„), M. Ml.' I, I it' > ■J, '> ,1 I • i1 ra ' it . frjnu^ie, n I' M I ' j i i w ) I' I riiiiii M iiii GfarttcU Inittecaita CibrarB Stljara, Sfejn ^nrk BENNO LOEWY LIBRARY COLLECTED BY BENNO LOEWY 18S4.1919 BEQUEATHED TO CORNELL UNIVERSITY Cornell University Library 3 1924 031 412 319 olin,anx POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. 1660—1820. CHAPTEES IN THE HISTOEY OF POPULAR PROGRESS CHIEFLY IN DELATION TO THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS AND TRIAL BY JURY. 1660—1820. WITH AN APPLICATION TO LATER YEARS. JJY JAMES ROUTLEDGE. JTonboit : M A CM I L LAN AND CO. 1876. /\ (^if(pS':L LOETOON : R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS, BREAD STREET HILL, QOEEN VICTORIA STREET. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE INTRODUCTORY , . ... 1 CHAPTER II. A RETROSPECT .... 3 CHAPTER III. JAMES II. — THE WHIG REVOLUTION OF 1688. -ANNE 36 CHAPTER IV. FRESH CENTRES OF HISTORY : THE HANOVERIAN LINE ... 60 CHAPTER V: A CHASM OP THIRTY-FIVE YEARS. — THE EVENTS OF GEORGE THE second's REIGN ; FROM THE REIGN OF GEORGE III 75 CHAPTER VI. THE SAME CHASM OP YEARS J FROM ANOTHER SIDE 94 CHAPTER VII. PROM 1763 TO 1789.— NEW -TIMES 109 VI CONTENTS. CHAPTER VIII. PAGE FROM 1763 TO 1789.— SOCIAL AFFAIRS 137 CHAPTER IX. FROM 1789 TO 1794 ; the French revolution and its reaction ; REI&N OF TERROR IN ENGLAND .... 174 CHAPTER X. FROM 1794. — STATE TRIALS. — THE SPY SYSTEM. — SCOTLAND AND IRELAND 200 CHAPTER XI. AT THE END OF THE GREAT WAR . 240 CHAPTER XII. WILLIAM HONE, PUBLISHER AND " PARODIST " . . , 267 CHAPTER XIII. SUSPENSION OF HABEAS CORPUS IN 1817 . . 284 CHAPTER XIV. GOVERNMENT IN 1817: SPIES AND INFORMERS: ARREST OF WILLIAM HONE 315 CHAPTER XV. HIGH TREASON IN 1817 : WATSON, THISTLEWOOD, AND OTHERS . . 343 CHAPTER XVI. THE THREE TRIALS OF WILLIAM HONE : THE FIRST DAY'S TRIAL . . 364 CONTENTS. vii CHAPTER XVn. PAGE SECOND TRIAL OF HONE . ... . . 394 CHAPTER XVIII. THE THIRD TRIAL, AND AFTERWARDS . . , . 419 CHAPTER XIX. MR. hone's AFTER-YEARS . 452 CHAPTER XX. LIBERTY AND RKSPONSIBILITY : THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS . . . 493 CHAPTER XXI. LIBERTY AND RESPONSIBILITY. — SECURITY AGAINST FOREIGN FOES . 537 CHAPTER XXII. THE CHANGES OF SIXTY YEARS. ... . . 560 EREATA. Pages 67 and 68, for " Forster" read " Foster." Page 186, line 29, for " Granville " read " Grenville." Page 195, line 1, /or "or" -read "for ;" line 12, /or "saying" read "said." Page 266, line 11, read " four and a half." Page 270, line 12, read " exceedingly." Page 296, line 14, a comma at "people " altera the sense. Page 313, line 14 in extract, read "to be regretted." Page 323, line 24, at " information " substitute a comma for a period ; line 33, a comma at "this ; " line 35, read " against." Page 417, line 16, read " character as well as of." Page 426, line 34, read " Mr. Hone's absolute hatred to." Page 558, line 13, for " aboard " read " abroad." POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. 1660—1820. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. The object of this volume is not to present anything at all resembling a constitutional history of England, or of any period of English history ; but by a series of in some cases almost bare though not undigested facts, and in others of simple observations on the nature of facts, to direct the attention of readers to certain marked characteristics of ever-varying times. It has appeared to the writer that, in most cases of ordinary reading, facts in any sensible degree covered up in elaborate writing are entirely lost, or convey no definite ideas, and that the relations of certain men to important events are frequently forgotten, or are only remembered with an utter confusion of the ideas involved. It will be the aim here to give as much importance to the influence of poor men as of rich and dis- tinguished ones, where the former influence can be traced with any degree of accuracy ; and there will be no attempt to ignore on account of heterodoxy of creed the action of men, for instance, as " extreme " to the society in which they lived as Kichard Carlile, Gale Jones, and others like them who exercised a strange influence in an exceptionally strange time. To William Hone the parodist, to Samuel Bamford the Eadical poet, to Eobert Owen the undoubted philanthropist, to WiUiam Lovetfc the representative Chartist, there will be an attempt, at all events, to pay as true and just a regard as to Junius, to Home Tooke, to the labours of WUberforce, or to the