Part 4

Another circumstance occurred a few days afterwards, which still further increased the public belief that there was a serious quarrel between the Duke and the new premier. The former moved an amendment in committee on the corn bill, which had the effect of defeating the new government on that measure. This was regarded as an act of hostility on the part of the Duke, and, shortly after, a correspondence was made public between him and Mr. Huskisson, then President of the Board of Trade, in which it appeared clear that the Duke had moved the amendment in the belief that the government had agreed to it through Mr. Huskisson, and equally clear that the Duke had been mistaken. There were not wanting those who asserted roundly that the Duke had taken advantage of an ambiguity in Mr. Huskisson's letters, in order to have a pretext for inflicting this injury on the government. And, unhappily, Mr. Canning himself, carried out of parliamentary decorum by an irritability of temper, springing from the difficulties of his position and from his advancing illness, went so far as publicly to declare that the Duke of Wellington, great man as he was, had been but in instrument in the hands of others. History, he said, afforded parallel the actions of other great men.

The Duke maintained a dignified silence with respect to this attack; but, in the following year, long after Mr. Canning's death, and when he had himself become prime minister, he took an opportunity of disclaiming, in strong language, the existance of any personal hostility on his part to the deceased statesman.

On the formation of the new administration, under Lord Goderich, the Duke of Wellington resumed the command of the army. This was on August the 27th.

Early in January, 1828, this administration fell to pieces, and the Duke of Wellington was called on by the king to form another. He was at first reluctant to do so, but ultimately gave way. He rallied round him Mr. Peel, and most of those who had seceded on the accession of Mr. Canning; so that his administration was nearly identical with that of the Earl of Liverpool, except that Mr. Huskisson and some two or three of the coalitionary whigs, were retained.

In the following May, these were got rid of. Mr. Huskisson gave a vote on the East Retford Bill, adverse to those of his colleagues; and on leaving the house, sat down (at two in the morning), and wrote a letter to the Duke, which was construed into a positive resignation of office. An amusing correspondence took place between the two statesmen, Mr. Huskisson declaring he never meant to resign, and the Duke as positively adhering to his original construction of the first letter. Mr. Huskisson's place was filled up, and he resented that proceeding by declaring in the House of Commons his belief that he had been sacrificed as a peace-offering to gain the support of some of the old tories.

The whole of the Duke's share in this correspondence is highly characteristic; and it was in the course of negotiations for the return of Mr. Huskisson that the Duke uttered the sentence so often quoted of him: "It is no mistake; it can be no mistake; and it shall be no mistake!" Strange to say, although the Duke's mode of proceeding to Mr. Huskisson was somewhat arbitrary, it gained him a sort of popularity, on account of the firmness with which he stuck to his point. The laugh was fairly on his side; and many of the vessels in the Thames hoisted flags, and exhibited other signs of rejoicing at Mr. Huskisson's dismissal.

On his appointment to be Prime Minister, the Duke again resigned the command of the army (Feb. 14th).

The first important measure, during the Duke's administration, was the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. In giving his support to that bill, the Duke met an argument, that it was a step towards Roman Catholic emancipation, by a declaration that, though he voted for the measure, no man could be a more determined opponent of those claims than he; and he added, "Until I see a great change in that question, I shall certainly oppose it." In the June following, however, the commons having in the meanwhile passed a resolution indicating favour to emancipation, the Duke declared that he looked on the question as one of expediency; and concluded his speech by recommending that the public mind should be allowed to rest. In the end, it might be possible to do something; for he was most desirous of seeing the subject brought to an amicable conclusion.

Causes altogether independent of parliamentary majorities or discussions had in the mean time been at work, and had proposed this change in the tone of ministers. Mr. O'Connell, although a Catholic, had been returned to parliament as member for the county of Clare; and during the summer and autumn, the whole of the Catholic population had become so organized, under the Catholic Association, as seriously to threaten the continuance of the existing system in Ireland. These events produced their effects upon English statesmen on either side of the question; and the more moderate of the Conservative party began to think that some concession to the Catholics would be inevitable.

Still, however, the government gave no sign of yielding. On the contrary, a circumstance occurred, in the month of December, which led to an opposite inference. Dr. Curtis, a Roman Catholic prelate, who had been on terms of personal acquaintance with the Duke of Wellington at Salamanca, wrote a letter to him on the position of the Catholic question, to which the Duke wrote an answer, which seemed to deny all hope of a speedy settlement. It was immediately made public by Dr. Curtis through the Catholic Association. The effect of the letter was to make that body redouble their efforts.

