Part 1

BELL’S ENGLISH HISTORY SOURCE BOOKS

_General Editors_:

S. E. WINBOLT, M.A., AND KENNETH BELL, M.A.

COMMERCIAL POLITICS

BELL’S ENGLISH HISTORY SOURCE BOOKS.

_Volumes now Ready. 1s. net each._

=449-1066. The Welding of the Race.= Edited by the Rev. JOHN WALLIS, M.A.

=1066-1154. The Normans in England.= Edited by A. E. BLAND, B.A.

=1154-1216. The Angevins and the Charter.= Edited by S. M. TOYNE, M.A.

=1216-1307. The Growth of Parliament, and the War with Scotland.= Edited by W. D. ROBIESON, M.A.

=1307-1399. War and Misrule.= Edited by A. A. LOCKE.

=1399-1485. York and Lancaster.= Edited by W. GARMON JONES, M.A.

=1485-1547. The Reformation and the Renaissance.= Edited by F. W. BEWSHER, B.A.

=1547-1603. The Age of Elizabeth.= Edited by ARUNDELL ESDAILE, M.A.

=1603-1660. Puritanism and Liberty.= Edited by KENNETH BELL, M.A.

=1660-1714. A Constitution in Making.= Edited by G. B. PERRETT, M.A.

=1714-1760. Walpole and Chatham.= Edited by K. A. ESDAILE.

=1760-1801. American Independence and the French Revolution.= Edited by S. E. WINBOLT, M.A.

=1801-1815. England and Napoleon.= Edited by S. E. WINBOLT, M.A.

=1815-1837. Peace and Reform.= Edited by A. C. W. EDWARDS, M.A., Christ’s Hospital.

=1837-1856. Commercial Politics.= By R. H. GRETTON.

=1856-1876. Palmerston to Disraeli.= Edited by EWING HARDING, B.A.

=1876-1887. Imperialism and Mr. Gladstone.= Edited by R. H. GRETTON, M.A.

=1563-1913. Canada.= Edited by JAMES MUNRO, Lecturer at Edinburgh University.

=A Source-Book of London History.= By P. MEADOWS, M.A. 1s. 6d. net.

BELL’S SCOTTISH HISTORY SOURCE BOOKS.

=1637-1688. The Scottish Covenanters.= Edited by J. PRINGLE THOMSON, M.A.

=1689-1746. The Jacobite Rebellions.= Edited by J. PRINGLE THOMSON, M.A.

LONDON: G. BELL AND SONS, LTD.

COMMERCIAL POLITICS

(1837-1856)

BY R. H. GRETTON

FORMERLY DEMY OF MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORD AUTHOR OF “MODERN HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE”

LONDON G. BELL AND SONS, LTD. 1914

INTRODUCTION

This series of English History Source Books is intended for use with any ordinary textbook of English History. Experience has conclusively shown that such apparatus is a valuable—nay, an indispensable—adjunct to the history lesson. It is capable of two main uses: either by way of lively illustration at the close of a lesson, or by way of inference-drawing, before the textbook is read, at the beginning of the lesson. The kind of problems and exercises that may be based on the documents are legion, and are admirably illustrated in a _History of England for Schools_, Part I., by Keatinge and Frazer, pp. 377-381. However, we have no wish to prescribe for the teacher the manner in which he shall exercise his craft, but simply to provide him and his pupils with materials hitherto not readily accessible for school purposes. The very moderate price of the books in this series should bring them within the reach of every secondary school. Source books enable the pupil to take a more active part than hitherto in the history lesson. Here is the apparatus, the raw material: its use we leave to teacher and taught.

Our belief is that the books may profitably be used by all grades of historical students between the standards of fourth-form boys in secondary schools and undergraduates at Universities. What differentiates students at one extreme from those at the other is not so much the kind of subject-matter dealt with, as the amount they can read into or extract from it.

In regard to choice of subject-matter, while trying to satisfy the natural demand for certain “stock” documents of vital importance, we hope to introduce much fresh and novel matter. It is our intention that the majority of the extracts should be lively in style—that is, personal, or descriptive, or rhetorical, or even strongly partisan—and should not so much profess to give the truth as supply data for inference. We aim at the greatest possible variety, and lay under contribution letters, biographies, ballads and poems, diaries, debates, and newspaper accounts. Economics, London, municipal and social life generally, and local history, are represented in these pages.

