Part 68

The system pursued by the Tories, though for the time it was successful in keeping up a general dread of popular violence, and thus temporarily hushed the agitation for reform, was gradually alienating from Government all classes but the one immediately connected with it, and forcing the nation at large to look upon Government itself as its natural enemy, and to fix its hopes more and more upon some constitutional change. Indeed, though its large majority in the House enabled the Government to reject all liberal measures, and to pass those which it itself produced, a powerful Opposition began to show itself within the walls of the House, which the conduct of the Administration did not tend to conciliate. The extension of the Alien Act, which reserved to the Government the power of removing aliens who were objects of suspicion, and which had already been twice renewed since the peace, for a further period of two years, was regarded as an attack upon the English right of asylum in favour of the Continental despotisms. It was warmly opposed, and a flaw found in it which secured its rejection. By the Act of Union, shareholders in the Bank of Scotland became naturalized subjects. An alien, by taking shares in the Bank, could therefore evade that Act. A clause was introduced to check this means of evading the Act; but as naturalized subjects had certain exemptions with regard to the payment of duties, the Lower House held that the introduction of the clause was an infringement of their privilege, as being in fact the introduction of a money clause. It had therefore to be dropped and a new Bill introduced. Even an attempt on the part of Government to gain popularity turned to its discredit. A show was made of destroying numerous sinecures; but as this destruction was coupled with a Pension List of an amount almost equal to that of the sinecures destroyed, the trick excited more anger than gratitude among the public. But the great contest of the time was on the subject of the indemnity demanded by the ministry to cover acts done during the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. A sealed bag of papers was laid upon the table of the House, which the Government demanded should be referred to a committee of secresy. The committee was to be appointed by ballot, but lists were circulated among the ministerial majority of the members for whom they should vote; in fact, therefore, the committee was nominated by the Government itself. The report declared that the suspension was necessary, and that the Government had used the powers given them well. But the demand for an indemnity, while the grounds for that indemnity were kept studiously secret and examined only by the Government nominees, for the avowed purpose of keeping from the public the names of the witnesses who had given secret information, increased still further the bad impression which the employment of men like Oliver had already created.

[Sidenote: Condition of the royal family.]

Under other circumstances loyalty for the Crown might have served to lessen the growing division between the Government and the people; the state of the royal family, and the character of most of its members, was now such as to weaken all such feeling. For the old King and Queen there was doubtless respect and pitying affection; but it was known that both the afflicted monarch himself and his faithful wife and guardian might at any moment die. As it was, they lived retired from the public view. The Prince Regent, the ostensible sovereign of the country, was understood to be little more than a selfish voluptuary. His reception on the opening of Parliament of 1817 shows how much he had lost the affections of the people. His unhappy domestic relations, shortly to become the ground of a keen party struggle, not only afforded a perpetual subject of scandal, but seemed to forbid the possibility of a direct male heir to the throne. The people's hopes were centred on the Princess Charlotte, the Regent's only daughter, but lately married to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, and the blow was felt to be heavy when she died in 1817, immediately after giving birth to a child which did not live. It seemed for the instant highly probable that the large and strong family of the old King would come to an end in the first generation. Before the close of the following year this probability was lessened. No less than four members of the royal family were then married--Princess Elizabeth, the Duke of Clarence, the Duke of Cambridge, and the Duke of Kent, who married respectively the Landgrave of Hesse Homburg, the Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, the Princess Augusta of Hesse, and Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg Saalfield, the widow of the Prince of Leiningen and sister of Prince Leopold. Had the family been at all popular such events, under the circumstances, would certainly have afforded joy to the nation. As it was, they only afforded an opportunity for the expression of a deeply fixed belief in the extravagance and wastefulness of the royal family. Of all the marriages that of the Duke of Kent with a sister of Prince Leopold was alone well received. The demand for an increase of income on behalf of the other princes was strongly resisted in Parliament; the sum proposed for the Duke of Clarence was reduced by nearly half, and a grant of £6000 for the Duke of Cumberland, who had been married three years previously, was absolutely rejected by a majority of six members, a result which was received with loud cheers.

[Sidenote: The ministers' insecurity with the present Parliament.]