In a few days after, the Marquis of Anglesea, the lord lieutenant, who had always been the avowed supporter of the Catholics, also addressed a letter in reply to one he received from Dr. Curtis, in which he gave the Catholics advice as to the best mode of proceeding in order to attain emancipation. This conduct on the part of the viceroy, together with the open countenance he gave to the leading catholics in Dublin, gave the strongest offence to the king, and amounted to such a breach of duty that the Duke of Wellington was compelled to recall the marquis from Ireland.

The public mind was now in the greatest perplexity. On the one hand, the state of Ireland seemed to render some measure of concession inevitable, while on the other there was the letter to Dr. Curtis, and the dismissal of the lord lieutenant--facts which seemed to discountenance all hope.

The year 1829 was the most eventful in the civil career of the Duke of Wellington. He had been throughout his life the opponent of Roman Catholic emancipation: he was now to come before the public in the new character of a prime minister prepared to grant, as a measure of free grace, that which he had hitherto denounced as inconsistent with the safety of the Protestant constitution.

Up to within a few days of the opening of parliament, however, the design of the government was wholly concealed, but in the speech from the throne parliament was recommended to entertain the question. In the debate on the address the Duke of Wellington announced it as the intention of the government to introduce a measure for the emancipation of the Catholics. And now arose a political storm almost unparalleled in the history of party, from the effects of which we are scarcely yet recovered.

The Duke and Mr. Peel were immediately made the objects of the most unrelenting hostility by the opponents of emancipation. Seeing the favour in which the two statesmen are now held by their party, it would be almost impossible to believe that such abusive language as was then poured forth could have been used towards them, were it not on record.

The Duke especially was charged with a treble treachery; to Mr. Canning, on account of the transactions previously referred to; towards the Protestant party, of whom he had been the chosen leader, and whom he was about to betray; and lastly a personal treachery in the concealment of his design until the moment of execution, by which he prevented others from coming forward and taking the station he had abandoned, as leader of the opponents of emancipation.

The Duke's replies to all these charges will be found at length in the following pages. But the charge of personal treachery was afterwards put in a shape which compelled the Duke of Wellington to take a very different notice of it. The Earl of Winchelsea wrote a letter to the secretary of King's College, in which, after adverting to the support which the Duke had given on Protestant principles to that institution, he stated that he now believed that the Duke's conduct had been only a blind to the high church party, and that he was about, under the cloak of the Protestant religion, to carry into effect his insidious designs for the infringement of our liberties, and the introduction of Popery into every department of the state. This letter the Duke found himself bound to notice; but the earl refused to retract. A correspondence took place, which ended in a duel. Neither party was hurt, and the earl subsequently made a public apology for the original expressions.

In the meanwhile the Emancipation Bill was steadily progressing. On the 19th of February, in introducing the bill for the suppression of dangerous associations, the Duke of Wellington declared that there had been no previous bargain or compact with the Roman Catholic party while the Emancipation Bill was in the House of Commons. Short discussions took place almost every night in the House of Lords upon its merits, in which whenever the Duke joined he did so with the greatest reluctance. At length, on the 2nd of April, he moved the second reading of the bill in the House of Lords, in a speech which reflected credit upon him for moral courage, if not for consistency.

In fact, great moral courage is one of the most striking features in the character of the Duke of Wellington. Some of his supporters will doubt this assertion; and will point to the Emancipation Act as a proof that the Duke wanted the firmness to act up to his avowed principles. This involves a wrong assumption. It is one thing obstinately to adhere to an opinion in defiance of its impracticability: another to retract that opinion so soon as its impracticability is demonstrated. Whether the Duke was right or wrong in his opinions, no one will deny that it required great moral courage for him to stand up in the face of the country, braving the anger of his old associates, and declare that he could no longer resist the force of public opinion.

It was in the course of the speech introducing the Emancipation Bill that the Duke made his well-known declaration "that he would sacrifice his life to prevent one month of civil war."