The order of the extracts is strictly chronological, each being numbered, titled, and dated, and its authority given. The text is modernised, where necessary, to the extent of leaving no difficulties in reading.

We shall be most grateful to teachers and students who may send us suggestions for improvement.

S. E. WINBOLT. KENNETH BELL.

NOTE TO THIS VOLUME

I acknowledge, with thanks, the permission of Mr. John Murray to reprint the extracts from _Queen Victoria’s Letters_ on pp. 26, 68, 84; and from _The Croker Papers_ on p. 26; also the permission of Messrs. Longmans, Green and Co. to reprint the extracts from _The Greville Memoirs_ on pp. 29, 68, 85; and those from _The Life of Lord John Russell_ on pp. 99, 118.

R. H. G.

CONTENTS

PAGE INTRODUCTION v

DATE

1837. ACCESSION OF QUEEN VICTORIA _Sybil_ 1 AFFAIRS IN CANADA _Report by Lord Durham_ 3

1838. THE STATE OF ENGLAND: I. RURAL DISTRICTS _Sybil_ 8 II. MINING DISTRICTS _Sybil_ 10 III. FACTORY TOWNS _Sybil, Coningsby_ 12 IRELAND AND HER LANDLORDS _Life of Thos. Drummond_ 16

1839. THE CHARTER OF COLONIAL SELF-GOVERNMENT _Report by Lord Durham_ 20 THE BEDCHAMBER PLOT _Queen Victoria’s Letters_ _and The Croker Papers_ 26 1840. THE QUEEN’S MARRIAGE _Greville Memoirs_ 29

1842. THE CHARTIST PETITION _Hansard_ 31 THE RAILWAY BOOM _Endymion_ 38 THE CORN LAWS AND THE MANUFACTURERS _Hansard_ 42 IMPRISONMENT FOR ABSENCE FROM CHURCH _Hansard_ 46

1843. A CHARTIST IN PRISON _Life of Thomas Cooper_ 49 A CHARTIST HYMN _Life of Thomas Cooper_ 50

1844. FORETASTES OF DARWINISM _Tancred_ 51 THE OPENING OF MAZZINI’S LETTERS _Hansard_ 53

1845. AGRICULTURE AND FREE TRADE _Hansard_ 55 PEEL’S CHANGE OF VIEWS _Peel’s Memoirs_ 60 LORD J. RUSSELL QUICKENS THE PACE _Peel’s Memoirs_ 65 THE BOMBSHELL _Greville Memoirs_ 68 PEEL AND HIS COLLEAGUES _Queen Victoria’s Letters_ 68

1846. FREE TRADE _Hansard_ 70 PEEL’S DEFENCE OF HIS METHOD _Peel’s Memoirs_ 77 IRELAND: THE MOLLY MAGUIRES _Peel’s Memoirs_ 80

1848. ENGLAND AND THE YEAR OF REVOLUTION _Life of Palmerston_ 81

1849. CONQUEST OF THE PUNJAB _Queen Victoria’s Letters_ 84

1850. CHARACTER OF SIR ROBERT PEEL _Greville Memoirs_ 85 DON PACIFICO _Hansard_ 87 THE ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOPRICS _Life of Palmerston_ 91 THE HAYNAU AFFAIR _Life of Palmerston_ 92

1851. PALMERSTON AND KOSSUTH _Life of Palmerston_ 93 THE GREAT EXHIBITION _Life of Prince Consort_ 94 PALMERSTON AND THE COUP D’ÉTAT _Life of Palmerston_ 96

1853. RELATIONS WITH RUSSIA _Life of Lord J. Russell_ 99

1854. THE QUAKER DEPUTATION TO THE TSAR _Memoirs of Joseph Sturge_ 102 HORRORS OF THE CRIMEAN HOSPITALS _The Times_ 105 THE CRISIS AT THE ALMA _The Times_ 107 THE MORNING OF INKERMANN _The Times_ 110

1855. “MUDDLING THROUGH” BEFORE SEBASTOPOL _The Times_ 111 THE ANGEL OF DEATH _Hansard_ 114 WHY PEACE NEGOTIATIONS FAILED _Life of Lord J. Russell_ 118

COMMERCIAL POLITICS

(1837-1856)

ACCESSION OF QUEEN VICTORIA (1837).

=Source.=—Lord Beaconsfield’s _Sybil_, bk. i., chap. vi.