The insecurity felt by Government, in spite of its large majority, in the present Parliament betrayed it into conduct which still further increased its unpopularity. The Parliament was now in its sixth session, and therefore approaching its time of dissolution. But several circumstances might call it again into existence. A clause in the Regency Act provided that Parliament should be summoned on the death of the Queen. The ministry had lately got the clause repealed; but the death either of the King or Regent, if happening before the day appointed for the assembling of the new Parliament, would have caused the reassembling of the old. Both King and Queen might die at any moment; nor was the Regent's health good. The dissolution was therefore hurried on in a manner which caused much anger. On the 10th of June Parliament was prorogued and dissolved at the same time, a form of proceeding unprecedented since the days of Charles II. The temper of the country was not improved by this step, and the elections were attended with the bitterest party strife. In Westminster Sir George Murray, who stood on the Tory interest to replace if possible Lord Cochrane, who had withdrawn to take command of the navies of Chili, was so ill-used that his life was thought to be in danger. Several Radical candidates offered themselves, among others Hunt the orator; but the more respectable inhabitants contrived to save themselves from the disgrace of such representatives by bringing in Romilly, without any expense of his own, at the head of the poll. The other member was Sir Francis Burdett. In the same way the City of London elected four Liberals, rejecting three old ministerial representatives. This clearly showed the rising temper of the middle classes. But as the representation was then arranged no great change was possible, and the ministers found themselves still in possession of a large majority (July).

[Sidenote: Evacuation of France by the allies. Nov. 30, 1818.]

Before the assembling of the new Parliament (Jan. 14, 1819) one piece of foreign history deserves notice. A congress was held at Aix-la-Chapelle (Oct. 2, 1818), at which the final evacuation of France by the allies, although only three of the five years stipulated were accomplished, was agreed upon. This wise and just act seems to have been chiefly due to the Duke of Wellington, in opposition to some of the extreme Tories of the Cabinet.

[Sidenote: Resumption of cash payments. May 1819.]

In spite of their parliamentary majority, the ministry did not feel very secure upon their seats, and it was perhaps more with a view of re-establishing their credit with the country than from increased wisdom that the Cabinet so far changed its views with regard to the currency question as to accept the truth of the doctrines which Francis Horner had some years (1811) before laid down, and introduced a measure in accordance with the plans of Ricardo, the political economist, for the resumption of cash payments. The Bank had already issued a considerable quantity of gold. Since 1817 as much as £6,000,000 had been put into circulation, but as the paper money still continued, as a matter of course this partial action produced no good effect; the gold had found its way out of the country, chiefly to France. It was now ordered that this voluntary payment in gold should cease. An examination of the affairs of the Bank proved that it was in excellent condition, and a series of resolutions were passed and subsequently embodied in Bills by Mr. Peel. By these, from the 1st of February 1820, the Bank was obliged to exchange its notes for gold ingots, in not less quantity than sixty ounces, at the rate of 81s. the ounce; in October of the same year the rate was to be reduced to 79s. 6d. the ounce; on the 1st of May 1822 the rate was reduced to the regular mint price of £3, 17s. 10½d.; and in May 1823 all notes were to be paid on demand in legal coin. As a fact, on the 1st of May 1821 the Bank resumed complete payment in cash.

[Sidenote: Foreign Enlistment Bill.]

[Sidenote: Catholic emancipation rejected. May 3.]

[Sidenote: Reform of Scotch burghs. May 6.]

Several divisions in Parliament clearly showed the growing weakness of Government. The Foreign Enlistment Bill, to prevent English subjects from serving in a foreign service or fitting out ships of war for foreign countries, was carried by a majority of thirteen only, the ground of opposition being that the Bill was in fact directed to the injury of the revolted colonies of Spain in America, in whose ranks many Englishmen were serving. Like the Alien Act of the preceding session, the Bill was considered as a proof of that legitimist and absolute tendency of which the Government was accused. Again, in the great question of Catholic emancipation, which was brought forward by Grattan in the best speech he ever made in the House, the Government were victorious by a majority of two only in a very full House; while it was actually defeated by a majority of five on the question of the reform of Scotch burghs, which it had got rid of in the last session. The system in those burghs had been in existence ever since the fifteenth century, and so acted as to perpetuate the administration in the hands of one party, often of one family only, as the retiring members of the corporation had the right of electing their own successors. For years the burghs had been bent upon ridding themselves of this exclusive government; as in the case of other reforms, their efforts had passed out of sight during the tumult of the French wars, again to be called into existence on the resumption of peace. In 1817 certain irregularities of form in the burgh of Montrose had caused the elections to be set aside by the law courts. The Crown had been compelled to give a new charter, in which a certain popular element was admitted. Other burghs at once began to clamour for similar changes. To their petitions, however, the Government turned a deaf ear. When the elections in Aberdeen were quashed by the law courts, as those at Montrose had been, the old constitution had been re-established, and Lord Archibald Hamilton now took up the cause of the burghs. He demanded a copy of the new warrant, and was defeated by five only. Pressing his success, he demanded that the petitions of the burghs should be referred to a select committee. A large majority of the burghs themselves were loudly calling for reform. The population of those who desired it amounted to 420,000, as opposed to 60,000, the population of those who had not petitioned. The proof of the wish of the people most interested was too strong for the House; in spite of the Government opposition, Lord Archibald's motion was carried in a House of nearly 300 by a majority of five. As the ground of opposition had been avowedly that a change in the burghs was but the beginning of parliamentary reform, this victory shows how the opposition to that measure was gradually breaking down.

[Sidenote: Chronic sufferings of the poor.]

In spite of these signs of weakness, the ministers were upon the whole well satisfied with the session. They believed in the success of their repressive measures in the year 1817, and thought that the state of the country was both quieter and more prosperous than it had been. Complaints of the depression of agriculture, and poverty and suffering among the agricultural poor, were indeed chronic; they depended upon causes over which the immediate action of Government had little control. Exaggerated rents were seeking their natural level; over-cultivation, especially of corn, was giving place to more rational agriculture, and the enormous prosperity enjoyed by the agriculturists during the war was shrinking to modest and hard-won profits; the change could not but be attended with some depression and many painful contrasts. At the same time the action of the Poor Law as then administered, the injudicious fostering of the population which had gone on during the war, and the law of settlement which prevented free competition of labour, of necessity caused misery among the labourers. It was when the manufacturing and mercantile interests were also touched, when, under the action of restrictive corn laws, prices rose, while work was not to be had, that the social dangers of the country became from time to time great.

[Sidenote: Political meetings.]

[Sidenote: The Manchester Massacre. Aug. 16, 1819.]

The prosperity of the year 1818 had been rather apparent than real; there had been much over-trading; a more healthy spirit appears to have arisen in the beginning of 1819, but the effects of the preceding folly were now to be felt. In the first half of the year the number of bankruptcies were almost double the average, the price of corn was still as high as 75s., work was scarce, and wages fell, and before the year was over the ministry found upon their hand difficulties even greater than those they had experienced in the gloomy year of 1817. For again the political question was ready to start to life, again leaders of a higher class were ready to take advantage of the sufferings of the people, and men of more extreme views among themselves were eager to lead them into desperate and revolutionary designs. There had been great meetings near Leeds, Glasgow, and at Ashton-under-Lyne, in June. On the 28th of that month, Sir Charles Wolseley and the Rev. Joseph Harrison had made violent speeches at a great assembly at Stockport, and Sir Charles had been elected the "legislatorial representative" for Birmingham. At the same time the reformers were found to be engaged in drilling. No arms were seen, and it is asserted by one of their leaders that the only object of their drilling was to secure order and regularity and the better appearance at a forthcoming great meeting at Manchester. On the other hand, it was held by those who dreaded popular movements that the drilling had been long and secretly continued, and was a part of a great plan for an exhibition of physical force. The object of the Manchester meeting, which was to be held on the 9th of August, was to choose a representative as Birmingham had already done. The meeting was declared illegal; a requisition was therefore sent to the proper officials, begging them to call it legally. On their refusal, it was determined to hold it, legal or not, on the 16th, in St. Peter's Field. Thither, on the day appointed, large bodies of men, well dressed and without arms, but in something like military array, marched from all the neighbouring towns, and collected round a hustings, from which Hunt was to address them. Their number perhaps amounted to about 80,000, all pressed together in a space of not more than three acres. The magistrates had formed no very definite notion of what to do. They had assembled a considerable military force, of which a troop of Manchester yeomen about forty strong and six troops of the 15th Hussars formed a part. A warrant was out against Hunt, and with extreme imprudence it was determined to execute it while he was on the hustings, as had been done in the case of Harrison on a previous occasion. Just as Hunt was beginning to speak, a strange pressure made itself visible to the crowd. The magistrates had come to a house overlooking the field; they had intrusted their warrant to the chief constable; he had declared he could not execute it without military aid, and the yeomen had pressed into the crowded space. As was natural, they had been separated and brought to a complete standstill. Upon this the magistrates seem to have lost their presence of mind, to have believed that the yeomanry were in danger, and to have ordered the 15th Hussars to extricate them. The consequence was a fearful charge, which swept everything before it, and, as one of the officers says, "by the time they had reached the other side of the field the fugitives were literally piled up to a considerable elevation above the level of the ground." The effect of the panic on so closely-packed a multitude, among whom the soldiers were using the sword, sometimes the flat and sometimes the edge, was fearful; about thirty wounded persons were carried to the infirmary, and forty more found their own way there in the course of the day. The actual wounds given by the soldiers do not appear to have been very many. Hunt and some of his followers were apprehended; the charge of high treason against them was subsequently dropped, and they were obliged to find bail to stand their trial for misdemeanour.

[Sidenote: Culpability of the Government.]

[Sidenote: The Six Acts.]

The Manchester Massacre, as it was called, was the result of accident and the bad management of the magistrates, but the Government seemed to make the act entirely their own when they lavished approbation on the conduct of the authorities, and when they induced the Prince Regent himself to write an approving letter. As usual in England, the employment of the military except in the very last necessity excited the anger of very many even of the wealthier classes. Among those who had suffered from it its effect was simply to exasperate; for the time the temper of the people seems to have been really dangerous. The point, on the other hand, which struck the ministerialists was the weakness of the existing laws for the suppression of sedition, and in accordance with their view it was thought necessary to hold an autumnal session, which met on the 23rd of November, and which passed by large majorities a series of enactments known as "The Six Acts." These were respectively entitled, "An Act to prevent delay in the administration of justice in cases of misdemeanour;" "An Act to prevent the training of persons in the use of arms and the practice of military evolutions;" "An Act for the prevention and punishment of blasphemous and seditious libels;" "An Act to authorize justices of the peace, in certain disturbed counties, to seize and detain arms;" "An Act to subject certain publications to the duties of stamps upon newspapers, and to make other regulations for restraining the abuses arising from the publication of blasphemous and seditious libels;" and "An Act for preventing the assembling of seditious assemblies." Having passed these repressive measures, the Parliament was again prorogued (Dec. 29) till February 1820. In the interval, on the 29th of January, the old King died, in his eighty-second year.

GEORGE IV.

1820-1830.

Born 1762 = Caroline of Brunswick, 1795. | Charlotte = Leopold of Saxe-Coburg. Born 1796. Died 1817.

CONTEMPORARY PRINCES.

_France._ | _Austria._ | _Spain._ Louis XVIII., 1814 | Francis II., 1792. | Ferdinand VII., 1813. Charles X., 1824. | |

_Prussia._ | _Russia._ Frederick William III., 1797. | Alexander I., 1801. | Nicholas, 1825.

_Denmark._ | _Sweden._ Frederick VI., 1808. | Charles XIV., 1818.

POPES.--Pius VII., 1800. Leo XII., 1823. Pius VIII., 1829.

_Lord Chancellors._ | _First Lords of the Treasury._ April 1807. Eldon. | Jan. 1812. Liverpool. April 1827. Lyndhurst. | April 1827. Canning. | Aug. 1827. Goderich. | Jan. 1828. Wellington.

_Chancellors of the Exchequer._ Jan. 1812. Vansittart. Jan. 1823. Robinson. April 1827. Canning. Aug. 1827. Herries. Jan. 1828. Goulburn.

_Secretaries (Foreign and Home)._ June 1812 { Castlereagh. { Sidmouth.

Jan. 1822 { Castlereagh. { Peel.

Sept. 1822 { Canning. { Peel.

April 1827 { Dudley. { Sturges-Bourne.

Aug. 1827 { Dudley. { Lansdowne.

Jan. 1828 { Dudley. { Peel.

May 1828 { Aberdeen. { Peel.

[Sidenote: Precarious position of the ministry.]

It was no longer as Regent but as King that George, the new monarch, met the Parliament on its reassembling. He had so long acted virtually as sovereign that scarcely any visible effect was produced by the change. Yet during the first days there was considerable probability that the change of reign would be marked by a change of ministry, for there were two questions on which the ministers felt it their duty to oppose the new King--the one an increase of his private revenue, the other the divorce of his unfortunate wife. On the latter point, unfortunately for themselves, they were induced to make a compromise, believing that they were acting safely. Extremely anxious to avoid a public scandal, they refused at first to move in the matter of the divorce as long as the Queen remained quietly abroad, but promised to gratify the King's wishes should she make her appearance in England. On these terms they remained in office.

[Sidenote: Cato Street conspiracy. Feb. 23, 1820.]