One fruit of the angry passions excited during the progress of the Emancipation Bill was a series of prosecutions against the _Morning Journal_ for libels on the Duke of Wellington, the Lord Chancellor, and the government collectively. These prosecutions were conducted with unusual acrimony by Sir James Scarlet, the Attorney-General; and the Duke of Wellington came in for a very considerable share of public censure for having authorised such prosecutions. Probably the Duke intended to inflict another "great moral lesson," as he has always set his face against the unrestrained license of the press; but, looking back with calmer feelings to the events of that excited period, and admitting that the language used by the editor was certainly too strong, though faithfully representing the feelings of a large class of the public, it is certainly difficult to avoid now coming to the conclusion that Mr. Alexander, when sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment in Newgate and heavy fines, was treated with a severity scarcely justifiable. It is probable that the Duke of Wellington, acting on his rigid notions of the division of responsibility, after ordering the prosecution, left the affair to Sir James Scarlet, and from that moment declined to interfere.

Among the discussions to which the prosecutions gave rise, an amusing speech of Sir Charles Wetherell, on the 2nd of March, 1830, in the House of Commons, will repay perusal.

In a debate which took place in the House of Lords on the first night of the session, upon the state of the country, the Duke of Wellington delivered a speech upon the causes of the existing distress, which proved (allowances being made for differences of opinion) that his qualifications to deal with the most intricate questions involved in civil government were very little inferior to his military talents. Passages from that speech will be found in the following pages. At the time many of his views were ridiculed by those political economists who were destined so soon to rise to power under shelter of the reform question; but it will be seen that the improved experience of the country after ten years' undisputed sway of those gentlemen, confirms many of the chief conclusion to which the astute and practical mind of the Duke of Wellington then led him. That speech, however, raised a hornet's nest around him in the House of Commons. Among others, Sir Francis Burdett made a personal attack on the Duke, in which he said that his administration showed how correct was his estimate of his own powers when he said he would be mad to think of being prime minister. That illustrious individual, he said, had been treated with much tenderness, because he had conferred the greatest benefits on his country; but if his services had been great his recompense had been great also. Mr. Brougham, also, made a most personal attack on the Duke on the day before parliament closed.

In the mean while, George the Fourth died (on the 26th of June), and parliament was dissolved. The new parliament, called by William the Fourth, was opened by the king in person on November the 2nd. It was decidedly unfavourable to the ministry, against whom were arrayed a most talented and unscrupulous opposition. They swayed with almost absolute power the great mass of the people, who hoped everything from parliamentary reform, and had not as yet had experience of the extravagance of such hopes. A part of the tactics of the whig leaders was to excite personal animosity against the Duke of Wellington, who was libelled as a sort of would-be military dictator, seeking to introduce in civil affairs the iron discipline of the camp, and to ride rough shod over a free people.

With the clamour for reform out of doors and in the commons, it was not to be supposed that even the impassible Duke of Wellington could avoid referring to the subject in the debate on the address. This he did, with more candour than prudence, by his well-known declaration against reform, and in favour of the existing system. It will be found at length elsewhere. The excitement it produced was enormous: so great, that in three days afterwards ministers advised William the Fourth not to proceed to the City to visit the Lord Mayor, lest there should be tumults.

On the 15th, they were defeated in the House of Commons, upon a motion of Sir Henry Parnell, for a committee to inquire into the civil list; and on the following day the Duke of Wellington and his colleagues resigned; being apprehensive that the same majority would vote for the principle of parliamentary reform in a day or two after, and not wishing to virtually give up that question by going out after being beaten on it in the House of Commons.

During the year 1831, while the discussions on the Reform Bill were going on, the Duke made frequent speeches against the measure, and led the opposition in the House of Lords in a manner quite consistent with his declaration in November. In a speech he made on the 28th March, explanatory of the causes of his resignation, he distinctly denied that the reform fever was owing to that declaration, and asserted that it was to be attributed to the effect on the public mind of the revolutions in France and Belgium.

On the 10th of October, after the Reform Bill had been thrown out in the House of Lords, the Duke of Wellington was insulted by a mob on his way to the house. In the evening, the windows of his mansion at Hyde Park-corner were broken. It is to be lamented that any class of Englishmen were to be found so degraded as to be guilty of this ingratitude.

