Parliament. There he minds his periods ;
there he balances his antitheses ; there he adjusts his
alliterations ; and, filling up the interstices of his pie-
bald patch -work rhetoric with froth and foam, this mas-
ter of pompous nothings becomes first favorite of the
great council of the nation."

Mr. Hobhouse, very innocently, and intending
something very different, betrayed the real secret
of all the spleen and jealousy Mr. Canning had to
resist through life. It was because he was the
" first favorite of the great council of the nation"
that men of false pretensions and selfish natures
shed their spite upon his path. They could not
endure his brightness — they could not bear to hear
Aristides called the Just. All this is very intelli-
gible. Leading minds at all times have paid this
penalty for being in advance, and must be content
to take their risk of being shot at from behind.

From the moment he obtained a clear opportu-
nity for carrying out his principles (unfortunately
for England, too near the close of his career), he
rose to a height of popularity never reached be-
fore by any member of his party. Fancy the rage
of the " mighty hunters" to see themselves dis-
tanced by his swifter blood. The Many, every
where, placed implicit confidence in his character
and the universality of his influence. If England
entered into a war in defense of Portugal, he prom-
ised her that she would find arrayed under her ban-
ners " all the discontented and restless spirit of
the age — all those who, whether justly or unjustly,
were dissatisfied with the state of their own coun-
tries." These classes all over the earth were his
" clients." His eloquence was identified with their
cause; his name was the watchword of deliverance:

" Where Andes, giants of the western star,
With meteor standard to the winds unfurlM,
Looks from his throne of clouds o'er half the world."

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 275

The gallantry of his bearing, his personal grace
and manliness, and the classical beauty and refine-
ment with which he was ideally associated in the
general imagination, secured for him the suffrages
of an influential section at home — a section rare-
ly interested in political affairs, but intimately con-
cerned in shaping and coloring public opinion.
The women of England were with him with their
whole hearts, as they are with every generous
champion of human freedom. It was a part of his
influence, this charm he exercised over the gentle
and trustful, and not the least important. He was
sometimes taunted with it — half in jest and half in
earnest. Every body who was capable of being
jealous of his fame was most jealous of it for tak-
ing that direction, as if it had conquered so much
neutral ground ! This was the strangest of all the
littlenesses to which he was exposed. Even Haz-
litt (a very bigoted hater of bigotry in others) found
something supercilious and egotistical to suggest
about it, and talks of Canning and the love-locks
of the Constitution!

276 THE LIFE OF CANNING'.

XI.

THE PERCEVAL ADMINISTRATION. DEATH OF PER-
CEVAL. THE LIVERPOOL CABINET. THE LIS-
BON EMBASSY. GEORGE IV.

Upon the retirement of the Duke of Portland,
Mr. Perceval undertook to replenish the cabinet.
He first applied to Lords Grey and Grenville, who
indignantly rejected his proposal as involving a der-
eliction of public principle. He protested he could
not see it ; Lord Liverpool could not see it. They
could see nothing but office straight before them,
with the door shut upon the papists.

He was more successful with the Marquis of
Wellesley, who had just returned from Spain, and
who accepted the Foreign Office, to the astonish-
ment of every body. Mr. Perceval himself absorb-
ed the premiership, in addition to the Exchequer.

It was under the auspices of this administration
that Mr. (now Sir Robert) Peel commenced his
Parliamentary career. He was selected by Mr.
Perceval to second the address, which was moved
by Lord Barnard, and, before the close of the year,
was appointed under-secretary in the Colonial
Department. Mr. Canning took very little part in
the proceedings of the first session. The principal
matter which interested him was the grant of an
annuity to the Duke of Wellington, which he en-
ergetically supported, and was mainly instrument-
al in obtaining.

Parliament met in the following November
(1810), under novel circumstances. The king was
insane. There was no speech for the houses — no
commission to meet them — no authority to pro-

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 277

rogue them. It was impossible to proceed to busi-
ness in the usual way. Without the customary-
sanction and formalities, this gathering of peers
and knights of the shire was, technically, not the
Parliament, but a convention of the estates. But
Parliament is too expert in the invention of techni-
cal difficulties not to know how to escape from
them. Nothing is impossible to Parliament. Noth-
ing can be impossible to Parliament, after the vote
on the Septennial Bill in 1716, by which it re-
elected itself for four years, without thinking it
necessary to trouble its constituents.

Parliament resolved itself into a committee on
the state of the nation ; and Mr. Perceval moved
several resolutions, the object of which was to settle
the means of acting in this emergency. These
resolutions determined the question so vehemently
disputed in 1788 and 1789, that Parliament alone
had the disposal of the regency ; and that the heir-
apparent had no more authority, without the sanc-
tion of Parliament, than any private gentleman in
the kingdom. Having decided upon the right of
Parliament to nominate the regency, it was next
proposed to confer the powers of the crown on the
Prince of Wales, with restrictions.

This question presented one of considerable em-
barrassment to Mr. Canning. Consistency de-
manded that he should follow the course which had
been formerly taken by Mr. Pitt, who contended
for the right of Parliament to appoint the regent,
and also for the policy of binding him within strict
limitations. But Mr. Canning, agreeing in the right,
was resolved to resist the restrictions. The diffi-
culty was to steer between these rocks — a task
which he performed with the most wary dexterity.

" The right of the two houses," he observed, " was
proclaimed and maintained by Mr. Pitt. This is the

A a ■

278 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

i

point on which his authority is truly valuable. * * * The
principles upon which this right was affirmed and exer-
cised, if true at all, are true universally, for all times and
on all occasions. If they were the principles of the Con-
stitution in 1788, they are equally so in 1811. The
lapse of twenty-two years has not impaired — the lapse
of centuries can not impair them. But the mode in
which the right so asserted should be exercised, the
precise provisions to be framed for the temporary sub-
stitution of the executive power — these were necessa-
rily then, as they must be now, matters not of eternal
and invariable principle, but of prudence and expedien-
cy. In regard to these, therefore, the authority of the
opinions of any individual, however great and wise, and
venerable, can be taken only with reference to the cir-
cumstances of the time in which he had to act, and are
not to be applied without change or modification to other
times and circumstances."

While the shade of Pitt was appeased by this
ample recognition of the abstract principle, the
living prince was apostrophized by the management
of its application. The policy of this proceeding
may readily be discerned, although it was also in-
spired by a higher motive. His royal highness had
not attempted to conceal his chagrin at the pro-
posed abridgment of the regal functions ; and the
next most likely event would be a new ministry.
An exclusive cabinet was no longer probable. The
Whigs were the natural successors to power, but
they could not succeed alone. These distant signs
on the horizon may have influenced Mr. Canning's
views ; but it is only fair to add that every con-
sideration which could be urged for the public wel-
fare lay on that side also.

If ever the hands of the sovereign, instead of
being fettered, required additional strength, it was
at this moment, when the whole force of Europe,
concentrated in one mighty arm, was raised aloft

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 279

in the air, threatening to descend upon us. Mr.
Perceval had not a single reasonable pretext for
the restrictions, but that when his majesty should
have recovered from the paralysis with which it
had pleased God to afflict his understanding, it
would be a great comfort to him to find all things
in his realm exactly as he had left them ; as if they
too had been stricken — more particularly his min-
istry. This was the second time within half a
century that the theory of monarchy was practi-
cally insulted by a high Tory minister.

But Mr. Perceval had good grounds for what he
did. He knew that the prince held him in no great
affection, and therefore he endeavored to make
it appear that his majesty's illness was only trans-
itory, and that, under the expectation of his early
restoration, it would be indecorous to make any
violent changes. This was very sly. It nearly
failed, nevertheless ; for the Regency Bill was no
sooner passed than the prince confided to some of
his personal friends his determination to get rid of
Mr. Perceval and his satellites. A private com-
munication was made to Mr. Huskisson, through
the individual supposed to have been charged with
the formation of the new ministry. Mr. Huskisson
replied that he could not entertain any proposal
of that kind which did not include those with
whom he was personally and politically connected ;
but that he should have no difficulty in considering
such a proposal with the person through whom
alone, in that case, it could be made.* That per-
son was Mr. Canning. It happened, however, that
Mr. Canning had expressed too much interest in
the case of the unfortunate Princess of Wales to be
personally acceptable to the regent ; and so the
negotiation fell to the ground.

* See Biography of Mr. Huskisson, introductory to his Speeches.

280 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

Throughout 1810 and 1811, Mr. Canning seldom
appeared in Parliament. When he did, he gen-
erally supported the policy of ministers. On one
important question, however, he was entirely op-
posed to them.

It was upon this occasion that he delivered his
great speech on the report of the Bullion Commit-
tee ; a speech which, for beauty of illustration,
mastery of principles and details, and sound reason-
ing, has never been surpassed at any period in any
language. This wonderful effort of intellect would
have been in itself enough for his fame. It renders
not only easy and simple, but attractive and fasci-
nating in the highest degree, a subject invariably
found to be obscure, difficult, and repulsive in all
other hands. Such is the plastic and creative power
of genius that the topic grows alluring under his
treatment, charming us like some wondrous alle-
gory, and we follow it to the close with so eager
an interest in the argument that we come away
fairly marveling how it had been with us all our
lives, that we should not have regarded this ques-
tion of currency and exchanges, and fictitious val-
ues, and bank restriction, as one of the most capti-
vating that could be presented to the human im-
agination !*

The subject was new to Mr. Canning, and lay
out of his province. But it was here that Pitt es-

* It would be impossible within the narrow compass of this bi-
ography to afford the reader even a glimpse of the varieties of Mr.
Canning's eloquence. It may be as well to say at once that such
an intention has not been contemplated in this little volume. But
it is a great pleasure to the author to refer, for full satisfaction on
that point, to Mr. Therry's very careful edition of Mr. Canning's
speeches, the greater portion of which had the advantage of Mr.
Canning's personal revision. Old friends, separated by long years
and wide oceans, must not converse through books, or something
might be added here concerning Mr. Therry's high qualifications
for a task which he has executed so ablv.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 281

tablished his fame ; and to that circumstance we
are probably indebted for this luminous display of
financial knowledge. When Mr. Canning brought
his mind to bear upon an unfamiliar question, he al-
ways exhausted it, and in his first speech developed
its fundamental principles so fully as to leave noth-
ing upon the abstract theory to be added or mis-
represented by any subsequent speaker. His first
speech on Catholic Emancipation was of this de-
scription, embracing the whole elements of the
subject. His speech on the currency was another
and still more remarkable instance. It contains
every thing that ever can be said on the bullion
side, embellished with an eloquence which, for the
first and only time in the records of Parliament,
rendered the dreary argument intelligible or enter-
taining.

Mr. Vansittart (afterward Lord Bexley) moved
some counter-resolutions, which for impudent ab-
surdity can scarcely be paralleled in the history
of the world. One of these proposed to affirm,
that it was the " opinion" of Parliament that a bank-
note was at that time " held in public estimation"
to be of equal value with the current coin, and that
it was " generally accepted as such in all pecuniary
transactions." At this very time the bank itself
would not give twenty shillings for a one-pound
note ; and such was the greediness with which the
metallic currency was absorbed, that it had been
found necessary to pass a law to prevent people
from giving more than twenty-one shillings for a
guinea ; notwithstanding which, guineas were rap-
idly disappearing, while crown pieces were le-
gally raised in value to five shillings and sixpence,
in order to prevent them from disappearing also !

Another attempt was made by the prince regent,
when the restrictions were about to expire in 1812,

A a 2

282 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

to draw round him some of the friends of his youth ;
and the Duke of York, at his royal highness's re-
quest, opened a negotiation with Lords Grey and
Grenville, but they again declined ; the differences
between them and ministers were too great to ad-
mit of a junction. Perceval was safe for a little
while longer, greatly to the joy of Lord Eldon, to
whom he had written privately on the subject, and
who declared that he could not consent to join an
administration with which the Whig lords were to
be associated.

It was expected after the debate on the restric-
tions, which were highly offensive to every member
of the royal family, that the opposition must have
immediately succeeded to office. This result was
prevented by divisions among themselves. The
two leading Whigs were requested by the prince
to draw up an answer to the address; but their
antagonist views neutralized each other, and the
result was so weak and unsatisfactory as to give
the prince great displeasure. Sheridan, who hap-
pened to be present, and who had piques of his own
to avenge against the Greys and Grenvilles, sup-
plied a new answer. This affront was not to be
pardoned, and the noble lords transmitted a digni-
fied remonstrance to the prince, complaining bit-
terly of Sheridan's "interference" in a matter
which had been originally confided solely to their
judgment. The prince was alarmed, and sought
a reconciliation through the agency of Lord Hol-
land, who then resided in Pall Mall. A private
meeting was brought about at his lordship's house,
whither the prince went in the dusk of the evening
on foot, muffled up in a cloak. It was stated at the
time, among the gossip of the day, that at that very
moment Mr. Peel was sauntering through Pall
Mall, when he saw this disguised figure issue from

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 283

the gate of Carlton House, and fancying that he de-
tected the incognito, followed him to Holland
House. The next day the town was full of rumors,
the" least of which was, that Lord Holland was
carrying on a sinister design for supplanting Lord
Grey in the prince's favor.

The issue of the meeting was the offer of the
government to the offended lords. But Mr. Per-
ceval contrived that the king's physician should be
of opinion, at this critical juncture, that his majesty
was likely to recover in a few weeks ; and that, if
he found his ministers changed, he would be cer-
tain to relapse. Of course, under such a responsi-
bility, their lordships again declined office, and
Perceval was still secure. The prince was en-
rased. He said he would never see the ministers
he was forced to keep. " I will come and dine
with you on such a day," he used to say to his
friends, " and you on such another day ; but as to
those fellows, I will never enter their houses.
Votes ! They shall have no votes from me, by

While these ministerial negotiations were going
forward, Mr. Canning kept aloof from all inter-
ference. But the moment the regency was settled,
he felt himself at liberty to vindicate his opinions
on the Catholic Question. The great obstacle was
removed, and he seized the opportunity of Lord
Morpeth's motion, on the 3d of February, 1812, to
deliver a speech, which may be described as a
complete exposition of the principles upon which
he espoused the cause of the Catholics. It was
the Pitt view of emancipation, urged with greater
precision than Pitt would have considered neces-
sary, or perhaps desirable.

The session had not proceeded very far — had
scarcely passed through a debate upon a motion for

284 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

an address to the regent, beseeching him to form
an efficient administration — when both the cabinet
and the Parliament were thrown into temporary
confusion by the assassination of Mr. Perceval, who
was slain by the hand of a madman in the lobby of
the House of Commons.

Sir Samuel Romilly, the most honest of public
men, had formerly been intimate with Mr. Per-
ceval, but had. latterly avoided his society. " I
could not endure the idea," he observes, " of living
privately in intimacy with a man whose public con-
duct I in the highest degree disapproved, and
whom, as a minister, I was constantly opposing. I
can not, indeed, reconcile to my way of thinking
that distinction between private and public virtues
which it is so much the fashion to adopt. It may
be called liberality, or gentlemanly feeling, or by
any other such vague and indefinite term ; but it is
not suited to any one who is really in earnest and
sincere in his politics."* The avowal is coura-
geous. The cant that assigns to vicious ministers,
and tyrants, and bigots in high places, all the vir-
tues of private life, is false and wicked. Yet it has
grown into such an established fashion that the
worst political character is only a convertible de-
scription of the most amiable domestic man in the
world. Was there ever a bad public man who was
not a miracle of every private virtue under the sun ]
Was there ever a Russian autocrat who was not
the most perfect father of a family ]

Mr. Perceval's death shocked every body. The
House voted d£4000 a year to his widow, " with
the evident intention," says a modern writer, "of
her applying this munificent provision to the sup-
port of her children." But it seems the House
was baffled in its object, for the same writer goes

* " Memoirs of Sir S. Romilly," iii„ 38,

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 285

on to say that, " to the surprise of the country, the
lady, thus amply dowered, solaced herself, without
loss of time, in a second marriage, and gave a les-
son to the House for their future dealings with the
wearers of weeds."*

The death of Mr. Perceval threw open the gov-
ernment once more. Satisfied from past experi-
ence of the great difficulty of forming a strong co-
alition, the regent expressed a desire to obtain the
secret opinions of each member of the cabinet upon
two points : whether, should he select one of them
as a head, the rest would be disposed to act under
him 1 and whether, supposing that neither Grey
nor Grenville, nor Wellesley nor Canning, should
be brought in, they could themselves carry on the
business of the country ] The answers were, upon
the whole, doubtful and wavering, but favorable to
the policy of making an offer of negotiation, let it
turn out how it might.f Lord Liverpool was ac-
cordingly desired to treat with Canning and Lord
Wellesley. While this was going on, Lord Eldon
was in a state of the most ludicrous nervous anxi-
ety, insisting upon making it appear that unless
they came in upon a strict understanding that Lord
Liverpool should be the head of the administration,
and Lord Castlereagh the leader in the Commons,
they should not be let in. He was sure they would
take it — they had been so long out of office. He
was mistaken. They refused to join any govern-
ment constructed on the principle of resistance to
the Catholic claims.