Hark! It tolls! All is over. The great bell of the metropolitan cathedral announces the death of the last son of George the Third who probably will ever reign in England. He was a good man: with feelings and sympathies; deficient in culture rather than ability; with a sense of duty; and with something of the conception of what should be the character of an English monarch. Peace to his manes! We are summoned to a different scene.

In a palace in a garden—not in a haughty keep, proud with the fame, but dark with the violence of ages; not in a regal pile, bright with the splendour, but soiled with the intrigues of courts and factions—in a palace in a garden, meet scene for youth, and innocence, and beauty—came a voice that told the maiden that she must ascend her throne!

The Council of England is summoned for the first time within her bowers. There are assembled the prelates and captains and chief men of her realm; the priests of the religion that consoles, the heroes of the sword that has conquered, the votaries of the craft that has decided the fate of empires; men grey with thought, and fame, and age; who are the stewards of divine mysteries, who have toiled in secret cabinets, who have encountered in battle the hosts of Europe, who have struggled in the less merciful strife of aspiring senates; men too, some of them, lords of a thousand vassals and chief proprietors of provinces, yet not one of them whose heart does not at this moment tremble as he awaits the first presence of the maiden who must now ascend her throne.

A hum of half-suppressed conversation which would attempt to conceal the excitement, which some of the greatest of them have since acknowledged, fills that brilliant assemblage; that sea of plumes, and glittering stars, and gorgeous dresses. Hush! The portals open. She comes. The silence is as deep as that of a noontide forest. Attended for a moment by her royal mother and the ladies of her court, who bow and then retire, VICTORIA ascends her throne; a girl, alone, and for the first time, amid an assemblage of men.

In a sweet and thrilling voice, and with a composed mien which indicates rather the absorbing sense of august duty than an absence of emotion, THE QUEEN announces her accession to the throne of her ancestors, and the humble hope that divine Providence will guard over the fulfilment of her lofty trust.

The prelates and captains and chief men of her realm then advance to the throne, and, kneeling before her, pledge their troth, and take the sacred oaths of allegiance and supremacy.

Allegiance to one who rules over the land that the great Macedonian could not conquer; and over a continent of which even Columbus never dreamed: to the Queen of every sea, and of nations in every zone.

It is not of these that I would speak; but of a nation nearer her footstool, which at this moment looks to her with anxiety, with affection, perhaps with hope. Fair and serene, she has the blood and beauty of the Saxon. Will it be her proud destiny at length to bear relief to suffering millions, and, with that soft hand which might inspire troubadours and guerdon knights, break the last links in the chain of Saxon thraldom?

AFFAIRS IN CANADA (1837).

=Source.=—_Report on the Affairs of British North America._ By Lord Durham. Printed for the House of Commons, 1839.

The lengthened and various discussions which had for some years been carried on between the contending parties in the Colony, and the representations which had been circulated at home, had produced in mine, as in most minds in England, a very erroneous view of the parties at issue in Lower Canada. The quarrel which I was sent to heal had been a quarrel between the executive government and the popular branch of the legislature. The latter body had, apparently, been contending for popular rights and free government. The executive government had been defending the prerogative of the Crown and the institutions which, in accordance with the principles of the British Constitution, had been established as checks on the unbridled exercise of popular power.... I expected to find a contest between a government and a people. I found two nations warring in the bosom of a single state; I found a struggle, not of principles, but of races; and I perceived that it would be idle to attempt any amelioration of laws or institutions until we could first succeed in terminating the deadly animosity that now separates the inhabitants of Lower Canada into the hostile divisions of French and English.... To conceive the incompatibility of the two races in Canada it is not enough that we should picture to ourselves a community composed of equal proportions of French and English. We must bear in mind what kind of French and English they are that are brought in contact, and in what proportions they meet.