Fortunately, the worst of the evil was averted, by the total indifference of the Duke to all such demonstrations. The greatest men have been despisers of mankind, of the swaying multitude, that is to say, the unthinking, the headstrong, and the violent--not of necessity merely, from that intrinsic superiority and natural antagonism which forbid their commingling; but also, and with a more hearty potency, from the experience which they, alternately the adored or the scorned, have had of the inconstancy of the giddy people. In this light estimation, indeed, of the judgment of their less worthy fellows, lies the secret of their greatness and their strength. They ride towards their goal while the stream tends that way, and when the course of the current is diverted, they are not dismayed. Their scorn of the means leads them to pass on by their own strength, or to rest secure on the foundation-rock of our moral nature--principle, and the consciousness of duty done.

In April, 1832, on the motion for the second reading of the new Reform Bill in the House of Lords, the Duke made a speech, characterised by unqualified opposition to the measure, at a time when many of the conservative peers (called "waverers,") were for giving it a qualified support. But, after a defeat of ministers in committee, on Lord Lyndhursts motion of the 7th of May, followed by their resignation, and when the king, rather than agree to create peers, called on the Duke of Wellington to form an administration, he expressed his readiness to do so upon the principle of moderate reform.

This sudden inconsistency the public could not understand; the Duke's avowed reason was that when called on by his sovereign he could not leave him alone in his difficulty. However, the Duke's efforts were brought to a summary conclusion by the refusal of Sir Robert Peel to join in the attempt.

It is amusing to see the opposite Views these two statesmen took of their duties to their king. Sir Robert Peel considered that "his acceptance of office pledged to carry an efficient Reform Bill, he being a determined enemy to such a measure, would be a political immorality which would not allow him to enter on his services with a firm step, a light heart, and an erect attitude." The Duke said, "if he had refused to assist his majesty, because he had hitherto given his opposition to parliamentary reform, he would not have been able to show his face in the streets for shame of having deserted his sovereign in circumstances so painful and alarming." The result of Sir Robert's refusal was, that the Duke gave up the attempt, and Earl Grey was recalled.

During the sessions of 1833 and 1834, the Duke was the leader of the opposition in the House of Lords; always at his post, and always ready to grapple with the different questions brought before the peers. On the 9th of June, 1834, took place his installation as Chancellor of the University of Oxford;--a brilliant scene, at which some of the most distinguished men of the day assisted.

In November, 1834, on the death of Lord Spencer, and the dismissal of the whig ministry, the king called on the Duke of Wellington to form an administration. The Duke recommended his majesty to entrust that office to Sir Robert Peel, who, however, was then at Rome. During the interval that elapsed before his arrival, the Duke accepted, provisionally, the office of First Lord of the Treasury, and the seals of the three secretaryships of state. On Sir Robert Peel's arrival, he gave up the government, with the exception of the office of Secretary for Foreign Affairs, which (December 9th) he retained.

Much clamour was at this time raised against the Duke by the whigs, on the old score of dictatorship, and also as to a supposed insult offered to Lord Melbourne.

On the meeting of parliament in the following February (on the 24th), the Duke gave an explanation of his conduct (inserted in this volume), sufficient to clear him in all impartial eyes of all the charges then urged against him by party spirit.

On the 8th of April following, in consequence of the repeated defeats sustained in the House of Commons by Sir Robert Peel, the conservative ministry resigned, and with them of course the Duke of Wellington. From that time until the re-accession of Sir Robert Peel to power, in 1841, the Duke continued to lead, with his accustomed vigour and unpretending ability, the opposition in the House of Lords. In this position, he exercised the utmost forbearance towards the government; never using his power except when circumstances absolutely required its exercise.

One of these instances occurred at the opening of the session of 1836, when the principles of a particular measure were recommended in a speech from the throne. To the address the Duke moved an amendment, condemnatory of the practice of thus pledging the sovereign in a speech from the throne to the principles of any measure. The amendment was agreed to by the whigs.

During the whole interval between 1833 and 1841, the Duke is to be found occasionally speaking in the upper house, in his capacity of leader of opposition. The same sound practical sense which has been already attributed to him, characterised his whole proceedings. It is needless to particularise the different important debates in which he took part.

In August, 1839, a grand banquet was given to the Duke at Dover, as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. A splendid pavilion was erected for the occasion, in which two thousand persons, including some most distinguished men, sat down to dinner. The gallery was filled with ladies. The most interesting point in the day's proceedings, was when Lord Brougham, the most active and distinguished civilian of his age, rose to propose the health of the Duke of Wellington, the most illustrious military commander. Eulogium could scarcely he carried farther than it was by Lord Brougham in these words:--