Under these circumstances the regent consid-
ered it advisable to leave things as they were ; but
the House of Commons insisted upon a change, and
agreed to an address, praying for a strong and ef-

* " Life and Times of George IV.," by the Rev. G. Croly. p. 385.
t "Life of Lord Eldon."

28() THE LIFE OF CANNING.

ficieiit government. Thus urged, his royal high-
ness had recourse to Lord Wellesley, who, through
Mr. Canning, tried Lord Liverpool and the exist-
ino- ministers, and, failing there, made a last appeal
to the Whigs, where he failed also. In this ex-
tremity, Lord Moira was directed to consult with
Lords Grey and Grenville, and had nearly effected
his purpose, when the negotiations went off upon a
difference respecting the appointments in the house-
hold. Sir Samuel Romilly supposes that it was
never intended they should come in, and that Lord
Eldon was the obstacle.* The regent was, conse-
quently, obliged to put up with the old set and the
Sidmouths ; the office of Prime Minister devolving
upon Lord Liverpool, who held it for fifteen years.

These negotiations were not carried on without
some personal perplexities. When the Whigs
made a difficulty about the household, the mem-
bers of the household offered to resign, for the pur-
pose of removing the obstacle ; and Sheridan was
requested to communicate their intention to the two
Whig lords. But he never did. He went farther :
he offered to bet five hundred guineas that no such
step was in contemplation !f The treachery was
discovered when it was too late.

Lord Moira, having failed with Lords Grey and
Grenville (little aware of how near he had been to
success), attempted to get up a ministry on a scheme
of his own, to the exclusion of the great leaders on
both sides. He was to be Prime Minister himself,
and Mr. Canning had already accepted office as
Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and a meeting was
appointed at Carlton House to kiss hands. Mr.
Canning arrived first, and was shown into an ante-
room, while Lord Moira was closeted with the re-

* " Memoirs of Sir S. Romilly," iii., 42.
f See Moore's " Life of Sheridan."

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 287

gent. He had not waited very long when Lord
Liveipool suddenly appeared, coming from the re-
gent's apartment, to which Mr. Canning was mo-
mentarily expecting to be called. The equivoque
was perfect. Mr. Canning had been led to believe
that he was about to join an administration from
which Lord Liverpool was to be excluded upon
principle ; and Lord Liverpool believed that he
was invited to join an administration of which Mr.
Canning was wholly ignorant ! It is scarcely nec-
essary to add, that this project was brought to a
sudden close by the discovery in the anteroom.

The new government found themselves immers-
ed in embarrassments. The manufacturing dis-
tricts were in a state of unprecedented turbulence
and distress ; and these responsibilities pressed so
severely upon ministers, that after the close of their
first session they made splendid overtures to Mr.
Canning. They offered him the Foreign Secreta-
riship (then held by Lord Castlereagh), and ap-
pointments for his political friends, all of which he
declined. This refusal did not proceed upon any
objections arising out of the Catholic Question;
because he afterward (May, 1819) stated that in
the formation of that ministry every member en-
tered into office with* the express stipulation that he
should be free to maintain his opinions on the sub-
ject of the Catholic claims. The real obstacle
was Lord Castlereagh. It was proposed that Lord
Castlereagh should retain the lead in the House of
Commons, to which Mr. Canning would not con-
sent. This was a point of honor with him, and
something more. Mr. Stapleton says that Mr.
Canning himself did not consider the lead in the
Commons an impediment, but that his friends did,
and that the question was referred to three expe-
rienced members of the House, who decided for the

288 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

rejection of the offer.* But this statement hardly
agrees with Mr. Canning's own explanation of the
circumstance, in his speech at Liverpool in the fol-
lowing October, in which he says that the seals of
the office of Secretary of State had been tendered
to him twice during the previous six months, but
that he had declined them. " I declined office,
gentlemen," he adds, " because it was tendered to
me on terms not consistent, as I thought, and as
my immediate friends agreed in thinking, with my
personal honor; because, if accepted on such terms,
it would not have enabled me to serve the public
with efficiency." There is, indeed, very little room
to doubt that Mr. Canning was strongly convinced
that he ought not to go into the House of Com-
mons as Secretary of State without also holding
the position of ministerial leader. The regent him-
self tried to persuade him out of this conviction by
arguing that the leadership must, in effect, be vest-
ed in him, although nominally in Lord Castlereagh.
The fallacy, however, was too apparent ; and Mr.
Canning, in a private letter to Wilberforce, disclos-
es the full force of his personal objections, by show-
ing that he could not have accepted office without
maintaining Lord Castlereagh in his station:

" And yet," he says, " I will venture to affirm that
no effort on my part to reject for myself, and to preserve
to Lord C. the station of command, would have prevent-
ed him from saying in three weeks that I was studious-
ly laboring to deprive him of it. Pray, therefore, be
not led astray (nor let others, where you can help it)
by the notion that I have been squabbling about a trifle.'"

And he concludes by observing,

" If I could have placed this power fairly in medio, I

would have conquered, or endeavored to conquer, all

my other feelings of reluctance ; but to place it, and to

engage to maintain it in his hands in whose it now is,

* " Political Life," i., 08.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 289

and then to place myself under it, would have been not
only a sacrifice of pride, but an extinction of utility."*

The refusal clearly proceeded upon personal
grounds. He felt that his " efficiency" would have
been destroyed in such a position, besides all the
other risks to the public service which might be
run by being placed in so equivocal a relationship
with Lord Castlereagh. No man certainly was so
ready to sacrifice office upon the suggestions of hon-
or or the public good. In a subsequent speech at
Liverpool, he stated that of more than twenty
years he had been in Parliament, upward of one
half were passed out of office. " I have oftener,"
he said, " had occasion to justify my resignation or
refusal than my acceptance of official situation."

Unfortunately, his refusal on this occasion was
not the wisest course he could have adopted either
in reference to the country or himself; and we find
him many years afterward alluding to it in terms
of ill-suppressed regret, and declaring that two
years of office in the then circumstances of Europe
would have been worth ten years of life. Yet he
sacrificed that great ambition, and left Lord Cas-
tlereagh to glean the harvest of which he had sown
the seed. But repentance followed quickly upon
the rejection of office ; and, notwithstanding his
personal objections to taking office with Lord Cas-
tlereagh as leader of the Commons, a very short
interval had elapsed- when he accepted the Lisbon
embassy under Lord Castlereagh, as Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs.

This transaction certainly admits of explanation ;
but no explanation can diminish its inconsistency.

Mr. Stapleton says that Mr. Canning was going
to Lisbon on account of the illness of his son, and
that the cabinet, happening to want an embassador
* " "Etfe Of Wilberforce," iv., 40.

19 B a

290 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

to Portugal at the time, thought it a good opportu-
nity to avail themselves of his services — one of
those transparent excuses which never can be em-
ployed without suspicion. It is quite true that Mr.
Canning was going to Lisbon on account of the ill-
ness of his son, and it is very probable that he
would have gone there without any reference to the
embassadorship ; but all that has nothing to do with
the question of accepting an appointment in 1814,
under a ministry with whom he refused to co-op-
erate in 1812.

It is stated by Mr. Stapleton that Mr. Canning
was induced to accept the embassy to Lisbon " be-
cause the government made it the condition of en-
rolling in its ranks those of his personal friends who
had attached themselves to his political fortunes."*
The author of a biography of Mr. Huskisson, sub-
sequently published, denies this statement, at least
so far as Mr. Huskisson is concerned, and says that
long before the Lisbon appointment, Mr. Canning
had released his adherents from all political alle-
giance, and, as Whitbread sarcastically said, desired
them " to shift for themselves."!

Lord Brougham condemns Mr. Canning severe-
ly, and says that it was the love of power which
led him to the imprudent step of serving under a
successful rival on a foreign mission of an unim-
portant cast.f This lust of dominion is not quite
so base as the lust of money ; but Lord Brougham
might as well have accused him of the one as the
other. If the passion for office was so predomi-
nant, how did it happen that Mr. Canning had so
often and so recently refused much higher and
more influential stations 1

Controversies respecting motives are never very

* " Polit. Life," i., 70. t " Speeches of Mr. Huskisson," i., 65.
% " Historical Sketches," art. Canning, 287.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 291

satisfactory. People always differ about them, and
shape them according to their own prejudices ;
but in this instance, any graver or meaner asper-
sion than that of misjudgment would be unwar-
rantable. All that can be said is, that Mr. Canning
committed a mistake in accepting this appointment.
It placed him under the necessity of vindicating
his conduct, which, right or wrong, is always inju-
rious to a public man. The world is sure to dis-
trust the prudence of the politician, or the soldier,
who allows himself to be placed at a disadvantage.

The facts, as they were brought before Parlia-
ment, had certainly a very suspicious aspect. Ap-
pearances were altogether against Mr. Canning.

The embassy was stated to have been appointed
for the purpose of meeting the Prince Regent of
Portugal on his return to Europe : the prince nev-
er returned. Mr. Sydenham, our minister at Lis-
bon, only just appointed, was strictly limited in
July to an allowance of £5200 per annum, on the
score of economy : he was shortly afterward su-
perseded, and Mr. Canning nominated to his place
at an annual expenditure of 6614,200. These facts
were insisted upon by Mr. Lambton (afterward
Lord Durham) in a speech of excellent temper,
but clear and uncompromising, on the 6th of May,
1817, after Mr. Canning's return. Sir Francis Bur-
dett was the only person who spoke in support of
Mr. Lambton's resolutions. Mr. Canning's reply
was victorious.

He proved, by the correspondence of ministers
with our embassador at Rio de Janeiro, that the
prince regent had frequently expressed his desire
to revisit Europe, and that the appointment was
not determined upon until the arrangements for
that event were finally settled. The failure of the
regent's visit was a matter for which neither he nor

292 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

the government could be held responsible. He
showed that he was going to Lisbon with his fam-
ily when the embassy was proposed to him, and
that his own preparations had advanced so far, that,
when he arrived there, he found a private house
provided for his use, which he could not occupy in
his official character.

The question of cost was even more triumphant-
ly disposed of. Mr. Canning went to Lisbon in
quality of embassador, and not in that of simple
minister, which he could hardly have accepted af-
ter having presided over the whole diplomacy of
the country ; besides which, the appointment of an
embassador was an old promise to the regent.
There were two classes of embassadors — two sal-
aries attached to the rank : Mr. Canning selected
the lower. Had he even availed himself of the
scale which had been recently fixed by a commit-
tee of the House of Commons, he would have been
entitled to SI 4,236 per annum, exactly =£36 more
than he actually drew. With respect to Mr. Syd-
enham's expenses, he showed that Mr. Sydenham's
salary had been unfairly contrasted with the whole
expense of his own mission, including extraordina-
ries. Upon an investigation of the items, it ap-
peared that Mr. Sydenham (who had not been su-
perseded by Mr. Canning, but who, after a residence
of only three weeks in Lisbon, was obliged to re-
turn in consequence of ill health) received six
months' salary (besides outfit, &c), and an addition-
al sum of d£2000 for loss on the relinquishment of
office ; and that Mr. Casamajor, who had been for
a short interval charge d'affaires, and who could
not contrive to live quietly in lodgings without any
of the " pride, pomp, or circumstance" of a diplo-
matic establishment under 66100 a week, received
c£2500 more ; so that the six months preceding Mr.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 293

Canning's appointment (a service, in reality, of only
three weeks) cost 667100 ; or, with outfit, &c, add-
ed, 669700 ! The two years preceding presented
a still more extraordinary contrast ; for, in those
two years, during the mission of Sir Charles Stuart,
the expenses were for the first, 6632,007 ; for the
second, 6631,206.

The defense was complete at all points — even
on the most doubtful of all, his union with the ad-
ministration. He asserted his right to think and
act for himself, and repudiated the doctrine by
which any party attempted to arrogate an exclu-
sive control. This passage contains one of those
remarkable assertions of the right of private judg-
ment which nobody in the ranks of the old Tory
party, except Mr. Canning, ever dared to utter.

" To this exclusive doctrine I have never subscribed.
To these pretensions I have never listened with submis-
sion. I have never deemed it reasonable that any con-
federacy of great names should monopolize to themselves
the whole patronage and authority of the state ; should
constitute themselves, as it were, into a corporation, a
bank for circulating the favors of the House and the suf-
frages of the people, and distributing them only to their
own* adherents. I can not consent that the administra-
tion of the government of this free and enlightened coun-
try shall be considered as rightfully belonging to any
peculiar circle of public men, however powerful, or of
families however preponderant ; and, though I can not
stand lower in the estimation of the honorable baronet
than I do in my own, as to my own pretensions, I will
(to use the language of a statesman,* so eminent that I
can not presume to quote his words without an apology),
I will, as long as I have the faculty to think and act for
myself, '■look those proud combinations in the face.'' "

By this principle Mr. Canning regulated his con-
duct. He owed no political allegiance to any par-

* Mr. Burke.

B n 2

294 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

ty ; he denied the divine right of aristocratic com-
binations. He joined the administration because
he agreed with the administration ; and, in the ex-
ercise of the same unfettered discretion, he would
have left them if he differed from them ; he did
leave them when the point of difference arose.
The freedom, candor, and novelty of this course of
action offended both Whigs and Tories, especially
the latter, whose anger was inappeasable that he
should thus come between the wind and their no-
bility. But out of these elements of discord there
was gradually rising up a Middle Party, which Mr.
Canning called into life, with " No Reform" in-
scribed on one side of its banner, and " Free Trade
and Catholic Emancipation" on the other. The
importance of the functions assigned to this party,
in the tremulous state of transition through which
the country was now passing, can not be exagger-
ated. This party formed the only creditable re-
treat from obsolete doctrines which could neither
be maintained with success nor abandoned with-
out humiliation. It flung a bridge across the chasm
that divided the old times from the new, over which
the Legislature, pressed onward by the people, was
glad enough at last to make its escape.

Mr. Canning's defense was considered conclu-
sive by the House, and Mr. Lambton's motion was
thrown out by a majority of 174. He was so well
satisfied with the result himself that he went up to
Mr. Lambton, after the debate, and thanked him
warmly for the open and manly spirit in which he
had brought the question to issue.

The term of his residence in Lisbon occupied
altogether seventeen months, during six of which
he held no official position, for he sent in his resig-
nation the moment he learned that the regent had
relinquished his intention of visiting Europe. Dur-

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 295

ing that interval great events had occurred on the
Continent. Bonaparte had broken bounds at Elba,
revived the martial spirit once more in France, dis-
persed the Bourbons, and, after some wondrous ef-
forts, had finally sunk at Waterloo. Mr. Canning
took no part in these excitements, but kept his pri-
vate station undisturbed by political influences, dis-
pensing social hospitality to his countrymen, and
receiving distinguished marks of their admiration
and respect. Among other proofs of their feelings
toward him, the British residents at Lisbon enter-
tained him at a public dinner, when he delivered
that speech in which he described himself as a dis-
ciple of Mr. Pitt. On his return to England he
touched at Bordeaux, and was there detained to
receive a similar testimony from the merchants of
that city, who invited him to a public entertainment
on a scale of unusual magnificence.

Shortly after his return, a vacancy occurred in
the office of President of the Board of Control, oc-
casioned by the death of the Earl of Buckingham-
shire ; and Mr. Canning accepted the office on the
especial invitation of the prince regent.

The times were full of danger, and the govern-
ment was placed at home and abroad in a situation
that demanded the exercise of the highest qualities
of statesmanship. The war was now over, and
there was leisure to estimate the policy of such a
fearful expenditure by its results. The grand aim
of the war was the deliverance of Europe. Had
that end been accomplished ] A comparison of
the map of Europe in 1815 with the map of Eu-
rope before the war offered the best answer. If
it were true of Napoleon that he shifted and pulled
down the ancient barriers of independent king-
doms like hurdles, to accommodate the greater or
less droves he thought fit to hunt into or out of

296 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

them, it was no less true that his conquerors swept
away the old landmarks with as little compunction,
but with a deliberate affectation of justice to which
Napoleon never pretended any title. Their crimes
against the rights of nations were as palpable as
his, with the greater crime of hypocrisy superadded
to all the rest. The settlement of 1815 was, in
fact, a new dismemberment. Norway had been
already struck down by a perfidious treaty, which
Mr. Canning declared, in the face of Europe, had
" filled him with shame, regret, and indignation."
Venice and Genoa were annihilated ; Prussia was
suffered to inflict upon Saxony territorial wrongs as
flagrant as those which she had herself suffered
from the hands of France ; Holland was never re-
stored to her ancient republican liberties, but was
paralyzed by monarchical trammels repugnant
alike to her spirit and her traditions, and still far-
ther oppressed and weakened by the addition of a
discordant and insurrectionary population. Spain
alone was replaced in her original integrity. She
was restored with the most scrupulous honor. She
even got back the Inquisition.

At home the prospect was no less gloomy. The
people were dissatisfied with the fruits of victory.
The taxes were rising upon them like the inevita-
ble tide upon some doomed wretch who, in igno-
rance or defiance, has ventured too far out upon the
strand. The instantaneous transition to peace in-
creased the calamity. It suddenly withdrew the
stimulus by which the population had hitherto been
sustained, and reduced them at once to a state of
destitution. Trade had to explore new channels
— industry to make to itself new resources ; but
these things were impossible. Stagnation and dis-
tress were rapidly spreading over the face of the
country ; discontent had set in among the indus-

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 297

trial classes ; large and tumultuous meetings were
held in the principal towns, and even in the outly-
ing- agricultural districts : and the issue of all this
uneasiness was a loud and universal cry for Parlia-
mentary reform.

It might have been hoped that the example of
Mr. Pitt's conduct in a similar crisis would have
operated as a warning to the government ; but it had
the opposite effect. Instead of avoiding the course
which he had taken with such fatal results, they
imitated it to the letter. Instead of seeking to re-
move, or even expressing a desire to investigate
the grievances of the people, ministers opened a
new reign of terror at once.

There was no difficulty in getting up a case of
insurrection. Conspiracies, incendiarism, repub-
lican speeches, and foolish bravadoes in the face of
the magistracy, are easily hunted up in times of ex-
citement. The system of coercion fairly begun,
there was no lack of the frenzied exhibitions it was
so admirably calculated to produce. On the one
side, a fresh violence was found daily necessary to
guard against the consequences of the last ; and on
the other, more desperate outbreaks followed close-
ly upon every new aggression. And so it went on
for three years.

The physical sufferings of the people aggravated
the wildness with which they caught at the loose
theories of property and representation which are
set afloat with such facility in times of commotion.
They convened public meetings, and spouted social-
economy fallacies of that class which have always
found favor, in seasons of famine and hardship, with
the starving multitude. Lord Castiereagh declared
that they contained within themselves a principle
of counteraction. It would have been happy for
all parties if he had trusted to its influence ; but he

298 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

thought that the argument most likely to reach the
understanding of an illogical multitude was a troop
of dragoons. This argument was tested with de-
plorable success on the field of Peterloo.

There were plots in abundance, real and ficti-
tious, from the Cato-street conspiracy, by which a
butcher and two shoemakers engaged to cut off the
ministers' heads and put them in a bag, to a formi-
dable plan for storming the Bank, destroying the
barracks, blowing up the bridges, and setting fire
to every thing, including the Thames itself. The
means by which this latter design was to be ac-
complished were traced to a bundle of pikes and
some powder in an old stocking.

To avert such tremendous calamities, the most
stringent laws were passed. The right of discus-
sion was abridged ; public meetings were allowed
to be held only by special grace of the magistracy ;
correspondence and co-operation, and free action
in an infinite variety of small things essential to the
comfort and self-respect of individuals, were strictly
prohibited ; and, finally, the work of pacification
was crowned by the suspension of the Habeas Cor-
pus Act. All this time spies were moving darkly
through the country, instigating the crimes which
were thus visited with the heaviest punishments.

The judgment of the people upon these proceed-
ings was pronounced by one jury after another, in
verdicts which might be regarded as accusations
against the government. When the executive re-
sorts to extraordinary powers, and then seeks to
vindicate them by appealing to the tribunals of the
country, it in effect puts itself upon its trial before
the people. In all such cases it is to the decision
of the juries, the guardians of order and justice, that
we must look for the condemnation or acquittal of
the government.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 299

Mr. Canning was eager in the defense of minis-
ters. He vindicated every one of their acts ; and
never displayed greater felicity of expression, wit
more dazzling, or argument more cogent and ef-
fective, than in his speeches on the State of the
Nation, on the Seditious Meetings Bill, the Indem-
nity Bill, the Foreign Enlistment Bill, and the
Prince Regent's Speech. It is impossible to look
back upon his conduct during those years of strife
and misery without a feeling of profound regret.
It was deplorable enough, after all that had trans-
pired of personal contempt and distrust toward the
Castlereaghs and Sid mouths informer days, to find
him associated with them in the cabinet ; but worse,
still worse, to find him making himself extrava-
gantly prominent in the justification of their mis-
deeds. Perhaps his excessive zeal on behalf of
his colleagues may be ascribed to the nervous un-
easiness of the relation in which he stood to them.
Keenly alive to the unpopularity of his position,
rendered conspicuous above all the rest by the
splendor of his arms, it seems as if this very con-
sciousness only made him the more anxious to as-
sume a confidence in the proceedings of the gov-
ernment which his judgment must have secretly
disowned. To this mental warfare must be attrib-
uted the unusual bitterness he manifested toward
his opponents throughout the time he held the office
of President of Council. He never showed so much
excitement or impatience before. The slightest
contradiction called him up, and all questions, from
the spirit in which they were treated, became more
or less personal before they were finally disposed
of. He was ill at ease with himself, and dissatis-
fied with the distorting circumstances by which he
was surrounded.

He despised most of the men with whom he

300 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

acted, and most of the men with whom he acted
distrusted him. He who had been the darling of
the age of Pitt was now confided in by no great
political party ; he was too liberal for one, too ar-
rogant for another, and could not yet see his way
to the advent of that Central Party, wiser than
either, which was, even at this inauspicious moment,
germinating under his influence. Every thing con-
spired to thwart his ambition — to ruffle his temper
— to force him into situations where he was con-
demned to defend measures he disapproved. He
allowed himself to be martyred on points of honor.

The death of George III., toward the close of
January, 1820, reduced ministers to the necessity
of a general election, which they would gladly have
avoided. His majesty had wonderfully spun out
a long life, and died at last at a very awkward mo-
ment ; but he could not keep alive for the sake of
his ministers. It was marvelous how he kept alive
so long, soliloquizing and playing the harpsichord
at Windsor. He had not had a lucid interval for
nine years. For a great part of the time he was
totally blind and almost totally deaf, and had such
an objection to be shaved, that his beard had grown
to a patriarchal length. There was much unaf-
fected emotion exhibited by all classes when he
died. People had got used to him ; a generation
or two had grown up in his time, and had come
into the world lisping their allegiance to him ; and
every body felt that a great many years must elapse
before they could reconcile themselves to a new
version of the nation anthem. There never could
be another " great George, our king !"

In the following March Mr. Canning sustained
a severe domestic affliction by the death of his eld-
est son, George Charles Canning, in the nineteenth
year of his age. The epitaph he wrote on this

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 301

melancholy occasion, inspired by the most tender
soitow tempered with religious resignation, is en-
titled to a place among the noblest productions of
that class in our language.

The national excitement consequent upon the
general election had scarcely subsided, when an
unexpected circumstance threatened to disturb the
joyous opening of the new reign. George IV. had
scarcely time to adjust the affair of his coronation
robes with his tailor, when news arrived that his
wife was coming back to England to assert her
right to be crowned by his side. Had an ava-
lanche from the summit of the Schreckhorn been
announced in the drawing-room at St. James's, it
could not have produced greater consternation.

XII.

QUEEN CAROLINE. LORD CASTLEREAGH.

On the 8th of April, 1795, the Prince of "Wales
was married to the Princess Caroline of Brunswick.
In a few days the happy couple, for whom the joy-
bells had rung out so lustily on that morning, were
perfectly miserable — in a few months they separa-
ted. The prince put away his wife. She had
committed no crime but one which it was impos-
sible for a gentleman of the prince's high temper-
ament to pardon — she had outlived his liking.

Never was a poor bride so stunned as this luck-
less princess by her first experiences in England.
Every thing about her was strange and discourag-
ing. Her education and habits, her tastes and feel-
ings, and the usages she had been reared among,
all seemed to go wrono: in Ensrland. She had nev-
er seen any thing half so grand, half so cold, as St.
James's. The stateliness of the place struck like

C o

302 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

frost into her blood. Her own family had been so
grievously cut up and despoiled, and retained such
scanty traces of pomp and ceremony, that their
rank was advertised chiefly by the politic friendship
of surrounding states. But even this did not avail
when Napoleon came upon the scene. That sa-
gacious remodeler of kingdoms and constitutions
laid such stress upon the tiny principality of Bruns-
wick, that he said he would rather cede Belgium
than suffer the duke to re-enter his territory.
That worthy race of Wolfenbuttle, with milky
hearts and warlike mustaches, had a close escape
of being superannuated among the old Teutonic
traditions.

The princess had been brought up in this little
court, which could hardly be called a court. The
whole circle was composed of occasional birds of
passage, principally military — for resident nobility
there were none. Travelers were cheerfully re-
ceived. The sight of visitors enlivened the quiet
palace, and threw all its inmates into motion, just as
the appearance of a troop of strolling players calls
up out of their sleepy recesses the tranquil popu-
lation of an English village. This sort of life had
something in it of the ease and abandon of an out-
post. Formal distinctions were out of the question.
There was a slight show of state etiquette at first :
a matter of mere observance, which restrained
one's animal spirits for a quarter of an hour ; and
then every body was frank and equal, and licensed
for gayety and frolic. They used to play at prov-
erbs, and lively forfeits of all sorts ; and sup at lit-
tle round tables, in merry groups, like people in a
fashionable cafe. It was a Palace of Revels, a
Court of High Romps.

In this open life the manners of the princess
were formed. To the pure all things are pure;

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 303

and that which was mere out-spoken joyousness in
this little German retreat would have been impru-
dence, or worse, elsewhere. Had she lived all her
life in the same round of hearty diversions, she
might have gone on to the end with honor, and —
which is a part of the source of honor to a wom-
an— with happiness. But she was suddenly car-
ried away to another country, where a different
standard of morals and different social institutions
prevailed, to marry a man she had never seen,
whose reputation for excesses of all kinds — the
basest among the rest — was enough to terrify and
revolt her. It was said, too, that her heart had al-
ready admitted feelings which she was required by
this sacrificial act to silence forever. The story
was doubted by some who thought her incapable
of an attachment, judging by the after-course of a
life perverted at the very spring by those upon
whom the sacred duty devolved of directing it
wisely and kindly. But we can not speculate upon
what she might have been under natural influen-
ces, from what she became under the blight of that
selfish and most disastrous marriage. Even as it
was, she discovered sympathies which struggled
out as they might, darkly and miserably for herself.
But who shall accuse her under such circumstan-
ces 1 What woman could have remained true to
any thing human or to herself who was at the mer-
cy of the Prince of Wales ]

Think of the images of sin, of seduction, of low
depravity, of the grossest violations of good faith
and common decency, which glared upon her from
all sides in this scrupulous royal family, upon
which she had been ingrafted, and which resented
with such virtuous indignation the slightest breach
of decorum. She had scarcely touched our shores
when the timid feelings of the bride were outraged

304 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

and insulted by finding Lady Jersey already in-
stalled, and retained, too, in spite of the express
interdict of the sovereign* When she was taken
to the palace, the prince came to her after some de-
lay, and having received her, turned away, and
called for a glass of brandy. Water was suggest-
ed, but the prince negatived it with an oath, and
left the room.f That was a trivial specimen of
brutality. Worse might have been expected from
a prince who, talking of his approaching marriage
with a lady he had never seen, called it " buying
a pig in a poke," and who declared to the lord-
chancellor that " he, the prince, was not the sort
of person who would let his hair grow under his
wig to please his wife." Worse might have been
expected from such a quarter, and worse came.
On the night of the wedding, this exigeant prince,
who looked for so much refinement and courtly
etiquette in his wife, reeled drunk into the bridal
chamber, and fell under the grate.|

Of the minor trespasses on her feelings-, the in-
sults to which she was obliged to submit, the tales
that were industriously buzzed in her ears, nothing

* " The princess, the moment she saw the prince and Lady Jer-
sey together, saw her fate, but she married him. ' Oh ! mine
God,' she used to exclaim in her own earnest way, ' I could be
the slave of a man I love, but to one whom I loved not, and who
did not love me — impossible — c'est autre chose.' " — " Diary of the
Times of George IV.," i., 23.

t " Diaries of the Earl of Malmesbury," hi., 218.

i This almost incredible fact is stated on the authority of Lady
Charlotte Bury. "Judge," said the princess, "what it was to
have a drunken husband on one's wedding-day, and one who
passed the greater part of his bridal night under the grate where
he fell, and where I left him. If any body say to me at dis mo-
ment, ' Will you pass your life over again, or be killed,' I would
choose death." — " Diary of the Times of George IV.," i., 37. And
this was in 1810, long before her great troubles came ! The state-
ment is borne out to a certain extent by Lord Malmesbury, who
says that on the evening of the wedding-day the prince appeared
" unhappy, and, as a proof of it, had manifestly had recourse to
wine or spirits."—" Diaries," iii., 220.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 305

need be said. Let Perdita pass ; and Mrs. Fitz-
herbert, too, with her recognized respectability, not
the less galling to the princess on that account ; and
Lady Hertford, who supplanted Mrs. Fitzherbert ;*
and all the rest. But look around on the scions of
this royal stock for the revelations which, year af-
ter year, accumulated their baneful influences
around the unhappy stranger : the life of Mrs. Jor-
dan, dragged through the gossip of the green-room,
forestalled at the playhouse treasury, careering
through the splendid misery of Bushy Park, to ex-
piate all in poverty and exile ; the hideous expo-
sures of Mary Ann Clarke ; and the darker infa-
mies of other palatial misdeeds, which must never
find expression except in the backward shudder of
history. "Were these things likely to elevate, re-
fine, and strengthen the resolves of a discarded
woman — a woman utterly alone among strangers,
tempted, spied upon, persecuted, and condemned
to suffer the extremity of injustice after her inno-
cence was clearly established by the most search-
ing investigation to which any woman, be her rank
or circumstances what they might, has ever been
exposed in a country where legal tribunals or pub-
lic opinion are supposed to exist I

The residence of the princess at Blackheath was
a sort of court banishment. Montagu House (so
called after the Duke of Montagu) was a curious
rambling-place, described by one who lived in it
in the princess's time as an incongruous piece of
patchwork, which dazzled when it was lighted up at

* The decision of the House of Lords, by which Lord and Lady
Hertford were appointed guardians to Miss Seymour, "led to that
intimacy between the prince and Lady Hertford which ended by
Mrs. Fitzherbert's dismissal. It had a still more important effect,
for it produced that hostility toward the Catholics which the
prince manifested after he became regent." — See " Memoirs of
Sir Samuel Romilly," ii., 152.

20 C c 2

306 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

night, but was, in reality, all glitter, and glare, and
trick. There was a round tower in the grounds,
which used to be a great source of amusement to the
princess ; it was guarded by a nightly watchman,
and the lady in attendance slept in it, and one of
the foolish jokes got up to while away time was the
invention of little dramatic incidents, to give an air
of romance to this round tower. And such were
the thoughtless trifles which were afterward inter-
preted so cruelly to her disadvantage. From the
very beginning of her life, this poor, wayward,
heedless princess was the victim of erroneous sus-
picions. Nobody seems to have understood her
character.

When she was brought over to England, she ap-
pears to have made an indifferent impression upon
the new society to which she was introduced. Yet
Lord Malmesbury, who was intrusted with this
delicate piece of diplomacy, assures us that she
had a pretty face, fine eyes, good hands, tolerable
teeth ; that her expression was not very soft, nor
her figure veiy graceful ; that she had a good bust,
and des epaules impertinentes. The portrait is at
least womanly, and, with her real good-nature
beaming in it, agreeable. But she wanted tact, the
quality most necessary in her new circumstances.
She was not brought up in a knowledge of artifi-
cial dignity, and she could not adapt herself to it.
Her education had been sadly neglected in mat-
ters of costume and externals, which are so highly
prized in England, and overwrought in every thing
else, to the detriment of her faith and her under-
standing. It was an education of folly and weak-
ness, of menace, privation, injunction, with the ex-
amples of those who inculcated it flying in the face
of its precepts. Her father made no disguise about
his amours. The duchess told Lord Malmesbury

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 307

that he was in love with the Duchess of G., Lady
O., and Lady D. B., and solaced himself with the
private society of an Italian girl all the time. Her
mother was a gossip, weak, credulous, capricious,
but without any absolute vice. It was not very
wonderful that, thus descended and nurtured, the
princess should have had an excellent heart and no
judgment. The lack of judgment made her heart
more capacious than it was quite fitting it should
be : she wanted all the people of England to love
her (that was the first piece of folly she uttered),
and she could not comprehend how such a thing
was impossible in this country, and altogether in-
consistent with the elevation and remoteness of her
position.

If such were her dispositions in the midst of her
own circles, where she was known and admired,
and free to indulge in her impulses, what could be
expected from her at Blackheath, where she was
placed in the most dangerous relation toward so-
ciety that the most subtle malice could devise ]

Her mode of life surprised and perplexed every
body. She was regarded, not unkindly (for people
liked her robust good-nature), as a strange person
with strange foreign habits. She was free, coarse,
vulgar, boisterous ; had a gross constitution, used
to eat onions and drink ale, which she called oil;
and sit on the floor, and play forfeits and romps ;
and talk broad, humorous, scandal to her ladies for
the sake of the fun, not the malice, which never in-
terested her. She hardly knew how to get through
her time ; used to walk out in the snow in pink
boots, and run through the garden at night in a red
cloak, a handkerchief tied under her chin, and her
slippers down at the heels ; picked up an acquaint-
ance with Lady Douglas at her own door, and was
glad of any one that came to dinner. Her feelings

308 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

were warm, eager, liberal ; but she had no man-
ners, no delicacy. She used to plan imaginary in-
trigues for her ladies to fill up the evening, in imi-
tation of the gallant age of De Grammont, just as
children play at soldiers or house-building with
cards and toys. She would ask gentlemen (there
was nobody else she could ask) to dinner and sup-
per. Canning lived in the neighborhood, and was
constantly invited ; and one of her strange amuse-
ments on such occasions was blindman's buff (a fa-
vorite pastime of Napoleon and Charles II.), in
which she frequently joined with Sir William Scott,
Canning, and others ; and whenever this solitary
woman showed any one of these visitors the small-
est marks of her good-will, she was immediately
suspected, or pretended to be suspected.

Unconscious of the watch that was set upon her,
she probably grew more and more careless and
fantastical, from being permitted to believe that
she had her own way. Suddenly, without a word
of notice, half her household was swept away to be
interrogated. Throughout this terrible crisis, the
princess acted with a dignity worthy of the noblest
character. She sent for the Duke of Kent, and
made him bear witness that she would not see one
of her servants, lest it might be supposed that she
desired to tamper with them.*

The investigation was conducted with the ut-
most severity, and ended in her acquittal.t The

* The lords who were appointed to enter upon the " delicate"
investigation issued an order to bring before them six of the prin-
cess's most confidential servants from her house at Blackheath.
" The order was executed," says Sir Samuel Romilly, " without
any previous intimation to the princess or to any of her servants."
— " Memoirs," ii., 150. The princess said they were welcome to
examine all her servants if they thought proper.

t " The result," says Sir Samuel Romilly, " left a perfect con-
viction on my mind, and I believe on the minds of the four lords,
that the boy in question is the son of Sophia Austin."

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 309

king, anxious to atone for the wrong, expressed
his intention to receive her at court ; but the prince
interposed, and would not suffer it.* She was again
sent forth to be persecuted. That dangerous tend-
ency of her nature, which yearned for sympathy
of some sort, and which might have slumbered or
taken a safer direction, under wiser treatment, was
thus encouraged, tempted, provoked into vice. Up
to this time she was indiscreet, which a better wom-
an might have been in such circumstances ; but
she was innocent. After this she was lost. Whose
was the guilt %

Mr. Canning was one of her earliest and most
steadfast friends. G-overned by his advice, she
had hitherto observed the most judicious conduct
in reference to Parliament and the royal family.
When the Prince of Wales's income became the
subject of debate in 1803, Mr. Canning offered to
take any step about an increase in her appoint-
ments which she might direct ; but she begged of
him not to interfere, not to mention her name in
or out of Parliament ; adding, that she relied en-
tirely on the king's goodness, and that she wished
to be left undisturbed by publicity in her retire-
ment. This was the course he had all throughout
advised her to adopt ; and had she continued to
follow his injunctions, her just rights would have
been fully recognized at last. There were none of
her adherents for whom she entertained so strong
a regard as Mr. Canning, notwithstanding that she
deviated so widely, in the end, from the line he had
marked out for her. Lord Eldon, whom she liked

* The king's answer, as written by the cabinet, after stating
that his majesty was satisfied about her innocence, added, that
" his majesty sees with ' concern and disapprobation,' &c, certain
parts of her conduct. The king struck out with his own hand the
word 'disapprobation,' and substituted 'serious concern.'" — "Me-
moirs," ii., 18G.

310 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

at first, and Perceval, who, from paity motives, at-
tached himself zealously to her cause, both fell into
disgrace with her, because she thought that they
had supplanted Mr. Canning with the king.

Perceval was her principal adviser when the four
lords drew up their report. He wrote her reply,
which was retouched by Plumer ;.* and then col-
lecting the evidence and all the other documents,
which constituted that digest of royal scandal known
by the emphatic title of " The Book," he got it
printed. Canning strongly condemned this step,
and instantly returned the copy which had been
sent to him, saying, that if they printed they pub-
lished, and that, let the disgraceful disclosure come
from what quarter it might, he was determined it
should not be supposed to come from him. Per-
ceval's real intention was to publish it, for the pur-
pose of bringing odium on the opposite party ;
but in this, as in all things else, he acted with too
hot a resolution. " The Book" was scarcely print-
ed, when a change of administration took place, and
it became imperatively necessary to suppress the
publication. But some copies had got out surrep-
titiously, and the difficulty was to recover them.
Perceval going out in a hurry (he seems to have
been always flushed and excited), left a copy on
his table ; it was stolen, and it cost him d£10,000
to get it back again.f The editor of a Sunday
paper, who had by some means obtained another
copy, issued a mysterious notice of his intention to
publish it, and was stopped by an injunction ;$ but
afterward assured his friends that he had compro-
mised the matter for d£1000. Another copy got
into the hands of another person connected with

* " Memoirs of Sir Samuel Romilly," ii., 171.
t Lady Hester Stanhope states that "she knows this to a cer-
tainty."— " Memoirs of Lady Hester Stanhope," i., 306.
X " Memoirs of Sir Samuel Romilly," ii., 171.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 311

the press, who compromised for the sum of c£5000.*
Such was the anxiety manifested in the endeavor
to retrace a false step, which any man of common
sense ought to have known the hopelessness of at-
tempting.

It was in 1812 that these matters first came be-
fore Parliament; so long as his majesty was in pos-
session of his senses, it was felt that Parliament
had no right to interfere in his family dissensions ;
but the regency altered the case. The queen was
about to hold a drawing-room, and Mr. Whi thread
demanded of the minister, whether the Princess
of Wales — so long proscribed from the circles over
which she ought to have presided — was to make
her appearance on that occasion. " Mr. Perceval,"
he said, " ought to know, for he had been her de-
voted adherent, had written her vindication and
published it, which publication had been extensive-
ly read, although it was bought up at an enormous
expense by the right honorable gentleman's secre-
tary." But the times had changed with Mr. Per-
ceval. He was the regent's " devoted adherent"
now, and the princess had nothing- to expect from
his fidelity, because she had no means of rewarding
it. Her star was setting ; she was urged to leave
the country. Once out of England, a surrender in
itself to a certain extent of her legitimate rights,
the annihilation of all farther hope of * restitution
followed as a matter of course. She went abroad
in 1814, contrary to the urgent advice of Mr. Whit-
bread and Mr. Brougham. She returned on the
death of George III., to set up her claim to be
crowned with her husband, contrary to the advice
of Mr. Canning-.

O

Her proceedings on the Continent were the acts

* These two cases of compromise are stated on the authority
of the individuals themselves, both of whom are now dead.

312 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

of a mad woman — of one made desperate by the
total blight of her affections, the entire misdirection
of her life, by the sense of friendliness and isola-
tion, the mockery of state through which she moved,
and by that terrible contempt of opinion which
grows upon systematic injustice. Her folly, com-
bined with the sensuality of her life, exposed her
anew to persecution ; and she was still watched
and dogged as of old, and eyes glared upon her
where she least suspected treachery, in her most
secret and careless moments. Out of the intelli-
gence thus basely procured arose the famous Mi-
lan Commission. It was not a government meas-
ure— it was worse. It originated in this way. A
mass of papers concerning the conduct of the queen
(for she was called queen every where except in
the Litany) had been put into the hands of Sir
John Leach, in his capacity of Chancellor of the
Duchy of Lancaster, and as such, first law adviser
to the prince. He was to examine and report upon
these documents ; and he did so, to the effect, that
competent persons ought to be sent abroad to col-
lect and arrange evidence of the facts, before any
ulterior steps should be taken. This was agreed
to ; he selected the persons himself, and they were
sent out, not by the sanction of the cabinet, but
with the concurrence and privacy of Lords Eldon
and Liverpool. Sir John Leach got into odium
by this transaction, and it was even said that he
went over to Italy himself to forward the project.
This he denied ; but he admitted that he did hap-
pen to go just at that time to Italy, and, by a very
odd coincidence, to Milan among other places ; but
he protested that he never communicated with any
body all the time on the subject of the commission
which was sitting there, and which he himself had
appointed. Be that as it may, it was this Milan

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 313

Commission by which the evidence was collected
that was brought against the queen on her trial.
The result was a severe blow to the Tory govern-
ment— an insignificant majority, which compelled
them, as a matter of decency, to abandon the bill.
The only member of the cabinet who stood out to
the last against Lord Liverpool's proposal to relin-
quish the prosecution was Lord Eldon ; but he al-
ways stood out to the last, and was rather proud of
standing out alone.

Mr. Canning's conduct throughout this affair was
misunderstood and studiously misrepresented. He
had been on terms of intimacy with the princess
from the beginning-, ancl could not, without doinsf
violence to his feelings, as a gentleman who had
been once admitted to the honor of her confidence,
take any part in the proceedings against her. He
never did take any part in those proceedings. In
1814, when he was unconnected with the govern-
ment, he had had frequent intercourse with her,
and he then approved of a separate arrangement,
and advised that she should live abroad with her
family at Brunswick, or in any society she might
prefer, " of which," he declared, " she must be the
grace, life, and honor." He defended that advice
in 1820. It was founded on the fact of " alienation
and hopeless irreconcilement," and because he saw
that " faction had marked her for its own." He
had foreseen, he said, that with her income and
with her fascinating manners, she would become
the rallying-point Of political intrigue.

Had the princess followed Mr. Canning's advice
in her mode of life, her residence abroad would
have rescued her from all those dangers by which
she was encompassed on her return, and which he,
who knew her character well, had predicted so ac-
curately. He could not anticipate the errors into

D D

314 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

which she fell, and if he could, he might still have
tendered the same advice, from a conviction that
the farther the scene of such errors was removed
from England, the better for her own sake and the
repose of the country.

On her return, with this dark cloud of accusation
impending over her, Mr. Canning was a member
of the government. Ministers had a clear duty to
perform. But before they pressed on the prose-
cution, an offer was made to her of d£50,000 a year
if she would live abroad under an adopted name.
She spurned at this proposal, although it afterward
appeared that it had originally emanated from her
own party, and was responded to by the govern-
ment from a desire to avoid the demoralizing ex-
posure. There being no alternative left, her maj-
esty was brought to trial. While these proceedings
were going forward, Mr. Canning declared in the
House of Commons that he would have nothing to
do with the prosecution. His disclaimer was re-
markable. " So help me God !" he exclaimed, " I
will never place myself in the situation of an ac-
cuser toward this individual." He added, that if
any sacrifices on his part could have prevented the
painful discussion, he would have readily made
them, and would have withdrawn at once, but that
it might occasion suspicion that some injustice was
intended by his colleagues.

He remained in office as long as there lingered
the least hope of an amicable adjustment. When
that failed he resigned. But the king commanded
him to remain in office, and graciously absolved
him from all participation in the prosecution. He
availed himself of this permission, and left England.
He had no share in the Bill of Pains and Penalties :
he was out of the country during the whole term
of its progress. On his return, he found the matter,

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 315

although brought to an end by the withdrawal of
the bill, yet so mixed up with the general business of
the session that it was impossible to avoid the discus-
sion of the subject, unless he were to absent himself
altogether, which he could not continue to do con-
sistently with his ministerial responsibility. There
was no escape but resignation ; and his majesty, on
this occasion, reluctantly yielded to his wishes.

It is not enough merely to exonerate Mr. Can-
ning from censure in these transactions. He de-
serves credit for the courage and delicacy with
which he acted. He had ample justification, had
he been disposed to avail himself of it, for assisting
at the trial of the queen. The shame she had
brought upon herself by her proceedings abroad,
which could not be considered otherwise than as an
unpardonable infidelity to her true friends and ad-
vocates, and her return against his wishes, released
him from all personal obligations. She stood no
longer in the same relation to her former adherents.
Her case was altered. The old contract was viti-
ated by the introduction of new circumstances. A
solemn accusation, strongly fortified by criminating
appearances, was drawn up against her ; and he
might have justly pleaded his strict duty as a min-
ister of the crown, which demanded the abnegation
of private feelings in the discharge of a public re-
sponsibility ; but he resolved from the first to take
no part against her. He never even discussed the
subject of the prosecution with his colleagues. He
never attended a cabinet meeting on the subject.
He tried to protect her against her bad advisers ;
he used the influence he possessed to promote an
honorable arrangement, to prevent a publicity in-
jurious to both parties, and prejudicial to the mor-
als of the country : failing in that, he went out of
office. The sacrifice was a large one to him at that

316 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

moment, but it was due to the unfortunate princess
who, in better times, had bestowed distinguished
marks of favor upon him. To the other ministers
must be assigned the full glory of the state revenge,
which, robbed of its victim in the House of Lords,
descended to an idle conflict with her hearse.

Mr. Canning's retirement from the Board of
Control, in December, 1820, was no sooner made
public than the Court of Directors of the East In-
dia Company took an opportunity of expressing to
him their deep regret at the circumstance, and the
sincere respect by which his conduct, during the
five years he had occupied that arduous situation,
had impressed them. But still higher marks of
their approbation awaited him. In the following
March, the Court of Proprietors of East India
Stock, at a special meeting convened expressly
for the purpose, passed a formal resolution con-
firming the strong testimony of regard already voted
by the Court of Directors, seconded and supported
by public men wholly opposed in politics to Mr.
Canning, including Mr. Perry of the "Morning
Chronicle," and Mr. Hume ; and scarcely another
year had elapsed, when the Court of Directors,
eager to recall him to the public service, and still
more to that service in which they were so deeply
interested, offered him the office of Governor-gen-
eral of India. Mr. Canning accepted the appoint-
ment, and, soon after the commencement of the
session of 1822, was announced as the successor to
Lord Hastings.

In a pecuniary point of view, this appointment
was very acceptable to him. His private fortune
had been unavoidably straitened, and the noble in-
come of the Oriental viceroyship promised to repair
it in a short time. But this temptation would not
have withdrawn him from the political arena where

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 317

he had won all his past triumphs, had there existed
the least likelihood that office would be thrown
open to him at home. There was no chance, how-
ever, of such an event. The ministry had recently
suffered some reverses, and Lord Sidmouth had
resigned the Home Secretariship. At that mo-
ment the public looked anxiously to see Mr. Can-
ning replaced in power, but Mr. Peel was appoint-
ed to the vacancy. Lord Liverpool, in fact, could
not avail himself of Mr. Canning's services. The
king would not suffer it. The old story ! Had
Mr. Canning helped his majesty to immolate the
queen — had he not checked the current of royal
vengeance by holding aloof from the prosecution —
he might have been at the head of every thing.

There being no disguise about the antipathy of
the " highest personage in the realm" toward Mr.
Canning, the appointment to India was sanctioned
with alacrity. The Ultra-Tories rubbed their hands,
and chuckled at the prospect of getting rid of him.
The lowest grade of Reformers had much the same
feeling, because of his Toryism ; but it was^re-
strained by admiration of his talents, which the To-
ries envied, and respect for his liberal opinions,
which the Tories abhorred. But the body of the
English people regarded his approaching departure
with unaffected sorrow. They felt that they were
about to lose the greatest of their living states-
men.

Impressed with sentiments of pain and regret at
his separation from friends who had long bestowed
the most signal confidence upon him, Mr. Canning
repaired to Liverpool to take leave of his constitu-
ents. His connection with that place had been a
succession of the most gratifying triumphs, each
fresh election increasing the number of his support-
ers, and converting enemies into active partisans.

318 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

He had been four times elected for Liverpool. At
the first election he had four antagonists, the most
formidable of whom was Mr. Brougham ; on the
third election there were three candidates, but, as
the struggle advanced, fresh names were added to
the poll, and new bars were opened, until at last
there were no less than twenty-one candidates in
the field; a curious piece of electioneering maneuv-
ering, which was described by Mr. Canning, in one
of his speeches, with exquisite humor. Some of
Mr. Canning's noblest orations were delivered at
dinners and meetings among his constituents, his
eloquence rendering the scene of its achievements
as renowned at Bristol, represented, instructed, and
elevated by Burke.

Mr. Canning's visits to Liverpool were galas to
the people. He was received with the most lavish
honors ; entertainments were planned for the pur-
pose of rendering homage to his genius, and the
" Canning Club" was instituted to commemorate
his connection with the borough. He generally
took up his residence at Seaforth House, the resi-
dence of his friend Mr. Gladstone (the father of
the Right Honorable W. Gladstone), situated on a
flat stretching north of the town, and overlooking
the sea. The room which he occupied looked out
upon the ocean, and here he would sit for hours
gazing on the open expanse, while young Glad-
stone, who has subsequently obtained such distinc-
tion in the councils of his sovereign, used to be
playing on the strand below. The house is no lon-
ger in the possession of Mr. Gladstone, who let it
to Mr. Paulet, a Swiss merchant. Latterly, Mr.
Canning was the guest of Colonel Bolton.

He had been about a year and a half elected for
the fourth time, when, having accepted the appoint-
ment of governor-general, he went to Liverpool

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 319

for the purpose of taking leave of his constituents.
On his way down, intelligence overtook him on the
road that Lord Castlereagh (now Marquis of Lon-
donderry, but one prefers the more familiar name)
had terminated his life at North Cray, in Kent, with
his own hand. Connected with this piece of news
was a rumor, which gained fresh ground every
where, that Mr. Canning was universally looked
upon as his successor. But Mr. Canning was slow
to yield to the flattering suggestions of popular
opinion, and pursued his journey to Liverpool
without pausing even to examine the unexpected
contingency which had arisen.

On the 23d of August he dined with the Canning
Club. On the morning of the 30th he received an
address from his constituents, unanimously approv-
ed and sanctioned by all the mercantile associa-
tions ; and on the evening of that day a grand fes-
tival, to which 500 gentlemen sat down, was given
to him in the great room of the Lyceum. On that
occasion he delivered a speech of extraordinary
power, in which he reviewed the two great ques-
tions of Emancipation and Reform, developing the
part he had taken upon each, and ended by declar-
ing that he was entirely ignorant of the arrange-
ments likely to grow out of the recent vacancy,
and that, in the event of being consulted on the
matter, his determination should be guided, not by
a calculation of interests, but by a balance and com-
parison of duties.

It was not until the Sth of September that Lord
Liverpool requested to see Mr. Canning. An in-
terview took place on the 11th, when the Foreign
Office was offered to him by the premier, and ac-
cepted after a struggle. The delay which occur-
red before this arrangement was carried out may
be attributed mainly to Lord Eldon, whose ancient

320 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

animosity had received no mitigation from time or
events. There were other members of the cabinet
who were no less desirous to promote Mr. Can-
ning's departure for India; but Lord Liverpool
was firm : he felt that he could not conduct the
business of the country without Mr. Canning's aid,
and he stated the necessity to the king. His maj-
esty surrendered his own scruples. His necessi-
ties could not do less. In fact, if they had not ad-
mitted Mr. Canning, the ministry must have been
broken up — the most urgent argument of all.

Mr. Canning accepted the Foreign Secretariship
from an overruling sense of duty. Nothing else
could have tempted him to give up a magnificent
income, and all but unlimited power, for a position
from which little glory could be extracted, and in
which he Was to be associated with colleagues
many of whom were opposed to him on principle,
and some from personal feeling. There was only
one point on which the members of the cabinet cor-
dially agreed — Reform. On everything else they
differed ; and it is curious that for all this difference,
on Catholic Emancipation, on Commerce, on Ed-
ucation, they were unanimous on Pitt — so different
was Pitt from himself. It was all Pitt : one por-
tion was the Pitt of Thatched House celebrity — an-
other the Pitt of the Revolution ; one was the Pitt
ready to resign for Ireland — another the Pitt ready
to suspend the Habeas Corpus. The most remark-
able Pittite of them all was Lord Eldon, who used
to boast that he had never been absent from a sin-
gle dinner of the Pitt Club, and who celebrated the
defeat of the Catholic Bill in 1825 at one of its
most uproarious festivals.

But the great stumbling-block in the way of Mr.
Canning's foreign policy was the Duke of Welling-
ton. That able soldier was an intrepid admirer of

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 321

Lord Castlereagh. He found him in office when
he came home from the wars. Lord Castlereagh
was the minister to greet him on his return, to move
votes of thanks to the army, to eulogize the con-
queror of Napoleon, to acknowledge official toasts
at city dinners, and to utter all the fine ceremonial
things that made the duke's head more giddy than
cannon-balls. His grace admired his lordship pro-
digiously, had an implicit veneration for the Holy
Alliance, and thought, of course, that Mr. Canning's
" system" was an interference of a very impertinent
kind with the established impunities of the world.

The duke was one of the last persons that saw
Lord Castlereagh alive. He detected the approach
of insanity, and Lord Castlereagh himself seemed
to be conscious of it. The sensibilities of the pub-
lic were revolted at the manner of his death ; but
few thinking people were much surprised ; and the
multitude exulted. Lord Eldon tells us that when
the corpse was taken out of the hearse at the door
of Westminster Abbey, the people cheered for joy
that he was no more.*

That which was really distressing and painful in
Lord Castlereagh's history was, not its ghastly issue,
but the dreadful efforts which it must have cost him
to sustain a position of responsibility for which his
faculties were totally inadequate. That long strain,
and the hopeless play upon the surface to keep up
appearances, wore him out in the long run. His
mind was never very clear or vigorous. He be-
lieved in ghosts. He told Sir Walter Scott once
that he had actually seen a ghost. Like most other
men who have earned the unpleasant distinction
of being very much disliked in public, Lord Castle-
reagh was said to have been agreeable and amiable

© ©

in private. It is a poor compensation — so let it go.

* " Life of Lord Eldon," ii, 465.
21

322 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

His manners were simple and conciliatory, with an
occasional snatch of pleasantry which rendered him
a favorite in the Foreign Office. Between him and
Mr. Canning there were certain points of resem-
blance, limited chiefly to that fluency and ease
of gentlemanly breeding which was common to
both. In all other things they were conspicuously
dissimilar. Castlereagh had purposes below his
agreeable manners — Canning had none. Castle-
reagh always preferred talking over mooted ques-
tions with foreign ministers to the more formal
course of interchanging notes : it saved him trouble :
it enabled him to glean and surmise confidential
opinions which would never be intrusted to paper :
and it enabled him also to escape responsibility.
Canning preferred writing ; it was more clear, hon-
orable, and satisfactory ; besides, it fell in with his
literary tastes, of which Castlereagh had none.
Literature was out of his lordship's, way — a sort
of disturbing influence ; his nature was worldly.
Wilberforce says that he was cold-blooded, and
compares him to a fish ; and repeats the simile so
often, that one is in some sort compelled to think it
must have been apt and exact.

XIII.

FOREIGN POLICY. SPAIN. SPANISH AMERICA.

OREGON. GREECE. PORTUGAL.

Mr. Canning's acceptance of the .seals of the
Foreign Office led to some changes in the adminis-
tration. Among the rest, Mr. Huskisson was ap-
pointed President of the Board of Trade and
Treasurer of the Navy. He demurred at first,
without a seat in the cabinet ; but the practical in-
convenience of extending its numbers rendered his

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 323

admission at that moment impossible* A vacancy,
however, was made for him at the end of a few
months. Mr. Vansittart was removed at the same
time from the department of Finance, which he had
held by some miraculous means for eleven years,
and drafted into the House of Lords with the title
of Baron Bexley. He was succeeded in his office
by Mr. Robinson, the present Earl of Ripon. The
accession of these gentlemen brought fresh strength
to the government : and Mr. Huskisson gave a new
direction to the commercial policy of the country.
Mr. Canning's personal influence was farther im-
proved by the appointment of Lord Francis Co-
nyngham in the Foreign Office, which won the
king's heart at once.f

When Mr. Canning entered upon the duties of
his office, he found himself surrounded by obstacles
of a kind which he had no right to anticipate, aris-
ing chiefly from the implied engagements in which
his predecessor had involved Great Britain with
foreign powers. Whatever may have been the art-
ful obscurity under which Mr. Pitt may have stud-
ied to veil the object of the war with France, there
is no doubt that the whole of Europe accepted Mr.
Canning's definition of it ; that administration after
administration adopted it; and that, from the dawn
of the Directory to the last hour of the Empire, it
was understood that the object we had in view was
" the deliverance of Europe." Yet at the close
of the war, when the time came to fulfill that object,
Lord Castlereagh, at the Congress of Vienna, sac-
rificed every one of the smaller and weaker states
which had hitherto been protected by England,
leaving the world to conclude that we had only
made a pretense of defending the independence of
nations, in order the better in the end to secure

* " Speeches of Huskisson." t " Life of Lord Eldon."

324 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

impunity to despots. Genoa was made over to Sar-
dinia ; Venice to Austria ; half of Saxony to Prus-
sia; and Poland was again partitioned. This was
the way Lord Castlereagh vindicated the principle
of " deliverance" at the Congress of Vienna. To
prosecute a war for the avowed purpose of prevent-
ing France from interfering with the separate rights
of other countries, and then, having succeeded in
the war, to annihilate those rights ourselves, was
folly as well as perfidy. All the advantages which
were gained in 1808 by Mr. Canning's recognition
of Spain, and all the glories of the Peninsula, also
resulting from his policy, were thrown away at
Vienna. We began the crusade in the name of the
liberties of Europe, and ended it with the Holy Al-
liance.

In most cases it is nothing but cowardice which
makes men act despotically, when they have pow-
er to act generously. But Lord Castlereagh must
be acquitted of that. It was not through coward-
ice he committed himself to the Holy Alliance.
He was duped — blinded by vanity and exaltation.
At one time he actually praised the principles of
that alliance as being essentially Christian and lib-
eral. There is no doubt he thought so. He was
cheated into a belief that the potentates who assem-
bled at that Congress were sincerely actuated by
anxiety for the happiness and freedom of their sub-
jects. His position in Vienna dazzled and misled
him ; and when he found out that the compact he
had been recommending so strenuously to the ad-
miration of Parliament was a conspiracy of crowned
heads against human rights, the horrors of his sit-
uation may be easily conceived.

The first business which presented itself to Mr.
Canning was to devise a system by which the Holy
Alliance could be gradually dissolved, and Eng-

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 325

land rescued from the consequences of her unde-
fined relations with its members. The adjourned
Congress was on the point of assembling at Ve-
rona, and as it was necessary to send a represent-
ative in place of Lord Castlereagh, who seems to
have been terrified at the prospect that lay before
him, the Duke of "Wellington was selected, and dis-
patched without loss of time. Mr. Canning would
have preferred leaving England unrepresented at
that meeting, in order to disconnect her still more
emphatically from all responsibility arising out of
its proceedings ; but as that could not be done
without risking worse consequences, he was care-
ful in his instructions to the duke to mark, by the
firmness and explicitness of his views, the course
which it was his determination to adopt.

Even if Lord Castlereagh had been animated by
the most earnest desire to release England from
the network of the Holy Alliance, he could not
have accomplished it so effectually as Mr. Canning.
His intercourse at conferences with monarchs and
their ministers had, to a certain extent, hampered
him. He never could have felt himself so perfect-
ly unshackled as if he had discharged the functions
of his office through the ordinary channels of com-
munication. His range of action was abridged by
personal considerations. The diplomatic conver-
sation which he cultivated so much, in preference
to diplomatic correspondence, left behind a variety
of indefinite impressions, which had the practical
effect of curtailing his independence. Mr. Can-
ning-, on the other hand, was free and unfettered.
He had nothing to qualify or recall. There could
be no implied obligations, no tacit inferences to em-
barrass his decision upon any question which might
come before him. Whatever course he might think
fit to take, was at least clear and unobstructed.

E E

326 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

The natural consequence of this free position sub-
sequently developed itself in the liberation of Eng-
land from the attractive influences of the allied
powers. Mr. Canning was not two years in office
when England moved once more in her own orbit.
But his progress was beset with conflicting diffi-
culties. A notion had got abroad that England
was favorable to the principles of the Holy Alliance.
This notion was encouraged by Lord Castlereagh's
indiscretions, and sedulously propagated, for their
own purposes, by the diplomatists of the Conti-
nent. The war we had been waging against the
revolutionary spirit gave a strong coloring of
probability to this suspicion. Having set ourselves
so vigorously against revolution in France, it was
not inconsistent, at first sight, to suppose that we
should unite with the powers of the Continent in
resisting future revolutions. There was a power-
ful party, too, which held to this doctrine, and
looked to the Holy Alliance as a bulwark against
popular encroachments. There was another party
— the Masses, the Millions — who clamored to be let
loose from the Alliance, and who would be satisfied
with no proof of our redemption from its trammels
short of open and armed resistance. Mr. Canning
had to counteract these opposite feelings and preju-
dices, and to move onward to his object without
suffering his policy to be embarrassed by either of
the extremes. The very first blow he struck in the
Congress of" Verona announced to the world the
attitude which England was about to take, and her
total denial of the rights of the Alliance to inter-
fere with the internal affairs of any independent na-
tion.*

* " The Alliance," says Mr. Stapleton, " had arrived at such a
pitch of confidence, that the ministers of the four courts called in
a body on Mr. Canning to remonstrate with him against the ap-

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 327

It appeared that France had collected a large
army in the south, and not having legitimate occu-
pation for it, proposed to employ it in the invasion
of Spain. This monstrous project was submitted
to Congress, and ardently approved of by Russia.
It was now that England spoke out for the first
time in this cabal of despots. Having learned from
the Duke of Wellington that such a proposition
was likely to be made, and that the allies would
probably agree to it, Mr. Canning immediately in-
structed his grace that " if a declaration of any
such determination should be made at Verona, come
what might, he should refuse the king's consent to
become a party to it, even though the dissolution of
the Alliance should be the consequence of the refusal."
The proposition was made in due form, and, after
some interchanges of notes and discussions agreed
to by the allies, the British plenipotentiary, as he
was instructed, refused all participation in these
proceedings, and withdrew from the Congress.
This was the first step that was taken to show the
Alliance that England would not become a party
to any act of unjust aggression or unjustifiable in-
terference.

A long correspondence ensued between Mr.
Canning and M. de Chateaubriand. Mr. Canning's
dispatches on this subject are models of diplomacy.
M. de Chateaubriand was secretly for war, but af-
fected the most moderate and reasonable disposi-
tions. The French king's speech, on opening
the Chambers, revealed the real intentions of the
government, which Mr. Canning had penetrated
from the beginning. The speech was, in fact, a

pointment of Sir William a Court as the king's minister to Madrid,
on account of the countenance that his presence would give to
the Constitutional government."—" Political Life of the Rt. Hop.
G. Canning," i., 146.

328 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

declaration of war against Spain, qualified by the
slightest imaginable hypothesis. But, happily for
all interests, there was no possibility of disguising
the purpose of this war, which was plainly and
avowedly to force upon the people of Spain such
a constitution as the king (a Bourbon), in the exer-
cise of his absolute authority, should think fit to
give them. This principle, it will be seen, makes
constitutional rights flow from the king, inverting
that fundamental doctrine of English freedom which
recognizes in the people alone the source of all po-
litical power. Against this principle Mr. Canning
entered a dignified protest. If the speech, he said,
were to be construed, that " the free institutions of
the Spanish people could only be legitimately held
from the spontaneous gift of the sovereign, first re-
stored to absolute power, and then divesting him-
self of such portion of that power as he might think
proper to part with, it was a principle to which the
Spanish nation could not be expected to submit,
nor could any British statesman uphold or defend
it. It was, indeed, a principle which struck at the
root of the British Constitution^ " Thus nobly did
Mr. Canning vindicate those doctrines of constitu-
tional liberty which he lived to see established un-
der his own auspices in the remote colonies of that
wretched kingdom on whose behalf he was thus
pleading in vain. But although he could not avert
from Spain the calamity of a French invasion, he
made it clear to all the world that England object-
ed to that proceeding, and that she was no longer
even to be suspected of favoring the designs of the
Holy Alliance.

The French army made the passage of the Bi-
dassoa. From that moment Mr. Canning inter-
fered no farther. He at once disclosed the system
which he had already matured and resolved upon.

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 329

Having first protested against the principle of the
invasion, he determined, to maintain the neutrality
of England in the war that followed. By this
course he achieved the end he had in view, of sev-
ering England from the Holy Alliance without em-
broiling her in any consequent responsibilities.

This neutrality — ominous and motionless — had
a strange effect upon a people who had been so ac-
customed, at the slightest provocation, to fly to arms.
But it must be remembered that Europe of 1823
was in a different condition from Europe during
the war. The Balance of Power was no longer an
intelligible thing to be fought for. It was shadowy
and speculative, and represented nothing but dead
forms, which no art of gunpowder could make live.
France had lost her conquests : her central fire was
turned into ashes. The little states that used to
make the small weights in the huge Balance were
all soldered into the large ones ; other states had
been dismembered ; some had been blotted out ;
others enlarged ; none held their original length
and breadth ; the map was a new map ; and al-
though France did march an army across the Pyr-
enees, and although there was a chance of her
marching into Portugal also, and disturbing still
farther the palpitations of the Balance, it was not
a question nor a time for war. The war policy
was over — the necessity was over — there was no
contingent benefit to be derived from a war equiv-
alent to the certain mischief. England had strained
her strength, as Canning described it, to the utmost,
" and her means were at that precise stage of re-
covery which made it most desirable that the prog-
ress of recovery should not be interrupted." In
addition to all this, it might be urged that the be-
oinnino- a new war, with all its fearful liabilities, is

E e 2

330 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

quite a different matter from fighting out one that
has already begun.

There were not wanting persons who, with the
best intentions, had not sagacity enough to discern
the wisdom of Mr. Canning's gradual renunciation
of the Holy Alliance. They could not detect on
the horizon the first blush of this dawn of liberal
principles. They insisted that the sun should rush
to his meridian height at once. Neutrality was de-
nounced as timidity, and a distinct motion was
brought forward in the Commons condemning the
government for want of boldness in its negotiations.
The speeches were disorderly and clamorous. Mr.
Canning spoke on the third night, and completely
turned the tide. He declared his immediate ob-
ject at Verona was to prevent a war with Spain
growing out of " an assumed jurisdiction of the
Congress, and the keeping within bounds that are-
opagitical spirit which was beyond the sphere of
the original conception and understood principles
of the Alliance." This startling declaration fairly
lifted the House off its legs. The enthusiasm it
produced can not be very distinctly conveyed in any
common form of words. Every body voted for the
government, except a few members who were
obliged to remain in the body of the House, be-
cause the lobby was too crowded to hold them !

The result of the invasion abundantly justified
the neutrality. " By a strange course of events,"
said Mr. Canning, " the whole situation and busi-
ness of the French in Spain has become changed.
They went into the country to defend the fanatical
party against the Constitutionalists, and now they
are actually interfering for the Constitutional party
with the fanatics." During the progress of these
events, several motions were made against the pol-
icy of government ; but before the debate closed,

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 331

each motion was regularly converted into a pane-
gyric. Even Hobhou.se congratulated the country
on the foreign policy of ministers, and said that if
the same language had been held at Troppau and
Laybach which he believed to have been held at
Verona, England would then be in a different sit-
uation. He might have gone still farther, and said
that if Mr. Canning had been in office a few months
earlier, England would never have had a represent-
ative at the Congress of Vienna. Canning always
protested against the system of holding Congresses
for the government of the world.

Mr. Canning's " system" of foreign policy, as de-
scribed in his own language, resolved itself into this
principle of action, that " England should hold the
balance, not only between contending nations, but
between conflicting principles ; that, in order to
prevent things from going to extremities, she should
keep a distinct middle ground, staying the plague
both ways." But as, when he came into office in
1822, the Anti-Liberal influence preponderated, it
was necessary, for the purpose of preserving the
equilibrium, to favor the Liberal scale.* It was
not his design to give a triumph to either, but to
adjust the balance between both.

The development of this principle, as it applied
to nations, was illustrated in the strict but watchful
neutrality observed between France and Spain ;
and, as it applied to principles, in the recognition
of the independence of the Spanish-American col-
onies. The latter act may be regarded as the most
important for which Mr. Canning was officially re-
sponsible, as that which exerted the widest and
most distinct influence over the policy of other
countries, and which most clearly and emphatically
revealed the tendency of his own. It showed that
* " Political Life," i., 474.

332 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

England would recognize institutions raised up by
the people, as well as those which were created by
kings. It gave the death-blow to the Holy Alliance.
Mr. Canning's conduct in this crisis discovered a
magnanimity of spirit worthy of the statesman who
enjoys the glory of having called the South Ameri-
can republics into existence ; an honor which un-
questionably belongs to him. The measure had
been strenuously opposed by Lord Castlereagh,
and retarded, even as it was, for a quarter of a year
by Lord Eldon, who retarded every thing ; and had
it not been for the energy displayed by Mr. Can-
ning, and the effect produced by the unexpected
declaration of his opinions, Mexico, Columbia, and
Buenos Ayres might have struggled through a
season of rickety independence, but must have
fallen back again into a worse servitude than be-
fore. At the first outbreak of the colonies, num-
bers of young persons volunteered from this country
to fight on their behalf; but Mr. Canning brought
in a bill to prohibit their interference, which he
declared would be a direct violation of our treaties
with Spain. He consoled them, however, for the
disappointment by assuring them that the colonies,
if left to themselves, must inevitably become free
in the natural course of things. He next opened
a confidential communication with Mr. Rush, the
American minister, to ascertain whether he was
authorized to enter into any convention with Eng-
land respecting the colonies ; but Rush had no
powers. He then at once addressed himself to the
French minister, and took so bold and decisive a
tone, that France, who was suspected of intending
to indemnify herself for the war by territorial ac-
quisition in South America, abandoned her design,
and left Mr. Canning free to take his own course.
Ho immediately appointed consuls, and the repub-

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 333

lies from that moment were secure. But he had
incredible difficulties to contend against in these
negotiations — calumny, deceit, and harassing re-
sistance in a thousand petty shapes. Before he
carried the recognition of the independence of
Spanish America to its final triumph, he was twice
on the point of resigning his office.

A question was discussed during Mr. Rush's res-
idence in this country, which, as it is not yet ad-
justed, carries with it a surviving interest greater
than its historical importance is likely to sustain.
This question concerned the right of territory in
that dismal and inhospitable district of country,
lying between the Rocky Mountains and the Pa-
cific Ocean, called the Oregon. Both England and
America claimed a right of settlement and sov-
ereignty in Oregon, and successive negotiations
seemed to have no other result than that of demon-
strating the hopelessness of arriving at a point of
common agreement. The great error on our part
was committed in 1818, when the British plenipo-
tentiaries (Mr. Robinson and Mr. Goulburn), for
the sake of a temporary evasion of the difficulties,
agreed to throw the country open to both claimants
for ten years — leaving the question of boundary for
future settlement. But what could be settled at
the end of ten years could have been more easily
settled then, before the question had become em-
barrassed by new liens established in the interval
by emigrants on both sides. It is impossible to
comprehend the policy of postponing the settlement
until the difficulties shall have become increased by
the acquisition of local possessions, of which one or
the other, or both, to some extent, must be deprived
in the long run ; adding a practical grievance to be
adjusted in addition to the general light. Thus
perplexed, the question of the Oregon descended
to Mr. Canning.

334 THE LIFE OP CANNING.

Mr. Rush, who had instructions to reopen this
discussion, waited upon Mr. Canning, and found
him ill in bed with the gout. But they neverthe-
less proceeded to the investigation of the claim.
The map of America was spread out upon the bed,
and Mr. Rush traced the boundary demanded by
America, which ran along the 51° of latitude. Mr.
Canning expressed his surprise at the extent of the
American claim ; and when the negotiations were
again renewed, the American minister reduced his
demand to the 49°, to which Mr. Canning refused
to accede. Farther attempts were made to bring
about a pacific settlement of this disputed bound-
ary; and Mr. Canning, from an anxious desire to
avoid hostilities, proposed a middle course, which
was rejected by America. Mr. Canning never
omitted an opportunity in public or private of tes-
tifying his amicable disposition toward the United
States. The weight of his influence tended ma-
terially to restrain the temper of the English people,
which was such, throughout these and other simi-
larly hopeless negotiations, that Lord Castlereagh
told Mr. Rush that war could be produced by hold-
ing up a finger.

Having failed in obtaining our acquiescence in
her demand up to the 49° of north latitude, America
has lately set up a claim to the whole country. She
claims upon two grounds : one by right of dis-
covery, the other by right of treaty with Spain.
Her claim by right of discovery dates in 1792 ; her
claim by right of treaty dates in 1819, when Spain
made over all her own possessions in that unmapped
country to the United States. Without descending
into details, it is clear that these two rights can not
coexist. America can not claim through Spain in
1819 that which, she says, she acquired by right,
of discovery in 1792. Spain could not confer upon

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 335

America that which America herself already pos-
sessed. There is another reason why Spain could
not bestow Oregon upon America, namely, that it
did not belong to her. " Such a union of titles,"
says Mr. Rush, " imparting validity [perhaps he
means m-validity] to each other, does not often ex-
ist :" an observation which might be safely carried
a little farther, by saying that such a union never
existed before.

The same principles which Mr. Canning had al-
ready applied to the case of Spain were brought to
bear upon all parts of the world, in which either
our interests or our sympathies were engaged, and
they were uniformly crowned by equally gratifying
results : loosening every where the gripe of despot-
ism, enlarging the rights of the people, and estab-
lishing liberal institutions within the limits which
he considered to be essential to their permanence.
In this way he obtained the amelioration of the
Turkish rule in Greece, without hurting the just
dignity of the Porte, who protested very properly
against foreign interference in her domestic affairs.

So long as it was possible to conduct this en-
lightened policy noiselessly, and without any spe-
cific exposition of the system upon which it was
based, Mr. Canning was content to abide by the re-
sults of his exertions, every day becoming more
and more visible in the growing prosperity of Eng-
land, and the rapidly-declining influence of the
Holy Alliance. But an occasion at last arose,
which drew him into a more decided manifestation
of his views. In violation of an existing treaty,
and urged onwerd by apostolical fury, Spain had
made a perfidious attempt to overthrow the new
Constitution of Portugal. She dreaded the close
neighborhood of free institutions ; and, sustained
by the sinister influence of France, she resolved to

336 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

make a powerful effort to annihilate them. Intelli-
gence of the imminent peril of our ancient ally reach-
ed ministers on the night of the 8th of December,
1826 ; on the 11th (Sunday intervening) a message
from the king was communicated to Parliament ;
and on the 12th a discussion ensued, which, as long
as a trace of English eloquence shall remain among
the records of the world, will never be forgotten.

Mr. Canning was now at the height of his power,
wielding an influence more extended and complete
than any foreign minister in this country had ever
enjoyed before. The subject to which he address-
ed himself in this instance was one that invoked
the grandest attributes of his genius, and derived
a peculiar felicity from being developed by a Brit-
ish minister ; and, above all, by that minister who
had liberated the New World and crushed the tyr-
annies of the Old. It was not surprising, then, that,
bringing to it all the vigor and enthusiasm of his in-
tellect, and that vital beauty of style which was the
pervading charm of his great orations, he should
have transcended on this occasion all his past efforts,
and delivered a speech which not merely carried
away the admiration of his hearers, but literally in-
flamed them into frenzy. The fabulous spells of
Orpheus, who made the woods dance reels and
sarabands, never achieved so wonderful a piece of
sorcery as this speech of Mr. Canning's achieved
over the passions, the judgment, the prejudices, and
the stolid unbelief of the House of Commons.

After giving a luminous detail of the long-exist-
ing connection between Portugal and England, and
the obligations by which we were bound to assist
our old ally, Mr. Canning proceeded to state the
case." It would be impossible to describe the effect
produced by the following little sentence :

" The precise information, on which alone we could

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 337

act, arrived only on Friday last. On Saturday the de-
cision of the government was taken — on Sunday we
obtained the sanction of his majesty — on Monday we
came down to Parliament — and at this very hour, while I
have now the honor of addressing this House — British

TROOPS ARE ON THEIR WAT TO PORTUGAL !"

The House fairly vibrated with emotion at this
unexpected statement. It was the concentration
in a single instant of the national enthusiasm of a
whole age. At every sentence he was interrupted
with huzzas ! Then, when he spoke of the Portu-
guese Constitution :

" With respect to the character of that Constitution, I
do not think it right, at present, to offer any opinion ;
privately I have my own opinion. But, as an English
minister, all I have to say is, may God prosper the at-
tempt made by Portugal to obtain Constitutional liberty,
and may that nation be as fit to receive and cherish it
as, on other occasions, she is capable of discharging her
duties among the nations of Europe."

Luckily, there is always an obstructionist in the
House of Commons — a Mr. Hume — to start up with
an objection by way of rider to the very climax of
unanimity : this useful functionary discharged his
office on this memorable occasion with the happiest
effect, for he succeeded in calling up Mr. Canning
a second time, when he delivered a speech of loftier
eloquence, and even more sustained energy, than
that with which he introduced the address. With
reference to the French occupation of Spain, he
admitted that it was to be lamented, but he denied
that it was worth a war, and asserted that its effects
had been infinitely exaggerated. As to Spain her-
self, she was no longer what she had been :

" Is the Spain of the present day the Spain of which
the statesmen of the times of William and Anne were
so much afraid ? Is it indeed the nation whose puis-
sance was expected to shake England from her sphere?
22 F f

338 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

No, sir, it was quite another Spain — it was the Spain,
within the limits of whose empire the sun never set — it
was Spain with the Indies that excited the jealousies
and alarmed the imaginations of our ancestors."

Admitted that the entrance of the French into
Spain disturbed the balance of power, ought we
to have gone to war to restore it ] Was there no
other way to adjust this balance of power, which
fluctuated eternally with the growth and decay of
nations ]

" Was there no other mode of resistance than by a
direct attack upon France, or by a war to be undertak-
en on the soil of Spain ? What, if the possession of
Spain might be rendered harmless in other hands —
harmless as regarded us — and valueless to the possess-
ors ? Might not compensation for disparagement be ob-
tained, and the policy of our ancestors vindicated, by
means better adapted to the present time ? If France
occupied Spain, was it necessary, in order to avoid the
consequences of that occupation, that we should block-
ade Cadiz ? No. I looked another way — I sought ma-
terials of compensation in another hemisphere. Con-
templating Spain such as our ancestors had known her,
I resolved that if France had Spain, it should not be
Spain with the Indies. I called the New World
into existence to redress the balance of the
Old."

This speech, as has been said of the eloquence of
Chatham, " was an era in the Senate." The effect
was tremendous. " It was an epoch in a man's
life," says a member of the Commons, " to have
heard him. I shall never forget the deep, moral
earnestness of his tone, and the blaze of glory that
seemed to light up his features when he spoke of
the Portuguese Charter." The same writer fur-
nishes the following details :

" He was equally grand when, in his reply, he said,
' I do not believe that there is that Spain of which our
ancestors were so justly jealous, that Spain upon whose

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 339

territories it was proudly boasted the sun never set 1*
But when, in the style aud manner of Chatham, he said,
' I looked to Spain in the Indies ; I called a new world
into existence to redress the balance of the old,' the ef-
fect was actually terrific. It was as if every man in the
House had been electrified. Tierney, who before that
was shifting in his seat, and taking off his hat and put-
ting it on again, and taking large and frequent pinches of
snuff, and turning from side to side, till he, I suppose,
wore his breeches through, seemed petrified, and sat
fixed, and staring with his mouth open for half a minute !
Mr. Canning seemed actually to have increased in stature,
his attitude was so majestic. I remarked his flourishes
were made with his left arm ; the effect was new and
beautiful ; his chest heaved and expanded, his nostril di-
lated, a noble pride slightly curled his lip ; and age and
sickness were dissolved and forgotten in the ardor of
youthful genius ; all the while a serenity sat on his brow
that pointed to deeds of glory. It reminded me, and
came up to what I have heard, of the effects of Atheni-
an eloquence."*

Mr. Canning had now reached the pinnacle of
his fame. His ambition had accomplished nearly
its highest aims — his genius had overwhelmed all
opposition. How little did England anticipate, at
this proud moment, that she was so soon to lose
her accomplished and patriotic statesman !

XIV.

COMMERCIAL POLICY. PARLIAMENTARY REFORM.

CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION. TEST ACT.

Mr. Canning's commercial policy was identi-
cal with that of Mr. Huskisson. His general prin-
ciple was this, that commerce flourished best when
wholly unfettered by restrictions ; but, as modern
nations had grown up under various systems, and

* " Diarv of an M.P."

340 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

were never secure from fluctuation, he maintained
that it was necessary to observe a discriminating
judgment in the application of this principle. The
wise course was always to keep it in sight, and to
work toward it, as the final aim of legislation. He
held the doctrine of protection, in the abstract, to
be unsound as well as unjust. Bounties, monopo-
lies, and all special exemptions in favor of particu-
lar classes or particular interests, were consequent-
ly the objects against which his commercial system
was cautiously but continuously directed.

The Reciprocity Act, brought in by Mr. Robin-
son in 1823, was an indication of that system. By
this act the king in council was authorized to place
the ships of foreign states, importing articles into
Great Britain or her colonies, on the same footing
of duties as British ships, provided such foreign
states extended a like equality to British ships trad-
ing with their ports. It will be seen at a glance
that the principle of extinguishing restrictions was
thus fully declared, while its practical application
was carefully regulated by a scale of safe equiva-
lents.

The powers granted by this act were sufficient-
ly expansive to meet every contingency. If the
king in council had the power of relinquishing the
duties on foreign ships and cargoes, where the
principle of reciprocity was mutually conceded, he
had also a retaliatory power of imposing increased
duties where that principle was evaded or resisted.
Mr. Canning was not slow to avail himself of this
power, as an indirect means of compelling other
countries to admit a more reasonable spirit into
their tariffs. A curious instance occurred with ref-
erence to Holland, in 1826. M. Falck, the Dutch
minister, having made a one-sided proposition for
the admission of English ships, by which a consid-

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 341

erable advantage would have accrued to Holland,
a long and tedious negotiation ensued. It was
dragged on, month after month, without arriving
one step nearer to a consummation, the Dutch still
holding out for their own interests. At last Mr.
Canning's patience was exhausted. Sir Charles
Bagot, our embassador at the Hague, was one day
attending at court, when a dispatch in cipher was
hastily put into his hand. It was very short, and ev-
idently very urgent; but, unfortunately, Sir Charles,
not expecting such a communication, had not the
key of the cipher with him. An interval of intense
anxiety followed, until he obtained the key ; when,
to his infinite astonishment, he deciphered the fol-
lowing dispatch from the Secretary of State for
Foreign Affairs :

'' In matters of commerce, the fault of the Dutch
Is giving too little and asking too much ;
With equal advantage the French are content,
So we'll clap on Dutch bottoms a twenty per cent.
Twenty per cent.,
Twenty per cent.,
Nous frapperons Falck with twenty per cent.

George Canning."

The minister kept his word. While this singu-
lar dispatch was on its way to the Hague, an or-
der in council was issued to put into effect the in-
tention it announced.

The three great domestic questions in Mr. Can-
ning's time, and which every year acquired increas-
ed urgency and importance, were Parliamentary
Reform, Catholic Emancipation, and the Test Act.
They have all been disposed of since, and very lit-
tle interest attaches to them now except that of'the
vague wonder with which we look back upon such
strange monuments of an unwise antiquity ; and
twenty years ago was a barbarous age touching
such questions in England.

F f 2

342 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

In 1827, Mr. Canning made use of the following
declaration :

" There are two questions to which I wish to reply.
I have been asked what I intend to do with the question
of Parliamentary Reform when it is brought forward.
What do I intend to do with it ? Why, oppose it, as I
have invariably done during the whole of my Parliament-
ary career. What do I intend to do with the Test
Act ? Oppose it."

These were the incomprehensible points of Mr.
Canning's political creed. It seems that he took
them up from the beginning as articles of faith,
and could never consent to submit them to the test
of reason.

He held that reform meant revolution. So did
Mr. Pitt — when it suited his purposes ; but it is re-
markable that neither of them perceived that their
own measure of Catholic Emancipation had been
resisted all along by their own party upon precise-
ly the same ground. Mr. Canning was constantly
told that emancipation meant nothing more nor less
than the destruction of Church and State, and he
over and over again showed the fallacy of the as-
sertion ; yet he could not detect the same fallacy
when it was applied to the question of Parliament-
ary Reform.

It is surprising, too, that the barefaced corruption
of the old system did not strike him as something
inconsistent with the spirit and obligations of the
Constitution. In 1792, the borough of Gatton
was publicly advertised for sale, not for a single
Parliament, but the fee simple itself, with the
power of nominating two representatives forever,
described by the auctioneer as " an elegant contin-
gency." In 1801, Fox described Old Sarum as
consisting of an old encampment and two or tlnee
cottages ; another borough sustained its privileges

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 343

upon the stump of a tree, which was duly repre-
sented in the English Parliament by two very re-
spectable members. The franchise was equally
rotten. These facts were notorious ; but Mr. Can-
ning resisted all attempts to remedy the monstrous
evils they disclosed, because he believed that every
advance toward the independence of the Com-
mons would be, in effect, an advance toward a pre-
ponderating democracy, under the influence of
which the crown and the peerage would be ulti-
mately overwhelmed. " The reformers mean de-
mocracy," he exclaimed, in his celebrated speech
at Liverpool on this subject, in 1818 ; " they mean
democracy, and nothing else ; and give them but a
House of Commons constructed on their own prin-
ciples, the peerage and the throne may exist for a
day, but may be swept from the face of the earth
by the first angry vote of such a House of Com-
mons." His whole theory is inclosed in these few
words ; making no account whatever of that prin-
ciple of elasticity by which our Constitution is al-
ways enabled to adapt itself to the requisitions of
social progress.

At an early period of his career, Mr. Canning
agreed with Pitt in treating reform, not as a ques-
tion shut out forever from consideration by an im-
mutable necessity, but as a question which might
be entertained under certain circumstances. It
was then argued that, however justifiable it might
be to demand a reform in Parliament in times of
tranquillity, the case was altered in times of dis-
turbance. This method of treating reform, although
apparently more friendly, was in reality more hos-
tile than the other, which at least had the merit of
throwing the whole question open to discussion.
By this more ingenious device, the Constitutional
right was set aside on the very threshold. Tf the

344 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

demand for reform might be set up at one time, and
not at another, what became of the Constitutional
right of petition with which the people are supposed
to be invested at all times ? Is it a privilege which
depends on the complexion of the sky 1 Is it to be
exercised only in fine weather ] Must a man never
utter his opinions when it rains or thunders? Is
this essential element of'popular liberty dependent
on the weather-glass 1 Mr. Canning appears to
have been ashamed of the hypocrisy of this way of
dealing with reform, and to have adopted, latterly,
the bolder course of opposing it in limine. To that
mode of argument, which placed the question fairly
on its merits, we are largely indebted for the rapid
strides it afterward made ; and thus, even on this
last fortress of ancient Toryism, we find his happy
genius promoting the conquests of the people over
the prejudices of party.

Over the final accomplishment of Catholic Eman-
cipation— so long contested, and so pertinaciously
resisted — he exercised a direct and important in-
fluence. The question itself presents one of the
most extraordinary chapters in our history. Its
progress may be tracked, by its disturbing power,
through the successive administrations of thirty-five
years. It divided all the cabinets, in spite of the
strenuous efforts that were made to keep it out,
and finally broke them up. The members of the
government were divided upon it before the coa-
lition between Pitt and the Duke of Portland ; the
coalition increased the dissensions. Lord Fitz-
william was sent to Ireland to reflect, in the gov-
ernment of that country, the checks and balances
of the English Cabinet. Then came the Union,
with its implied promise of Emancipation, which
the minister could not keep. The king was flick-
ering in various stages of insanity ; one day ill,

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 345

another well, in his general capacity, such as it was ;
but never well enough to see the justice or policy
of Emancipation. In this dilemma, and upon this
question, Pitt was forced to resign. The next ad-
ministration was formed in the forlorn hope of being
able to stand between the insanity of the king and
the common sense of the country. It failed, as a
matter of course — this terrible nightmare hovering
over its head, and paralyzing its energies. In 1804,
Pitt returned. He tried to evade the difficulty by
a subterfuge, and finally escaped from it by death.
The Grey and Grenville administration was anni-
hilated by the same Catholic Question in eighteen
months; and Perceval was shut up from 1807 to
1812 between the king's insanity and the Catholic
Claims. His government resisted them all through-
out ; but we have Sir Robert Peel's authority for
the assertion, that it did not resist them upon per-
manent grounds or upon principle. Even at that
time, Emancipation had so far vanquished its op-
ponents, that they could no longer construct a cab-
inet upon the avowed principle of hostility to it ;
and then came Lord Liverpool's administration,
when it was made an open question. Even in this
shape, it was a terrible obstruction to the govern-
ment, the system of neutral opinions and open vot-
ing having been found, from experience, to be
most unfortunate and unfavorable to the adminis-
tration of the affairs of the country. But in what-
ever shape it came, open or closed, this Catholic
Question hung, like the Old Man of the Sea, upon
the neck of the Tory party, through all its phases,
for nearly half a century, and broke it at last.*

* Yet even when Emancipation was on the eve of being carried,
such was the steadfastness of the old faith, that the extreme Tory
party had not the least suspicion that such, a thing was possible.
Wilberforce tells us that he called on Southeyan May, 1828, and
found him anticipating civil war. He said that the Roman Oath-

346 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

From disclosures which have been subsequently-
made, it is now known that the sturdiest antago-
nists of the Catholic Claims had been giving way
from time to time within the cabinet itself. Lord
Liverpool had become convinced that the period
was approaching when the Catholic Claims could
no longer be resisted ; and it is said that, although
he felt it would have been inconsistent in him to
give them his support as premier, he had resolved
at least to mitigate the opposition to them in the
Lords ; that it was his intention to retire from office,
leaving Canning as his successor, and, when the
claims should have been disposed of, to accept some
less laborious appointment under the administration
of his friend.* His illness arrested all these plans.

Sir Robert Peel made a similar confession in
1829. He said that when he found himself in a
minority of twenty-one on the Catholic Question in
1825, he felt his position as Home Minister unten-
able. He thought it was no longer advisable that
he should remain charged with the administration
of Irish affairs when he was thus defeated on an
Irish question ; that he went to Lord Liverpool,
told him that the time was come when something re-
specting the Catholics, in his opinion, ought to be
done, and begged to be relieved from his office.
But Lord Liverpool threatened in that case to re-
tire also ; so Sir Robert consented to remain, and

olic priests would undoubtedly excite their flocks to insurrection.
Wilberforce concurred, but thought the House would concede, as
they had done in 1782. To which Southey replied, that the admin-
istration of 1782 was weak ; but now — the Duke of Wellington "
said he, stretching out his arm stiffly, and pulling up his sleeve—
" ha !— the duke is a great man !"--" Life of Wilberforce," v., 300.
It is very remarkable that the opposite opinion was held by some
of the Liberal party. Sidney Smith predicted that the No Popery
leaders would desert their followers when it suited their purposes
— " Works of the Rev. S. Smith," ii., 418.
* " Speeches of Mr. Huskisson," j., 128,

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 347

" try another experiment on the feelings of the
country." In 1826 there was a new House of
Commons, which increased the majority in favor
of the Catholics in the following year to twenty-
three. The " experiment," therefore, was making
fearful advances toward a crisis one way or the
other, In 1828 the fruit ripened into the affirma-
tion of a resolution favorable to the principle of ad-
justment, and Sir Robert's sense of expediency
was wound up to its height. He saw clearly that
the question had got ahead of the bigotry and in-
tolerance, and even of the influence, in doors and
out of doors, of the party with which he had been
connected all his life, and whose exclusive doc-
trines he had pledged himself over and over again
to maintain to the death. He saw that whoever
was minister, Emancipation must be carried by
somebody in spite of king, Lords, and Commons ;
and, therefore, in the critical moment when office
lay in one scale, and the civil and religious freedom
of some seven millions of the king's liege subjects
lay in the other, he resolved to carry it himself.
He immediately went to the duke, and intimated
to his grace that he was not only prepared and
anxious to retire from office, but that, seeing the
current of public opinion setting in favor of the
Catholic Claims, he should no longer feel justified
in opposing them, in whatever situation he might
find himself. " To this," he continued, " I after-
ward added, that to this great object I was ready
to make a sacrifice of consistency and friendship"
This was too significant to be misunderstood. The
secretary was secure either way : in office, to float
with the aforesaid current of public opinion, which
he found setting in with such extraordinary force
and rapidity ; or, out of office, to embarrass and
destroy, by the help of his new ally, public opinion,

\

348 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

any administration that might attempt the govern-
ment on the principle of resistance to the Catholic
Claims.

There is a very excellent maxim of the good old
Tory school, which insists upon the prudence of
taking the ball at the hop ; but never in the expe-
rience of an English cabinet was there such a hop
of the ball as this, and never was a hop taken with
such timely dexterity.

But the most curious part of the secretary's case
was his sudden discovery of the overwhelming im-
portance of an object which, in the face of the most
convincing proofs to the contrary, adduced by him-
self in another part of this same speech, for a wide-
ly different purpose, he had all along resisted as ut-
terly incompatible with the safety of existing in-
stitutions. Catholic Emancipation had, it seems,
become a great object in 1828 — so great that he
was ready to keep office even at the total sacrifice
of his consistency and his friends, in order to be
enabled to carry it. Yet upon his own showing —
(and his statement of the ministerial and Parlia-
mentary history of the question is so full and ex-
plicit that it hardly needs any addition) — this very
question had been disorganizing every cabinet for
the previous five-and-thirty years, distracting their
counsels, rendering effective co-operation for the
public good nearly impossible, and frequently for-
cing them either to capitulate for place by a com-
promise of differences under a veil of neutrality so
thin that the whole world could see hypocrisy, self-
ishness, and insincerity behind it, or to abandon
office from inability to keep out the tide that was
flooding them in their seats ; and yet, with all these
accumulating evidences of the irresistible nature of
these claims before him, and of the pernicious con-
sequences of continuing to resist them, Sir Robert

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 349

Peel never saw the imperative necessity of con-
ceding them until he conceded them himself in
1829. He could not even see it (notwithstanding
the revolution his mind had undergone in 1825)
when Mr. Canning came into power in 1827, on
which occasion we find him vindicating his refusal
to take office under Mr. Canning on this sole ground
— that it was i?npossible for him to acquiesce in any
proposition for granting farther concessions to the
Catholics. His words were these :

" The grounds on which I retired from office are sim-
ply these : I have taken, from the first moment of my
public life, an active and decided part on a great and vital
question — that of the extension of political privileges to
the Roman Catholics. * * My opposition is founded on
principle. I think that the continuance of those bars,
which prevent the acquisition of political power by the
Catholics, is necessaiy for the maintenance of the Con-
stitution and the interests of the Established Church."

This was in 1827. What became of the "main-
tenance of the Constitution" and the "interests of
the Established Church" in 1829 ?

From this rapid outline of the progress of the
Catholic Question, it will be seen that, notwithstand-
ing all the impediments thrown up against it by
kings, chancellors, and cabinets, it continued grad-
ually to make way from the expiration of the re-
gency restrictions, when Mr. Canning, released from
all personal obligations to the king, first devoted
himself to its advocacy, down to the very last hour
when he bequeathed to his successors the glory of
carrying it. The sacrifices he made for the sake of
this question were great. Office was the least of
them. He sacrificed for it all prospect of repre-
senting in Parliament that university in which he
had been educated, the crowning object of all the
dreams of his youthful ambition. Every thing was

a g

350 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

against him on this question : his own party, the
king, the Duke of York, the premier, the chancel-
lor, the House of Lords, and for many years the
House of Commons, and even popular prejudices
in England. He persevered against them all. He
brought his influence and his eloquence to bear
upon all these masses of resistance. He kept aloof
from all personal intercourse with Catholic dele-
gates, that he might stand clear of suspicion, and
that the purity and independence of his motives
should be above impeachment. He bore down
these antagonist forces one by one, weakened their
powers of hostility, and effectually succeeded in
winning over the most influential and indispensable
opinions. What actual steps he took in the cabi-
net can not be known, but they may be readily sur-
mised. It was quite evident that, under his influ-
ence, the tone of the cabinet became slowly liber-
alized ; and that he had secured the right to pro-
pound the Catholic Question for discussion among
his colleagues, and to communicate with his majes-
ty upon it, whenever he saw fit. - To his judicious
and unwearied labors in this cause must be mainly
attributed its early settlement. He prepared the
way for it ; he overcame the greatest obstacle of
all, the reluctance of George IV. If he had not
done wonders with the servile bigotry of that mon-
arch, the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert
Peel would have been powerless in his hands in
1829.

It is singular that, earnestly engaged as he was
in this struggle for the rights of conscience on be-
half of the Catholics, Mr. Canning should have en-
tertained so strong an opinion on the subject of the
Test Act. He would have relinquished any con-
viction rather than that. It was the one invincible
resolution of his life never to yield up the Test

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 351

Act.* Upon this question his determination was
as fixed as it must always remain inexplicable.

XV.

THE CROWN OF THE STATESMAN'S AMBITION.

THE GRAVE.

In 1824 Mr. Canning visited Dublin, and was
received with enthusiasm by all classes of the peo-
ple. Some of the newspapers speculated upon the
object of his visit, which they supposed to be con-
nected with political affairs ; but the marriage of
his only daughter, in the following year, to the
Marquis of Clanricarde, set curiosity at rest.

In 1826 he paid a visit to Paris. The king treat-
ed him with unusual marks of distinction ; court
etiquet was especially relaxed in his favor, and he
had the honor of dining at the royal table, which
at that time was considered an extraordinary
stretch of condescension to confer on an untitled
gentleman.

He had now held the office of Foreign Secreta-
ry nearly five years, and during that time had been
the principal laborer. Lord Liverpool's utility

* " Is there no satisfactory reason," demands the late Lord
Rossmore, " why a mind like that of Mr. Canning should depart
from his own general principles in the case of the Dissenters
alone ? May he not have reasoned thus ? If I concede the wish-
es of the Dissenters separately, may I not weaken the common
cause, the Dissenters not having much sympathy with the claims
of the Catholics ? But if I carry Emancipation, I secure the re-
peal of the Test and Corporation Acts ; for, if the former suc-
ceeds, the latter follows." — " Letter on Catholic Emancipation,"
i., 1828.

How Mr. Canning might have ultimately acted on this question,
it would be a bold assumption to predicate ; but it is quite certain
that his opinions were as strong against the repeal of the Test Act
as against Parliamentary Reform. Of that fact there is no doubt
whatever.

352 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

suomed to consist principally in the torpid weight
of his character. Mr. Canning, as leader of the
House of Commons, discharged, in effect, the most
responsible duties of the government. These con-
stant exertions made visible inroads on his health,
and his situation was otherwise rendered irksome
by the known political hostility of the Duke of
York, on account of his opinions on the Catholic
Question. The duke had gone so far as to address
his majesty on the necessity of securing uniformity
of sentiment in the cabinet against the Catholic
Claims : an interference with the royal discretion
which, coming from the heir presumptive, might
have led to serious inconvenience so far as Mr.
Canning was concerned, had not the illness and
death of his royal highness, which followed soon
afterward, removed the necessity of any discussion
on the subject. The duke died in January, 1827.
Mr. Canning, whose state of health was already
precarious, caught a cold at the funeral of his royal
hisfhness, which laid the foundation of his mortal
illness.

Early in the following month, while Mr. Can-
ning was at Brighton, endeavoring to shake off his
malady, he received the painful intelligence that
Lord Liverpool had been seized with apoplexy,
followed by total insensibility. Mr. Peel happened
to be in Brighton at the time, and it was agreed,
upon an interview with his majesty, that no step
should be taken in the matter until some time
should have been allowed to elapse. This was
from a sense of delicacy to his lordship, for no reas-
onable expectations were entertained of his recov-
ery. All that could be hoped for was that he
might be restored to sufficient consciousness of his
condition to send in his resignation.