The institutions of France during the period of the colonisation of Canada were, perhaps, more than those of any other nation, calculated to repress the intelligence and freedom of the great mass of the people. These institutions followed the Canadian colonist across the Atlantic. The same central, ill-organised, unimproving, and repressive despotism extended over him. Not merely was he allowed no voice in the government of his province or the choice of his rulers, but he was not even permitted to associate with his neighbours for the regulation of those municipal affairs which the central authority neglected under the pretext of managing. He obtained his land on a tenure singularly calculated to promote his immediate comfort and to check his desire to better his condition; he was placed at once in a life of constant and unvarying labour, of great material comfort, and feudal dependence. The ecclesiastical authority to which he had been accustomed established its institutions around him, and the priest continued to exercise over him his ancient influence. No general provision was made for education; and as its necessity was not appreciated, the colonist made no attempt to repair the negligence of his government. It need not surprise us that, under such circumstances, a race of men habituated to the incessant labour of a rude and unskilled agriculture, and habitually fond of social enjoyments, congregated together in rural communities, occupying portions of the wholly unappropriated soil, sufficient to provide each family with material comforts far beyond their ancient means, or almost their conceptions; that they made little advance beyond the first progress in comfort, which the bounty of the soil absolutely forced upon them; that under the same institutions they remained the same uninstructed, inactive, unprogressive people. Along the alluvial banks of the St. Lawrence and its tributaries they have cleared two or three strips of land, cultivated them in the worst method of small farming, and established a series of continuous villages, which give the country of the seignories the appearance of a never-ending street. Besides the cities which were the seats of government, no towns were established. The rude manufactures of the country were, and still are, carried on in the cottage by the family of the habitant; and an insignificant proportion of the population derived their subsistence from the scarcely discernible commerce of the province. The mass of the community exhibited in the New World the characteristics of the peasantry of Europe. Society was dense; and even the wants and the poverty which the pressure of population occasions in the Old World became not to be wholly unknown. They clung to ancient prejudices, ancient customs, and ancient laws, not from any strong sense of their beneficial effects, but with the unreasoning tenacity of an uneducated and unprogressive people. Nor were they wanting in the virtues of a simple and industrious life, or in those which common consent attributes to the nation from which they spring. The temptations which, in other states of society, lead to offences against property, and the passions which prompt to violence, were little known amongst them. They are mild and kindly, frugal, industrious, and honest, very sociable, cheerful, and hospitable, and distinguished for a courtesy and real politeness, which pervades every class of society. The conquest has changed them but little. The higher classes and the inhabitants of the towns have adopted some English customs and feelings, but the continued negligence of the British Government left the mass of the people without any of the institutions which would have elevated them in freedom and civilisation. It has left them without the education and without the institutions of local self-government that would have assimilated their character and habits, in the easiest and best way, to those of the Empire of which they became a part. They remain an old and stationary society in a new and progressive world.... The common opinion, however, that all classes of the Canadians are equally ignorant is perfectly erroneous. The piety and benevolence of the early possessors of the country founded in the seminaries that exist in different parts of the province institutions of which the funds and activity have long been directed to the promotion of education. Seminaries and colleges have been by these bodies established in the cities and in other central points. The education given in these establishments greatly resembles the kind given in the English public schools, though it is rather more varied. It is entirely in the hands of the Catholic clergy. The number of pupils in these establishments is estimated altogether at about a thousand, and they turn out every year, as far as I could ascertain, between two and three hundred young men thus educated. Almost all of these are members of the family of some habitant.... Thus the persons of most education in every village belong to the same families and the same station in life as the illiterate habitants.... To this singular state of things I attribute the extraordinary influence of the Canadian demagogues. Over the class of persons by whom the peasantry are thus led the Government has not acquired, or ever laboured to acquire, influence; its members have been thrown into opposition by the system of exclusion long prevalent in the colony, and it is by their agency that the leaders of the Assembly have been enabled hitherto to move as one mass, in whatever direction they thought proper, the simple and ductile population of the country. The entire neglect of education by the Government has thus more than any other cause contributed to render the people ungovernable, and to invest the agitator with the power which he wields against the laws and the public tranquillity.

Among this people the progress of emigration has of late years introduced an English population exhibiting the characteristics with which we are familiar as those of the most enterprising of every class of our countrymen. The circumstances of the early colonial administration excluded the native Canadian from power, and vested all offices of trust and emolument in the hands of strangers of English origin. The highest posts in the law were confided to the same class of persons. The functionaries of the civil government, together with the officers of the army, composed a kind of privileged class, occupying the first place in the community, and excluding the higher class of the natives from society, as well as from the government of their own country. It was not till within a very few years, as was testified by persons who had seen much of the country, that this society of civil and military functionaries ceased to exhibit towards the higher order of Canadians an exclusiveness of demeanour which was more revolting to a sensitive and polite people than the monopoly of power and profit. Nor was this national favouritism discontinued until after repeated complaints and an angry contest, which had excited passions that concession could not allay. The races had become enemies ere a tardy justice was extorted; and even then the Government discovered a mode of distributing its patronage among the Canadians which was quite as offensive to that people as their previous exclusion: