Part 73

The cause of Greek independence had already excited enthusiasm in England, many volunteers had joined the armies, and money had been subscribed for them. In this enthusiasm Canning in his heart fully joined; from early youth one of his favourite dreams had been the independence of that race to which as an ardent lover of the classics he felt he owed so much. But, true to his principles, and determined to maintain the strict neutrality of England, he had done his best to check any active assistance to the insurgents. According to his view it was necessary that England should intervene with clean hands, and as the friend of both parties. He was also in constant dread of the watchfulness of his Tory enemies, fearing lest any sign of too great favour to Russia should enable them entirely to thwart his plans. Nevertheless the knowledge of the approaching intervention gave a great impetus to the feeling in favour of Greece in England, and men and money were poured in considerable quantities into the peninsula. Lord Cochrane, the most dashing and adventurous of English sailors, had joined the insurgents with an American frigate, General Churchill took command of their armies, yet their destruction seemed imminent. The Egyptians, under Ibrahim Pasha, had come to the assistance of their enemies; their fleet, which was little better than a body of pirates, was swept from the sea; Missalonghi was for the third time taken, and in spite of General Churchill's efforts, Athens and the Acropolis had fallen. If the protocol was to be of any use the time for acting upon it had arrived. The allies received a great accession of strength when, after a visit of Canning to Paris in the spring of 1826, the French Government and the King himself entered heartily into their plans. It was plain that for the second time Canning had struck a severe blow at the principles of the Holy Alliance. In April 1827 the three powers proceeded to act with renewed strength. They demanded an immediate armistice, pointed out that the war did not seem to be approaching its conclusion, that it caused interference with the traffic of the world, and that in the interests of Europe it must cease. Almost of course the Turks, still trusting to Austria, and still unable to believe in the changed posture of England, rejected this demand. Therefore, in accordance with the expressed wish of the French, which no doubt agreed with Canning's own wishes, the protocol was changed into a treaty known as the Treaty of London, signed on the 6th of July by Lord Dudley, Count Lieven, and the Prince of Polignac. In strict accordance with the terms of the protocol, it set forth the necessity of European action, it stated the terms which must be given to Greece, and which went no further than establishing its self-government under Turkish supremacy and saddled with a tribute to the Porte, and declared that none of the parties to the treaty sought territorial increase or commercial advantages. Fear of Russian aggrandizement was thus withdrawn, the intervention was at first to be purely friendly; but secret articles went on to say that, if the intervention were rejected, more stringent means must be used to oblige its acceptance both by one party and by the other, and that it would be necessary to show countenance to Greece, by acknowledging her as a belligerent power, and establishing consuls at her ports. It was not expressly stated what the further means of coercion were to be. A month was given to the Porte for consideration of the terms offered. If no answer, or an unfavourable answer came, the secret articles were to be put into execution. If the armistice was refused by the Turks, the allied squadrons then in the Mediterranean were to unite, to enter into friendly relations with the Greeks, and to intercept all ships freighted with men and arms destined to act against the Greeks, whether from Turkey or from Egypt. At the same time they were carefully to avoid hostilities. It is doubtful whether Canning could have succeeded in carrying out this his last measure of peace policy and non-intervention without having recourse to war. When the affair had reached this point he died, and the completion of his work fell into weaker and less competent hands.

[Sidenote: Attempt of the allies to compel the armistice.]

[Sidenote: Battle of Navarino. Oct. 20, 1827.]

In August, a joint note having been again sent, and all satisfactory answer having been entirely refused by Reis Effendi, the Turkish minister, consuls were appointed according to the treaty, and the fleets ordered to compel the armistice. The execution of this delicate duty was intrusted to Admiral Codrington on the part of the English, to the French Admiral de Rigny, and to Count Heyden, who commanded the Russian fleet. Twenty-eight Turkish and Egyptian ships of war lay in Navarino Bay awaiting fresh reinforcements from Egypt. Had the union taken place, the combined fleets of Turkey and Egypt would have entirely destroyed the Greek Government then in the Ionian Islands, and have swept away what remained of the Greek fleet. The allies appeared before Navarino, explained to Ibrahim Pasha, who was in command, the negotiations which were proceeding, and declared that the Turkish fleet should not sail. Ibrahim, nothing daunted, while asserting that he would take orders from his own sovereign only, pledged himself, on the 25th of September, that the fleet should remain quiet for twenty days to enable him to receive an answer from Constantinople. In spite of this promise, Codrington, who had withdrawn, heard on the 1st of October that the fleet had left harbour. He at once went to meet it, and turned back the first squadron he encountered. On the 13th the combined fleets were in front of Navarino. Then Ibrahim in anger let loose his troops on the wretched people, and before the eyes of the allies terrible scenes of barbarity were enacted. Codrington, though with difficulty, kept himself in restraint, but on the 20th his fleet sailed into the harbour, to say that they would convoy the Turkish ships to Turkey, the Egyptian ships to Egypt. They found the Turks and Egyptians drawn up in the form of a horseshoe and ready for battle. Strict orders were given not to fire unless the enemy proceeded to hostilities, and Codrington, bringing his ship close to that of the Turkish admiral, opened communications with him. Meanwhile, a boat from the Dartmouth was fired upon, and a cannon shot was fired against the French flagship. In spite of this Codrington went on parleying till his pilot was shot by his side and a broadside fired upon his ship. The battle then began in earnest, and in four hours the hostile fleet was entirely destroyed.

[Sidenote: Goderich's inaction renders the victory nugatory.]

[Sidenote: Wellington retains his alliance with Turkey. 1828.]

The news of the victory was received with delight in France and Russia, and at first with triumph in England, where at the instant Sir Edward Codrington met with the full approval of the Government. None the less did it present to the weak and tottering Cabinet of Lord Goderich difficulties of the gravest kind. The peaceful policy of their late chief had ended in a fierce and destructive battle; they hardly knew whether to accept the whole responsibility of it or not. At all events they did not follow up the blow or act with any vigour under the circumstances. The effect of this delay was to strengthen in Constantinople the belief that the union between the three powers was not hearty, and to encourage the Turks in their obstinacy. The foreign merchants in Constantinople were apprehended, the Porte determined on war, demanding that the allies should refrain entirely from interfering on the Greek question, pay the fleet, and indemnify the Sultan for his losses. In spite of the efforts of the ambassadors, before they had left Constantinople, which they did upon the 8th of December, nothing could be gained beyond an offer of a general amnesty to the Greeks. Had the allied fleets proceeded at once to Constantinople, which was the wish both of Sir Stratford Canning and of Codrington, it is probable that they might have put an end to the war with Greece, and have succeeded in carrying out at least one part of the London Treaty, by saving Turkey from the invasion of Russia, which now became inevitable. As it was, England had in fact only handed the country up, weakened by the loss of its fleet, to the hands of that power. The weakness of the Goderich Government prevented such efficient action, and the accession of Wellington to office rendered it still more impossible. True to his Tory traditions, while pretending to continue the policy of Canning, he fell back upon the words of the London Treaty, which were no doubt intended to be pacific. The speech at the opening of Parliament, on the 29th of January 1828, mentioned the battle of Navarino in somewhat disparaging terms as "the untoward event," which it was hoped would not be followed by further hostilities, and the Duke himself declared that the preservation of the Ottoman Porte as an independent and powerful state was necessary to the wellbeing of this country. In fact, he suffered the matter again to fall back into negotiations. England kept out of war, and Russia was allowed to overrun Turkey, to take Adrianople (Aug. 20, 1828), and from thence to dictate terms which left the Porte for ten years at least defenceless in their hands. Among the terms demanded by Russia was necessarily the independence of Greece. The limits were arranged by the three powers in London. Neither Turkey nor Greece were allowed a voice in the matter; the frontiers were fixed, and a monarchical form of government established; the crown for a while went begging; it was declined by the Saxon Prince John, and by Prince Leopold (May 1830), subsequently King of the Belgians, nor was it till the year 1832 that Otho of Bavaria, a lad of eighteen, was found to undertake a post which offered almost insuperable difficulties and but very little honour.

[Sidenote: Character of Wellington's Government.]

[Sidenote: Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. May 1828.]

The Duke of Wellington had been no doubt first called to the Premiership for the purpose of continuing as far as possible the system of the Tories. His conduct as head of the Government was so peculiar that it would scarcely have been tolerated in a less influential man. He regarded his office as he would have regarded a military command,--a trust not lightly to be laid down. He fought till his opponents became irresistible and then suddenly retreated, without thinking it necessary to resign office on account of his defeat. This view of his duty had the same practical results as the most determined place-hunting, and reduced his Government to that most dangerous form of weakness which consists in driving opposition to irresistible extremes, and then suddenly yielding to pressure. This peculiar tendency to give up his opinion and yet retain office was visible at the very outset. He had taken the Premiership, although a few months before he had declared himself wholly unfit for it; he had formed a mixed Government, though his views and those of the King were in favour of a united one. His next concession was upon the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. In the first session of 1828, Lord John Russell moved for a Committee upon those Acts. Canning had always withstood their repeal; the Duke and Mr. Peel were known to share the late minister's opinion. But when a majority of forty-four in a full House decided in favour of Lord John Russell's Committee, the leaders of the Government accepted their decision, and declared themselves satisfied with the substitution of a declaration that the incoming office-holder would do nothing to injure the Church, instead of the old sacramental test. After a lengthened and bitter opposition, led by Lord Eldon in the Upper House, the Bill was carried. The old Chancellor's view of the conduct of Government was very unfavourable. "They began in the Commons," he said, "by opposition, and then ran away like a parcel of cowards."

