Chapter 2

The bold and sagacious conduct of Pitt, in protecting the royal rights in the Regency, had established his power on the King's recovery. The Whigs had lost all hope of possession, and they turned in their despair to the work of faction. Their cry was now Parliamentary Reform. No cry was ever more insincere, more idly raised, carried on in a more utter defiance of principle, or consummated more in the spirit of a juggler, who, while he is bewildering the vulgar eye with his tricks, is only thinking of the pocket. The Reform Bill has since passed, but the moral of the event is still well worth our recollection. The Whigs themselves had been the great boroughmongers; but boroughmongering had at length failed to bring them into power, and they had recourse to clamour and confederacy with the rabble. Still, in every instance when they came in sight of power, the cry was silenced, and they discovered that it was "not the proper time." At length, in 1830, they raised the clamour once more; the ministry, (rendered unpopular by the Popish question,) were thrown out; the Whigs were, for the first time, compelled to keep their promise, and the whole system of representation was changed. But the change was suicidal: the old champion of Reform, Lord Grey himself, was the first to suffer. The Reform ministry was crushed by a new power, and Lord Grey was crushed along with it. Whiggism was extinguished; the Whig of the present day has no more resemblance to the Whig of Fox's day, than the squatter has to the planter. The rudeness and rashness of Radicalism supplies its place, and the stately and steady march of the landed interest exists no more.

Lord Mornington's speech, in 1793, placed the question in its true point of view. He declared that the consequence of the proposed measure of Reform must be, to change the very genius and spirit of the British government; to break up the combination of those elementary principles of monarchy, aristocracy and democracy, which, judiciously associated, formed the constitution. He then referred, with great force, to the practical working of that constitution which this measure was intended to overthrow. "Never," said he, and his language was at once eloquent and true, "have the natural ends of society been so effectually accomplished, as under the government which is thus to be subverted. Under the existing constitution, the life of every individual is sacred, by the equal spirit of the law; by the pure administration of justice; by the institution of juries; and by the equitable exercise of that prerogative which is the brightest ornament of the crown--the power of mitigating the rigour of criminal judgments, and of causing justice to be executed in mercy."

He forcibly pronounced the constitution to contain all "the principles of stability; for it could neither be abused by the subject, nor invaded by the crown." It provided, in an unexampled degree, for the protection of life, liberty, and property. In its legislative action it impartially allowed every public interest to have its representative in Parliament; in its national action it insured the prosperity of the empire; for that prosperity had never been so distinguished as since the constitution had assumed full power; and, by protecting every man in the exercise of his industry, it had given a spur to national and intellectual enterprise and activity, of which the world had never before seen an example. And was this all to be hazarded for the sake of gratifying a party, who always shrank from the measure when in power, and who always renewed it only as a means of recall from their political exile?

His biographer rashly denies the reality of those dangers, and says, that the Reform Act has not produced any of the calamities which his lordship then saw in such ominous prospect. But to this the natural answer is, that the Reform Bill is little more than a dozen years old; that though the power of property in so great a country as England, and the voice of common sense in a country of such general and solid knowledge, could not be extinguished at once; and though the national character forbade our following the example and the rapidity of a French revolution; still, that great evil has been done--that a democratic tendency has been introduced into the constitution--that Radicalism has assumed a place and a shape in public deliberations--that faction beards and browbeats the legitimate authorities of public counsel--that low agitators are suffered to carry on the full insolence of intrigue with a dangerous impunity--and that the pressure from without too often becomes paramount to the wisdom from within.

At the same time, we fully admit that there were abuses in the ancient system, offensive to the natural sense of justice; that the sale of seats was contrary to principle; and that the dependence of members on individual patrons was a violation of legislative liberty. But whose was the criminality? not that of the constitution, but of the faction; not that of the enfeebled law, but of the local supremacy of Whig influence. Property is the true, and in fact the only safe pledge of legislative power; and if Manchester and the other great manufacturing towns had possessed, five hundred years ago, the property which they have acquired within the last fifty there can be no doubt that representatives would have been allotted to them. There can be as little doubt, that in 1830, or in a quarter of a century before, they ought to have had representatives; but the true evil has been in the sweeping nature of the change. Still, we will hope the best; we have strong faith in the fortunes of England, and shall rejoice to see that our fears have been vain.