states- manship of Pitt and Fox. The selection of the two historic K B 2 POPULAE PROGEESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. i. periods may be very simply explained. In 1660 the spell of despotism was made to rest, and, in a sense, was riveted on England. From that time till the end of the Great War, in 1815, the struggle against it never ceased. In the years from 1817 to 1820, the spell was broken, and with the latter of these . years our facts and dates will end. From that time the popular interest never again lost ground in the State. If the reader wiU. bear a little with the dryness of the first few chapters which have been intentionally condensed from a vast mass of material to exact facts, he will find that they have an essential connection with later important events, which are given more in detail, and that, indeed, they are indispensable to a right under- standing of those events, though the further elaboration of them was neither necessary nor desirable in view of the purport and structure of this volume. For instance, we shall see the bare fact of the rise of the Whig and Tory parties, under their distinctive names in the reign of Charles II., whereas we shall have vastly greater concern with the rise of a third party — the party of the unrepresented masses of the people — in 1817. Yet to know how and in what way the earlier party Unes were drawn, and the party names assumed, has a distinct bearing on the struggles of a time when the right of two knots of rival politicians to represent all English political action was roundly disputed, and eventually and determinedly rejected, as it is at this day. To have left popular action from 1815 downwards to the guidance of the Whigs would have been foUy, if not worse. To ignore the errors and frequent half-heartedness of the Whigs, would be to ignore history. To acknowledge the occasional great services to the nation of eminent men who are known as Whigs, would be simple ingratitude, and would also be the reverse of political wisdom, in view of the sure difficulties and dangers of coming years, when the examples of patriotic lives may once again be the best incentive to patriotism. If we can view Whig, Tory and Eadical alike, in truth and honesty, hiding no shortcomings, and traducing no virtues, public or private for any purpose whatever, some useful end may perhaps be attained. CHAPTER II. A RETROSPECT. Social Problema at the End of the French War, 1815 — Spirit of the Nation — ■ Questions in History — The Reformation and the Commonwealth, 1500-1649 — The Eestoration, 1660 — The Clergy ; their Previous Sufferings ; their Retaliation — Divine Right — Milton and Hohbes — Charles II. — The Savoy Conference, 1661 — Corporation Act — Act of Unifoi-mity — Birthday of Modem Nonconformity — The Drunken Parliament — Ireland — Conventicle Act, 1664 — The Great Plague in London ; Conduct of the Ejected Clergy — Five Mile Act, 1665— Test Act, 1673— The Duke of York— National Dislike to the Church of Rome — Parliamentary Test, 1678 — Change in the Temper of Parliament— Dissolution of the Pension Parliament — Habeas Corpus Act — Lord Shaftesbury — Exclusion BQl — Dissolution of Third Parliament — Scot- land — Claverhouse — Monmouth — Duke of York ; Petition against him — Fourth Parliament, 1680 — Fifth Parliament, 1681 — King Charles Pensioned by France — Jeffreys and Scroggs— Rye House Plot — Lord Essex, Lord WUliara Russell, and Algernon Sydney — Protestant and Catholic Plots — Truth as between the Churches — Death of Charles 11., 1685 — Whig and Tory — The Army ; the Guards — The London Gazette — A Penny Post — Lighting of London — Pennsylvania— The Three Creeds : the Anglican, the Catholic, the Nonconformist — Question of an Established Church — The Quakers — States- manship of the Restoration — Laud, Noy, Prynne^Bishop Ken and Nell Gwynne — TiUotson and Howe — Literature of the Restoration. If any one were to take, as an isolated period, the time in English history from the end of the Great War in 1815 to, say, 1830, he would probably be more bewildered than by any fifteen years taken for a like purpose from the pages of Gibbon or the history of the Caliphs. If his eye rested specially on the year 1815, he might find English and Continental statesmen assembled together, with many prayers, and much and very ostentatious patronage of the Almighty— patronage quite as real and quite as shocking as Eobespierre's — to recast the map of Europe— "for all time" as they said; and perhaps in some B 2 4 POPULAR PEOGEESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. cases supposed. He could not fail to find that Englishmen boasting of Magna Charta, Habeas Corpus, Bill of Eights, of a free press, of civil and religious freedom, were in reality living in a state of society in which men dared not express their thoughts openly, on the simplest political matters, unless they spoke in approval of a system of government upon which the people of future and not necessarily distant times wiU look with amazement. He would find that no man who did not, as sceptics often did, profess the faith of the Church established by law could serve his country as a Member of Parliament, a Justice of the Peace, or as member of a Town Council. He would see that the supporter of innovations on liberties which were supposed to have been won ages earlier, and for ever, went by the good name of Conservative, and that persons who con- tended for the old laws, traditions, and loyalty of the English nation, were prosecuted and persecuted, as firebrands, as enemies to social order, and, by one of the strangest caprices of the human wHL, as contemners of the Divine law. He would find also, however, that the spirit of the nation had not been brought into bondage, but had from time to time asserted itself, with a boldness and hardihood, an absolute reck- lessness in a just cause, as when, without much consideration for cause it carried all before it at Agincourt and Blenheim, or with a very clear perception of cause, asserted the prerogative of the nation at Naseby, and secured " the Protestant succession and the liberties of England " at La Hogue. He would find again, that men, Whig and Tory, against whose lives history has no charge, were supposed by their opponents to have been actuated by the most unworthy motives, while others not by any means so highly respected in fact, were treated with the utmost deference, and often with homage more or less sincere. Possibly at this stage, he would give up in despair the study so confined, missing the central fact of English history, that from a mass of contrarieties, of strange and often unaccount- able views, political and religious, from divisions which at the time of their existence seemed little less than suicidal, the freedom and nationality of the nation have grown. As it was of n.] QUESTIONS IN DISPUTE IN 1815. 5 old, so it remains. Historic truth, deaf to every cry of petulance, or impatience, or caprice; deaf too, to the mere partizan, is ready to answer the man who is willing on his part to compare fact with fact, and deduce from records which may at times seem conflictiag, the very truth. In the case of the history of the fifteen years dating from 1815, what is read of the struggle for freedom of the press, involves an inquiry, whether there ever had been a time in England when the press was free. To know what is signified by one political party inscribing on its colours, and using as its distinguishing toast, the words " Church and King," and another party, the phrase " Civil and Eeligious Liberty," it would be necessary to know when and how civil and religious liberty had become endangered, and whence and from what cause had sprung the belief of so many persons, that Church and King so united are the symbol for national pro- sperity and security as against foreign foes. In this wider view in time and meditation, it becomes possible to do justice at once to the memory of Pitt and Fox, of Lord North and Lord Holland, of Mr. Canning and Sir Francis Burdett; of Edmund Burke and Mr. Wilberforce on the one hand, and on/ the other of Dr. Priestley and Thomas Paine. Questions of this nature would then arise — What is the Habeas Corpus Act ? When did it become law ? When was it suspended ? Why was it suspended ? What class of persons were they who caused the suspension? What purpose was the suspension intended to serve, and what consequences did that suspension entail on those against whom it was directed ? What were the Test and Corporation Acts, the Army Test, the Parliamentary Test, the Conventicle Act, the Act of Uniformity, the Five Mile Act, the Catholic Disabilities, against which popular feeling so intense, and in the end so irresistible, was arrayed? What was meant by the cry for Parliamentary Eeform ? To answer these questions — and unless they are answered the condition of England at the end of the Great War is one of the most per- plexing of riddles — it is necessary to go backward, though it be but for a passing glance, to