In the mean while, the Corn Bill and Catholic

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 353

Emancipation were coining on in both houses of
Parliament; the absence of Lord Liverpool de-
prived the one of an influential supporter, and re-
lieved the other from an adverse vote ; but it was
of little consequence, for neither of these measures
had the slightest chance of success. Mr. Canning;
struggled on ag;amst illness until the close of March,
still performing his arduous duties in the Commons,
and endeavoring; to avert the inconveniences arising;
from the state of the administration, the most dan-
gerous of which was the opportunity it gave for
speculation and cabal on the part of those who
were inimical to liberal principles. At length all
personal delicacy concerning Lord Liverpool was
at an end. There was no hope of his lordship's
restoration : Parliament and the country were g:et-
ting restless, and it was absolutely necessary that
something should be done.

In Lord Liverpool, now lost to the public service
forever, Mr. Canning had to mourn the deprivation
of a steadfast and honorable personal friend : the
Mr. Jenkinson of Christ Church, whom he remem-
bered so well in his brown coat and the buttons
with the initials of the great orators ; the Lord
Hawkesbury of the young days of Parliamentary
strife and experimental diplomacy, who used to
make such gallant prophecies about the war in
France, and whose empty seriousness used to give
such offense to George III.; and, finally, that Lord
Liverpool who, by mere respectability of charac-
ter, kept together for fifteen years a cabinet com-
posed of the most incongruous materials that had
probably ever been assembled. The secret of Lord
Liverpool's success, in retaining so long a lease of
power, lay in the fact that he did not possess a
single quality calculated to provoke the jealousy
or excite the insubordination of his colleagues.

G g 2

354 THE Lli ?E OF CANNING.

His control was purely nominal. Slow, upright,
practical — he never interfered with others, and was
suffered to go on in his track without check or in-
terruption. Nobody feared him, nobody disliked
him, nobody doubted his probity. His good qual-
ities were all of a negative kind — the safest for a
minister who seeks strength in combination. And
this was Lord Liverpool's pre-eminent merit. He
had not a particle of genius ; but he possessed pre-
cisely the cast of understanding by which he was
enabled to surround himself with able men, and, in
spite of specific differences, to preserve a sort of
loose harmony among them amply sufficient for all
the purposes of an effective government.

On the 27th of March, Mr. Canning had a long
interview with the king on the subject of a new ad-
ministration. His majesty desired to have Mr.
Canning's opinion upon the practicability of placing
a peer holding Lord Liverpool's views on the Cath-
olic Question at the head of the government. Mr.
Canning replied that, in such a case, he should feel
it his duty to retire from a situation in which he
could no longer render any efficient service ; and
that, in fact, he could not accept of any other posi-
tion than that which should confer on him the pow-
ers of the First Minister of the crown.* This as-
sertion of his personal claims appears to have thrown
the negotiations once more into embarrassment ;
and another delay intervened before any farther
step was taken. Mr. Canning looked upon the
office of Prime Minister of England as his " inherit-
ance." He was the last survivor of the great race
of statesmen who had been contemporaneous with
Pitt and Fox. As second minister, also, in the late
administration, he had a right, upon being thus con-
sulted, to vindicate in his own person the principle
of dh-ect succession.

* " Political Life," iii.. 315.

THE Lli'E Oi-' CANNING. 355

Public opinion was strongly in favor of his ap-
pointment. It was manifest that the intelligent of
all parties looked to him as the only man fit to di-
rect the councils of the government. The Tory
aristocracy began to be alarmed — that aristocracy
whose pride of place he had so often had occasion
to rebuke. There was not a moment to be lost in
laying before his majesty an imperious remon-
strance and protest. These noble persons had an
undoubted right, in their capacity of privy council-
lors, to offer their advice to the king ; but in this
instance it assumed a shape of menace and dicta-
tion. A certain noble duke — whose name is not
withheld from prudential motives, but simply be-
cause it might renew discussions which could now
be productive of no useful result — waited upon his
majesty on the 31st of March, four days after Mr.
Canning's interview, and explicitly informed his
majesty that he and eight other peers (great bor-
ough-mongers), whom he was then and there au-
thorized to represent, would at once withdraw their
support from the government if his majesty placed
Mr. Canning- at its head. The threat was at best
ill considered, and showed that passion had over-
come the proverbial craft of Toryism on this oc-
casion. His majesty's sense of the conditional al-
legiance of the duke and his pocket peers was
shown in the course which he adopted immediately
after his grace retired from the royal closet — his
grace congratulating himself, no doubt, all the way
home, on the impression his energetic conduct had
produced on the mind of the king. On the 12th of
April, Mr. C. Wynn rose in the House of Commons
and made the following' announcement : " I move
for a new writ for the borough of Newport (Isle
of Wight), the Right Honorable George Canning
having accepted the office of First Commissioner

350 THE LIFE UF CANNING.

of the Treasury." The announcement was re-
ceived with deafening cheers, which, again and
again renewed, testified unequivocally the feelings
with which Mr. Canning's appointment was re-
garded by the popular branch of the Legislature.
Whatever opinion the House of Lords might enter-
tain on the subject, it was evident that he had the
king and the Commons with him, at all events.

It was only now, however, that Mr. Canning's
practical difficulties commenced. Hitherto the mal-
ice of his own party — for he had nothing to dread
from his opponents — had exhausted itself in petty
obstructions and supercilious calumnies, by which
they tried to whisper away his character and his
influence, and failed conspicuously. But they still
had it in their power to throw obstacles in the way
of the formation of the new cabinet. To this point,
therefore, they assiduously addressed themselves,
with a community of sentiment which looked very
like premeditation, although we are compelled, for
honor's sake, to take their word that there was no
concert in their proceedings.

Mr. Canning's first aim was to secure the services
of all the members of Lord Liverpool's govern-
ment, and he immediately invited them to join the
administration which he had been commanded to
construct. His reception among them — among the
very persons with whom he had been for some
years past intimately associated in office — was sig-
nificant. Their unanimity was wonderful ! Lord
Eldon was very old, and had long wished to resign,
and thought this a favorable moment to carry out
his purpose. Lord Westmoreland could not say
what he would do until he knew what every body
else would do, and then he would do nothing. Mr.
Peel could not join any administration with a person
at the head of it who was known to be favorable to

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 357

Catholic Emancipation. The Duke of Wellington
had the same scruples. Lord Bathurst fluttered a
little, and then resigned. And Lord Melville, for
whom Mr. Canning had done so much in the old
times, went with the rest of the pack. There re-
mained firm only four members of Lord Liverpool's
government ; and, in addition to this wholesale de-
sertion, there were four members of the king's
household, and nine members of the government,
who also seceded. In short, the whole of the Anti-
Catholic party refused point-blank to serve under
Mr. Canning — a circumstance which miorht have
been borne with a calmer endurance, had it not
been accompanied by demonstrations of personal
ill-will, which chafed the proud spirit it could not
subdue.

It was supposed (or hoped) that this almost total
defection of the old cabinet would paralyze Mr.
Canning, and compel him to abandon the task he
had undertaken. This was a mistake. All the
great vacancies were rapidly filled up. Having
failed with the Anti-Catholic party in the attempt
to form a ministry on the principles of Lord Liver-
pool's government, he had recourse at once to the
Whigs and to his personal friends. On the 27th
of April every office in the government was filled
up. The Duke of Clarence, heir presumptive to
the throne, took the head of the Admiralty on the
very day following Lord Melville's resignation.
Lord Anglesey succeeded to the Duke of Welling-
ton's seat at the Ordnance ; Lord L\mdhurst was
made Chancellor ; Lord Dudley and Mr. Sturges
Bourne were appointed to the Foreign and Home
Departments ; Mr. Robinson was called to the
Upper House; and Mr. Canning, retaining the
valuable services of Mr. Huskisson in his former
office, united in his own person the offices of Chan-

358 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

cellor of the Exchequer and First Lord of the
Treasury, for the purpose of giving full effect to
the budget, which it was his intention to brino; in
himself. The last great political appointment sanc-
tioned by Mr. Canning, or under his immediate
auspices, was that of Lord William Bentinck to
the government of India.* He might have be-
stowed this important office in a more influential
quarter, had he been disposed to buy up the vote
of a powerful opponent ; for there were persons
capable of making proposals for so lucrative a place,
stating, at the same time, that upon the answer de-
pended their determination as to whether they
should support or oppose the government. Such
proposals, it is needless to say, received a direct
and summary negative.

Of all the seceders, Mr. Canning considered Mr.
Peel the only one who was justified by his position,
or governed by sincere motives. Mr. Peel's man-
ner was very cordial to him on this occasion, and
Mr. Canning, who had never before given him cred-
it for heartiness of feeling, easily suffered his amour
jpropre to be flattered into the persuasion that Mr.
Peel's retirement was dictated by the most upright
principles. Perhaps it was. But as Mr. Canning
was not aware that, only two years before, Mr.
Peel had privately announced to Lord Liverpool
his conversion to the necessity of Emancipation ;
and as he could not be aware that, only two years
afterward, Mr. Peel actually carried Emancipation
himself — it may be affirmed, that Mr. Canning was
not sufficiently enlightened upon facts to decide
finally on the purity of Mr. Peel's conduct toward
him. Posterity will put all these strange particu-
lars together, and draw its own deductions.

The Duke of Wellington retired from the cabi-
* " Political Life," iii., 345,

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 359

net, and in order to mark his retirement more ener-
getically, threw up the command of the army also,
because he could not conscientiously join an ad-
ministration presided over by a minister who dif-
fered from the king on the subject of Emancipation.
Yet immediately after Mr. Canning's death he re-
sumed the command of the army under Lord
Goderich, who had differed from the king all his
life on the subject of Emancipation. The letters
to the king, to Lord Eldon, and Lord Goderich, in
which his grace endeavored to explain away this
proceeding, only make the matter worse, and re-
duce it at once to a personal question. It was sup-
posed that the duke looked to the office of Prime
Minister himself; and during these negotiations,
the proposition to place his grace at the head of
the government was more than once made to Mr.
Canning. But his grace declared that he had no
such desire ; and it is not for any bodv, let circum-
stances suggest what they may, to contravene what
the duke says was passing in his own mind. But
how is the duke's conduct on broad principles in
1829 to be reconciled with his inflexible resistance
in 1827 ? What became of the king's conscience,
or the duke's, then 1*

The explanations which ensued in both houses
of Parliament partook of this same character, and
were full of false professions and sinister inconsist-
encies. Mr. Peel got great credit for the frank-
ness of his speech, in which he denied that he had
acted in concert with the rest of the retiring min-

The duke's correspondence with Mr. Canning was very plausi-
ble. He tried to make it appear that Mr. Canning's temper had
placed matters in a wrong light ; but that he was himself too calm
and elevated to be moved by the passions of the lower world. '' I
am not in the habit," he says, "of deciding upon such matters
hastily or in anger; and the proof of this is, that I never had a
quarrel with a man in my life." A few months afterward he
fought a duel with Lord Wjnchelsea,

360 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

isters ; but people still thought, nevertheless, that
it was a remarkable coincidence that four out of
five resignations should have been sent in within
three hours. A few hundred years hence, when
these debates come to be read by an antiquarian
posterity, the same thought will probably strike the
mind of the curious explorer of our records.

The tone of the opposition throughout the irreg-
ular and intemperate discussions which took place
at different times on the ministerial changes plain-
ly betrayed the animus which lay at the bottom.
Mr. Canning was literally baited in both houses.
The attacks which were made upon him are un-
paralleled in our Parliamentary history for person-
ality ; their coarseness, malignity, and venom are
all of a personal character. It was not against a
system of policy they were directed, nor against
special opinions or doctrines, but against Mr.
Canning himself. His eminence, his popularity,
his talents, made him the prey of envy and detrac-
tion ; and this was the ground of hostility upon
which he was hunted to the death, when official
difficulties were thickening round him, and his
health was giving way under mental anxiety and
physical sufferings. They chose their moment
well, and used it remorselessly.

To all the assaults in the Commons, Mr. Can-
ning made instant response. In the Lords, his
new Whig allies rendered full and ample justice
to his character. There was only one speech left
unanswered — that of Lord Grey. His lordship, in
the latter part of his career, exhibited some symp-
toms of a disposition to recede slightly from the
popular doctrines of his youth, and his conduct on
this occasion may be referred to as a prominent
illustration of the fact. While the other leaders
of the Whig party went over to Mr. Canning, and

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 361

assisted him in the formation of the only efficient
government, mainly based on liberal principles,
which had been called into existence for upward
of twenty years, Lord Grey held aloof. Nor was
he satisfied with separating himself from his friends;
he opened at once a violent attack upon Mr. Can-
ning. It is possible that Lord Grey was moved to
this by a private sense of resentment on behalf of
his " order," which could not brook the ascendency
of the commoner. But whatever may have been
the purpose that animated him, it is certain that his
speech, elaborate and luminous, bore all the char-
acteristics of intense personal animosity. His lord-
ship addressed himself particularly to Mr. Can-
ning's foreign policy, charged him with having
compromised the honor of the country, and assert-
ed that he had claimed exclusive credit for acts
which did not belong to him, and in which he only
shared the glory with others. The whole speech
was disingenuous, angry, and full of mistakes.
Mr. Canning might have answered it triumphantly.
But he never did. It seems that he thought of re-
plying to it in the House of Commons ; a proceed-
ing which is generally avoided, except in extreme
cases. But he was not in a state of health to jus-
tify such an exertion ; and he was induced to post-
pone his vindication until the time should arrive,
which he thought was not very distant, when he
could reply to Lord Grey in person* That time
never came !

* Mr. Stapleton has supplied an able and satisfactory answer
to Lord Grey's criticisms on Mr. Canning's foreign policy. He
traces each objection succinctly, plucks out the fallacy that lies
concealed in it, and shows in every instance some strange errors
in the mere facts of his lordship's statement. Upon the main
principle at issue — the peace maintained by Mr. Canning, or the
maritime war recommended by Lord Grey — the country has long
since decided against his lordship. See " Political Life," iii,
401-25,

H H

362 THE LIFE OF CANNING.

About the middle of May, Lord Lansdowne,
Lord Carlisle, and Mr. Tierney were introduced
into the cabinet. Thus, notwithstanding the unpre-
cedented opposition, public and private, by which
he had been systematically impeded, Mr. Canning
was now at the head of the strongest government
that had existed in England since the days of Pitt.

Early in June he brought forward the Budget,
and subsequently some resolutions founded on the
Corn Bill. The last time he ever spoke in Parlia-
ment was on the 29th of June, when he briefly an-
swered an unimportant question. On the 2d of
July Parliament was prorogued.

The exertions he had latterly been compelled to
make, operating upon a peculiarly sensitive consti-
tution, speedily began to display their terrible ef-
fects. The excitement of the session was over,
and there was leisure now for the fatal struggle
between disease and the powers of life. On the
10th Mr. Canning dined with the chancellor at
Wimbledon, and, incautiously sitting under a tree
in the open air, while he was yet warm with ex-
ercise, caught a cold which ended in rheumatism.
Mr. Huskisson, whose health was also suffering,
and who had been recommended to try the air of
the Continent, called on Mr. Canning to take leave,
and found him in bed, looking very ill. Struck by
the change in his looks, he observed that he, Mr.
Canning, was the person who most stood in need
of change and relaxation. Mr. Canning smiled,
and replied cheerfully, " Oh ! it is only the reflec-
tion of the yellow linings of the curtains !" He
never saw him again — that faithful life-long friend.

On the 20th Mr. Canning removed to the Duke
of Devonshire's villa, which his grace had lent to
him for change of air : the same villa and the same
room to which Fox, under circumstances painfully

THE LIFE OF CANNING. 363

similar, and at the same age, had also removed —
to die.

His disease, still increasing, fluctuated from day
to day, and he was occasionally able to attend to
public business. Oi\ the 25th he dined with the
Marquis of Clanricarde, but complained of debili-
ty, and returned early to Chiswick. On the 30th
he paid his last visit to the king at Windsor : his
majesty saw that he was very ill, and desired Sir
William Knighton to call upon him. It was too
late. Mr. Canning received some friends at din-
ner on the following dav, retired early, and never
rose again. He suffered excruciating pain, which
rent his frame so violently as to deprive him at in-
tervals of all mental consciousness. On the Sun-
day before his death he requested his daughter to
read prayers : his own unvarying custom, whenev-
er he was prevented from attending church. At
lenoth his strength fell, his agonies diminished in
proportion, and on the 8th of August, a little be-
fore four o'clock in the morning, he expired in the
fifty-seventh year of his age.

His funeral took place at Westminster Abbey,
where he was buried at the foot of Mr. Pitt's tomb,
on the 16th of August. It was attended by the
members of the royal family, the cabinet minis-
ters, the foreign embassadors, and a number of
political and personal friends.

The morning after his funeral the king conferred
a peerage on his widow. Other no less gratifying
marks of public estimation were showered upon
his memory, abroad and at home — statues, medals,
and monuments. Bat the most grateful of all was
the profound and universal sorrow of the people.
All jealousies and animosities were extinguished
in the common grief; and Faction herself wept
upon his grave.

THE EXP,