[Sidenote: The Corn Bill passed.]

The second important Bill of the session was the Corn Bill, to be substituted for that which Wellington had himself succeeded in throwing out in the preceding session. Here again he yielded to circumstances. Entirely leaving his previous standing-ground, the Premier now supported the Bill on exactly the same principle of duties on a graduated scale as that he had previously thwarted. The fixed point in the scale was a few shillings higher, but in principle the Bill was identical.

[Sidenote: The resignation of Huskisson and his friends. May 1828.]

No doubt the necessity for such concessions was very irksome to the Duke, and, as before mentioned, an opportunity soon occurred for ridding himself of the more liberal members of his Cabinet, whose pressure he had been unable to resist. On a trivial question as to the disposition of the seats of two disfranchised boroughs Huskisson had thought it his duty to vote against his colleagues. It had been before settled that the question should not be a Cabinet one; but Huskisson, while still under excitement, thought it right to send the Duke a letter offering to retire should the Premier wish it. The Duke seized his opportunity, treated the letter as an absolute resignation, would listen to no explanation, and obliged Huskisson to resign. With him went Palmerston, Dudley, Lamb, and Grant; their places were filled with Tories, and the Government seemed at length thoroughly homogeneous.

[Sidenote: The Catholic Emancipation question.]

Yet the establishment of this Tory Cabinet was followed almost immediately by a far greater concession than any of the preceding ones, in the passage of the Catholic Emancipation Bill. The Government had been constituted as far as possible on a Protestant basis. It was known that the King was strong in his anti-Catholic propensities. Although a small majority in the Commons had, on the 8th of May, declared in favour of bringing the question to a settlement, and although both the Chancellor and the Prime Minister had confessed, while opposing the motion successfully in the Lords, that they saw no way at present out of the great difficulty, thereby apparently implying a wish for a settlement, the declarations both of Wellington and of Peel gave little hope of any relaxation of the disabilities. But meanwhile events were occurring which rendered some settlement obviously necessary. There was indeed a general and growing feeling that a question which in the last thirty-five years had ruined more than one Cabinet, which was in fact uppermost in all men's minds at the time of every new ministerial arrangement, and which had kept Ireland permanently uneasy, could no longer be left uncertain. Events were now occurring in Ireland which would have rendered the further postponement of the settlement little short of madness.

[Sidenote: Renewed agitation in Ireland.]

[Sidenote: Election of O'Connell for Clare. June 1828.]

The agitation in that country, which had almost subsided during the administration of Canning, a well-known supporter of the Catholic claims, and which had only slightly revived during Goderich's administration, broke out again in full force when the hostile ministry of Wellington came into office. The law for the suppression of the Association would expire in the coming July, and meanwhile, keeping within the limits of the law, for all practical purposes the organization remained alive. The last general election had opened the eyes of the leaders of the Association to a new and irresistible source of power; it had proved that the power of the priests was in some cases stronger than that of the landlords. In their eagerness to secure their parliamentary influence, the landlords had followed the disastrous plan of breaking up their estates into small forty shilling freeholds, taking advantage of the low franchise which existed in Ireland. Several instances had occurred in which the tenantry had broken loose from their landlords, and at Waterford, among other places, they had proved themselves too strong even for the great Beresford interest. What had then been done in a few instances it was the intention of the Association to carry out in a large scale, and great efforts were made to secure the votes of those who were known as the Irish "forties" in the coming general election. The anger of the proprietors thus assaulted in their strongholds was very great, and class animosity reached a terrible pitch. The power of the Association was soon brought to the test. With the rest of the Canningites, Grant, President of the Board of Trade, had resigned; his place had been given to Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald, member for Clare, whose re-election thus became necessary. Aware that, even if they succeeded in excluding the Government candidate, the election of a Protestant representative would be of no great value to them, the Association determined to strike a great blow, and to bring forward O'Connell himself to dispute Mr. Fitzgerald's seat. His triumph was complete; after a few days' polling Mr. Fitzgerald withdrew. But more wonderful and more terrible than his mere success was the admirable discipline and order with which it was obtained. Lord Palmerston thus narrates the event:--"The event was dramatic and somewhat sublime. The Prime Minister of England tells the Catholics in his speech in the House of Lords that if they will only be perfectly quiet for a few years, cease to urge their claims, and let people forget the question entirely, then after a few years perhaps something may be done for them. They reply to this advice, within a few weeks after it is given, by raising the population of a whole province like one man, keeping them within the strictest obedience to the law, and by strictly legal and constitutional means hurling from his seat in the representation one of the Cabinet ministers of the King. There were 30,000 Irish peasants in and about Ennis in sultry July, and not a drunken man among them, or only one, and he an Englishman and a Protestant, O'Connell's own coachman, whom O'Connell had committed upon his own deposition for a breach of the peace. No Irishman ever stirs a mile from his house without a stick, but not a stick was to be seen at the election. One hundred and forty priests were brought from other places to harangue the people from morning to night, and to go round to the several parishes to exhort and bring up voters.... All passed off quietly. The population of the adjoining counties was on the move, and large bodies had actually advanced in echelon, as it were, closing in upon Ennis, the people of one village going on to the next, and those of that next advancing to a nearer station, and so on." The sheriff and his assessor declared that the election was legal, the only obstacle to O'Connell's appearance in the House being the oaths he would have to take on his admittance. It was determined to follow up the success. O'Connell declared that Catholic representatives must be elected for all the counties of Ireland. The funds of the Association, which assumed its old form in July on the expiration of the suppression law, were partially devoted to the support of those on whom the vengeance of the landlords fell; and not content with declaring the necessity of the election of Catholic members, the Association drew up certain pledges to be required of all future Catholic candidates. These consisted in a promise to be the determined opponents of the ministry of Wellington and Peel till it granted Catholic emancipation, to support religious and civil liberty, to procure a repeal of the Subletting Act (which was an attempt to restrain the minute subdivision of property), and to support a reform of Parliament.

[Sidenote: Influence of the Association.]

[Sidenote: Resignation of Lord Anglesey. Jan. 1829.]

The power the Association had already exhibited, and its determination to have those representatives whom it should elect thus closely bound to pursue the line of conduct it dictated, much increased the dread with which it was regarded. Symptoms were already visible of the influence it might exert; only ten days after the establishment of the pledges (Aug. 2), Mr. Dawson, Peel's brother-in-law, and himself in the Administration, after a lively picture of the enormous power of the Association, concluded with the unexpected assertion, that as this power could not be crushed it ought to be conciliated. Coming from such a source the assertion was received as a certain proof that the cause of the Catholics was winning its way. Consequently the efforts of the Association were pressed forward with redoubled zeal. Parochial clubs were established, and great aggregate meetings held in various parts of Ireland. Mr. Shiel, one of its most ardent supporters, thus describes the condition of Ireland under its influence:--"Does not a tremendous organization extend over the whole island? Have not all the natural bonds by which men are tied together been broken and burst asunder? Are not all the relations of society which exist elsewhere gone? Has not property lost its influence? Has not rank been stripped of the respect which should belong to it? Has not an internal government grown up, which, gradually superseding the legitimate authorities, has armed itself with a complete domination? Is it nothing that the whole body of the clergy are alienated from the State, and that the Catholic gentry and peasantry and priesthood are all combined in one vast confederacy?" His description was true; the Association was omnipotent, and in nothing did it show its power so much as in the complete restraint it held over the excitable people. Faction and faction fights disappeared; crime of a graver sort almost vanished; and though the people were drilled and brought into something resembling military organization, although they were eager to know against whom they were to fight, the influence of the Association restrained them from all demonstrations likely to provoke hostilities, and on one occasion a few words from O'Connell at once broke up and dispersed a body of 50,000 men. This was the more admirable as the temper of the Protestants had naturally been roused, and Brunswick clubs had sprung up, to take the place of the Orange organization, which do not seem to have been as self-restrained as the Catholics. During the whole of this time the Duke was painfully making up his mind to his retreat. The peculiarity of his action was that he became absolutely silent; so complete was his silence, that Mr. Shiel thus describes the situation:--"The minister folds his arms as if he were a mere indifferent observer, and the terrific contest between Protestant and Catholic only afforded him a spectacle for the amusement of his official leisure; he sits as if two gladiators were crossing their swords for his gratification: the Cabinet seems to be little better than a box in a theatre from which his Majesty's ministers may survey the business of blood." Indeed, so strangely reticent was the Duke, that he ceased to correspond at all with his Lord Lieutenant, the Marquis of Anglesey. Uninstructed from home, Lord Anglesey, who was a Liberal, and inclined to the emancipation, naturally followed the dictates of his own opinions, and rendered the conduct of the Government almost treacherous from the indirect support he gave to the Liberals, while his chief in London was supporting the opposite party. The inevitable consequence was that he shortly committed an indiscretion which necessitated his recall. His place was taken by the Duke of Northumberland, a strong Tory.

[Sidenote: Peel and Wellington see the urgency of the Catholic question.]