The young senator's exertions, on this occasion, confirmed the opinion already entertained of him in high quarters. He was shortly after sworn in as a member of the Privy Council in England, and was made one of the commissioners for the affairs of India. Pitt's memorable India Bill, in 1784, had appointed a board of six commissioners for Indian affairs, who were to be privy councillors, with one of the secretaries of state at their head. The board were to be appointed by the King, and removable at his pleasure. They were invested with the control of all the revenue, and civil and military officers of the Company. The directors were obliged to lay before them all papers relative to the management of their affairs. The commissioners were to return the papers of the directors within fourteen days, if approved of, or if not, to assign their reasons. The despatches so agreed on, were then to be sent to India.

It seems not improbable that this appointment was intended as the preparative of the Earl for higher objects in the same department. At all events, it directed his attention to Indian topics, and gave him the due portion of that practical knowledge, without which genius only bewilders, and enterprise is thrown away.

We have to fight our way against this biographer, who takes a rambling and revolutionary view of all the chief transactions of the time. In this spirit, he denies or doubts the necessity of the French war. We deny that it was possible to avert it. It may be true, that if England had been faithless to her compacts, and had suffered her allies to be trampled on, she might, for awhile, have avoided actual collision. But, could this have been done with honour; and what is national honour but a national necessity? Holland, the old ally of England, was actually invaded; and the first English troops that set foot upon the Continent, were sent in compliance with our treaty, and for the simple protection of our ally. No one will contend, and no one has ever contended, that England had a right to make a government for France; or that the fury of her factions, however they might startle and disgust mankind, was a ground for teaching morality at the point of the sword. But there can be no more legitimate cause of war than the obligations of treaties, the protection of the weak against the powerful, and the preservation of the general balance of European power.

In the instance of Holland, too, there was the additional and most efficient reason, viz. that the possession of her ports and arsenals by France must largely increase the danger of England. But when it is further remembered, that France declared the determination to make war upon all monarchies, that she aimed at establishing an universal republic, that she pronounced all kings tyrants and all subjects slaves; and that, offering her assistance to every insurrectionary people, she ostentatiously proclaimed her plan of revolutionizing the world--who can doubt that national safety consisted in resisting the doctrines, in repelling the arms, and in crushing the conspiracies which would have made England a field of civil slaughter, and left of her glory and her power nothing but a name?

It is, however, a curious instance of personal zeal, to find the biographer applauding as the sentiments of his hero, the opinions which he deprecates as the policy of England; and admitting that the war was wise, righteous, and inevitable; that it raised the name of England to the highest rank: and that it preserved us from "the pest of a godless, levelling democracy."

It has been the habit of writers like the present, to conceive that the French Revolution was hailed with general joy by England. Even before the death of the king, the contrary is the fact: the rabble, the factions, and the more bustling and bitter portion of the sectaries, unquestionably exulted in the popular insurrection, and the general weakening of the monarchy. But all the genuinely religious portion of the people, all the honest and high-minded, all the travelled and well-informed, adopted a just conception of the whole event from the beginning. The religious pronounced it atheistic, the honest illegal, and the travelled as the mere furious outburst of a populace mad for plunder and incapable of freedom. But the death of the king excited a unanimous burst of horror; and there never was a public act received with more universal approbation than the dismissal of the French ambassador, M. Chauvelin, by a royal order to quit the country within eight days. The note was officially sent by Lord Grenville, but was stamped with the energy of Pitt. It was as follows:--

"I am charged to notify to you, sir, that the character with which you have been vested at this court, and the functions of which have been so long suspended, being now utterly terminated by the fatal death of his most Christian Majesty, you have no more any public character here, the King can no longer, after such an event, permit your residence here; his Majesty has thought fit to order that you should retire from this kingdom within the term of eight days. And I herewith transmit to you a copy of the order, which his Majesty, in his Privy Council, has given to this effect. I send you a passport for yourself and your suite, and I shall not fail to take all the necessary steps, in order that you may return to France with all the attentions which are due to the character of minister-plenipotentiary, which you have exercised at this court. I have the honour to be, &c.

"GRENVILLE. "Dated Whitehall, Jan. 4, 1793."

On the opening of Parliament, in January 1794, a debate of great importance commenced on the policy of the war. On this occasion, Lord Mornington and Sheridan took the lead in the debate, and both made speeches of great effect. Lord Mornington's speech was published under his own inspection immediately after, and it still remains among the most striking records of the republican opinions, and the mingled follies and blasphemies of a populace suddenly affecting the powers of a legislature. Every thing in France, at this period, was robbery; but even the robbery exhibited the national taste for "sentiment." Their confiscation of property was pronounced to be, "not for the sake of its possession," but for their abhorrence of the precious metals. Lord Mornington, in the course of his speech, read extracts of a letter from Fouché, afterwards so well known as the minister of imperial police, but then commissioner in the central and western departments. In this sublime display of hypocrisy, Fouché pronounces gold and silver to have been the causes of all the calamities of the republic. "I know not," says he, "by what weak compliance those metals are suffered to remain in the hands of suspected persons. Let us degrade and vilify gold and silver, let us fling those deities of monarchy in the dirt, and establish the worship of the austere virtues of the republic," adding, by way of exemplification of his virtuous abhorrence, "I send you seventeen chests filled with gold, silver, and plate of all sorts, the spoil of churches and castles. You will see with peculiar pleasure, two beautiful crosiers and a ducal coronet of silver, gilt." But the portion of his speech which attracted, and justly, the deepest attention, was that in which he gave the proofs of the dreadful spirit of infidelity, so long fostered in the bosom of the Gallican church. An address, dated 30th of October, from the Rector of Villos de Luchon, thus expatiates in blasphemy:--"For my part, I believe that no religion in any country in the world is founded on truth. I believe that all the various religions in the world are descended from the same parents, and are the daughters of pride and ignorance." This worthy ecclesiastic finished by declaring, that thenceforth "he would preach in no other cause than that of liberty and his country." The Convention decreed, that this and all similar addresses of renunciation should be lodged with the Committee of Public instruction, evidently as materials for training the rising generation. A motion then followed, that all those renunciations of religion should be "translated into the languages of all foreign countries."

Then followed a scene, which gave reality to all those hideous declarations. The Archbishop of Paris entered the hall of the Convention, accompanied by a formal procession of his vicars, and several of the rectors of the city parishes. He there addressed the Assembly in a speech, in which he renounced the priesthood in his own name, and that of all who accompanied him, declaring that he acted thus in consequence of his conviction, that no national worship should be tolerated except the worship of Liberty and Equality! The records of the Convention state, that the archbishop and his rectors were received with universal transport, and that the archbishop was solemnly presented with a red cap, the day concluding with the worthy sequel, the declaration of one Julien, who told the Assembly that he had been a Protestant minister of Toulouse for twenty years, and that he then renounced his functions for ever. "It is glorious," said this apostate, "to make this declaration, under the auspices of reason, philosophy, and that sublime constitution which has already overturned the errors of superstition and monarchy in France, and which now prepares a similar fate for all foreign tyrannies. I declare that I will no longer enter into any other temple than the sanctuary of the laws. Thus I will acknowledge _no other God_ than liberty, _no other worship_ than that of my country, _no other gospel_ than the republican constitution."

Then followed a succession of addresses and letters from the various commissioners in the departments, blaspheming in the same atrocious strain. The municipality of Paris, which was one of the chief governing powers, if not the actual ruler of France, followed this declamation by an order, that all the churches should be shut, let their denomination of worship be what it might, and that any attempt to reopen one should be punished by arrest. The decree was put into immediate effect. The church of Notre Dame and all the other churches of the capital were closed. The popular measures were now carried on in a kind of rivalry of destruction. The "Section of the Museum," a portion of the populace, announced that they had done execution on all Prayer-books, and burnt the Old and New Testaments. The Council-General of Paris decreed that a civic feast should be held in the cathedral of Notre Dame, and that a patriotic hymn should be chanted before the statue of liberty. The Goddess of Reason was personated by a Madame Momarro, a handsome woman of profligate character, who was introduced into the hall of the Convention, received with "the fraternal embrace" by the president and secretaries, and was then installed by the whole legislature in the cathedral, which was called the "Regenerated Temple of Reason." In this monstrous profanation, the apostate archbishop officiated as the high priest of Reason, with a red cap on his head, and a pike in his hand; with this weapon he struck down some of the old religious emblems of the church, and finished his performance by placing a bust of Marat on the altar. A colossal statue was then ordered to be placed "on the ruins of monarchy and religion."

This desperate profanation was emulated in the provinces. Fouché, in Lyons, ordered a civic festival in honour of one Chalier. An ass, with a mitre on its head, and dragging a Bible at its tail, formed a characteristic portion of the ceremony; the Bible was finally burnt, and its ashes scattered to the winds.

"Thus Christianity," said the noble speaker, "was stigmatized, through the president of the Convention, amid the applauses of the whole audience, as a system of murder and massacre, incapable of being tolerated by the humanity of a republican government. The Old and New Testaments were publicly burnt, as prohibited books. Nor was it to Christianity that their hatred was confined; the Jews were involved in this comprehensive plan. Their ornaments of public worship were plundered, and their vows of irreligion were recorded with enthusiasm. The existence of a future state was openly denied, and modes of burial were devised, for the express purpose of representing to the popular mind, that death was nothing more than an everlasting sleep; and, to complete the whole project, doctrines were circulated under the eye of the government, declaring that 'the existence of a Supreme God was an idea inconsistent with the liberty of man.'"

In England, we are verging on democracy from year to year. We have begun by unhinging the national respect for the religion of the Scriptures, in our zeal to introduce the religion of the Council of Trent into the constitution. The malecontents in the Established Church are contributing their efforts to bring Protestantism into contempt, by their adoption of every error and every absurdity of the Papist. The bolder portion of these malecontents have already apostatized. The Church once shaken, every great and salutary support of the constitution will follow, and we shall have a government impelled solely by faction. When that time arrives, the minister will be the mere tool of the multitude; the faction in the streets will have its mouthpiece in the faction of the legislature. Property will be at the mercy of the idle, the desperate, and the rapacious--Law will be a dead letter--Religion a mockery--Right superseded by violence--and the only title to possession will be the ruffian heart and the sanguinary hand.

We are perfectly aware, that a large portion of the country cannot be persuaded that it is necessary for them to disturb their own comfort, quiet, and apathy, for any possible reason--that they believe all change to be of too little moment to demand any resistance on their part; and that, at all events, they trust that the world will go on smoothly for their time, whatever may be the consequence of their scandalous and contemptible apathy hereafter. But, such thinkers do not deserve to have a country, nor to be protected, nor to be regarded as any thing but as the cumberers of the earth. On such men no power of persuasion can act; for no argument would convince. They wrap themselves up in their snug incredulity, leave it to others to fight for them, and will not hazard a shilling, nor give a thought, for the salvation of their country! Yet even they are no more secure than the rest. The noble, the priest, and the man of landed wealth, are not those alone on whom the heavy hand of rabble robbery will fall. We give them, on this head, a fragment from the report of the well-known Barrère, from the "Committee of Public Welfare," constituting, in fact, the rule of conduct to the Republic. It begins by declaring the "necessity of abandoning the idea of _mercy_ in republican government." It pronounces the necessity of the law to act, for the "arrest of _suspected_ persons." It declares every "remnant of the _gentry_ of France to be an object of suspicion." It declares the "_business of bankers_ to render them objects of suspicion." It declares "their reluctance to receive assignats, and their sordid _attachment to their own interests_," to make all merchants objects of suspicion. It declares "all the _relatives_ of emigrants" to be objects of suspicion. It declares "all the clergy who have refused the constitutional oath, and all the former magistracy," to be objects of suspicion. All those classes of society are to be sentenced at once, "_without being heard_." Let us strike at once, says this desperate document, "_without trial_ and _without mercy_. Let us banish all compassion from our bosoms. Oh! what innumerable mischiefs may be produced by a false sentiment of pity?"

This decree, which made every man a victim who had any thing to lose, instantly crowded the French prisons with the merchants, the bankers, and the whole monied class in France. Those who could be plundered no longer, were sent to execution. In Paris alone, within six months, a thousand persons of the various professions had been murdered by the guillotine. During the three years of the democracy, no less than eighteen thousand individuals, chiefly of the middle order, perished by the guillotine.

This frightful catalogue closed with a remark on the belligerent propensities which such a state of society must produce. "It must be the immediate interest of a government, founded on principles wholly contradictory to the received maxims of all surrounding nations, to propagate the doctrines abroad by which it subsists at home; to assimilate every neighbouring state to its own system; and to subvert every constitution which even forms an advantageous contrast to its own absurdities. Such a government must, from its nature, be hostile to all governments of whatever form; but, above all, to those which are most strongly contrasted with its own vicious structure, and which afford to their subjects the best security for the maintenance of order, liberty, justice, and religion."

Sheridan made a speech, of great beauty and animation, in reply. But his whole argument consisted in the sophism, that the French had been rendered savage by the long sense of oppression, and that the blame of their atrocities, (which he fully admitted,) should be visited on the monarchy, not on the people.