earlier times. The two great events which stand out in boldest relief in 6 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. English history, as dominating and designating all subseq^uent events, are the Eeformation and the Commonwealth. The former was preceded by printing, and brought with it the right of private judgment. With^the latter there was an irresistible military power ; with both the germs and the assurance of future freedom. There are persons who dispute the value, and indeed maintain the evil of private judgment, as there are persons who assert of the Commonwealth that it was a simple usurpation ; but in approval or disapproval there is entire con- currence as to the magnitude and importance of the two events- In Cromwell's time, as the shelves of the British Museum attest, men published pretty nearly what they pleased. The Press was to all intents and purposes free from political interference, though social influences were strong. ]S"aturaIly also there was political risk ; but the degree of hardihood evinced is astounding when we consider the restrictions of later times. There were numerous imitations of the works of the " saints " at a time when the saints were supreme. The Mercurius Pragmaticus (September, 1641'), a paper of burlesque "intelligence from especially West- minster," preceded the legitimate Intelligencer of the saints by nearly three years, and made sad havoc of the Parhament and its allies. It began each number with a rhyme, of which the following may be taken as a fair specimen : — "A Scot and a Jesuit join'd in hand First taught the world to say, That subjects ought to have command And princes to obey. " They both agree to have no King, The Scotchman he cries further — No Bishops ! 'Tis a godly thing States to reform by murder.'' In this way the rhyme goes on, till at last it shows that the next step will be to say there is no God. In 1649 the headincr has the addition, " Tor King Charles II." If any one had said half as much in condemnation or reproval of men in authority in the reign of any of the Georges, he would have felt the heavy and relentless hand of the law. If he had said in the II.] THE COMMONWEALTH AND THE RESTORATION. 7 reign of Charles II. anything at aU resembling in daring what was said in Cromwell's time, he would have been hanged with- out bemefit of clergy. Excellently preserved volumes of these two papers are in Dr. Williams's library in London, and they are but examples of a large class of journals. The Puritans prided themselves more on demolishing an opponent in argument than on sHencing him by authority. ISTeed it be added that the Eestoration was the protest of Crown, of Ecclesiasticism, and of highly-privileged classes against both the Eeformation and the Commonwealth? Not that the Laudians objected to the defiance to Papal authority ; simply that they objected strongly to the defiance to that Ecclesiasticism on which they rested, as on a guiding faith. This at any rate is the character of the Eestoration, and it supplies the key to many of the leading events in the subsequent Iiistory of England for more than a hundred and fifty years. The bishops had been expelled from the House of Lords by the Long Parliament, and many of the clergy, against whom nothing tending to scandal ever had been hinted, were visited with severe and cruel penalties. Socially there was no mercy in the Puritans as a body. With the Eestoration the opportunity of the clergy came, and they were not slow to take advantage of their position. It was made criminal to deny that the king reigned by right divine. It was held to be unlawful on any pretext whatever to take up arms against the king. Eeligion was declared an affair of state, to be settled by rulers, and accepted by peoples ; to express a doubt of this was to incur the heinous guilt both of heresy and treason. The two notable uprisings of our history; the two great breaks in our long line of hoary tradition ; the two tremendous assertions against all churches and courts, and all vested interests, of the right of conscience and private judgment, were in that sense to stand condemned, and if possible to be obliterated from history. Such of the clergy as agreed with this, were welcome to their livings ; such as could defend it had a sure road to preferment and honour, or at lowest, to all the comforts of life. Those who markedly disputed it were treated as renegades. Happily the influence of Milton, 8 POPULAR PROGEESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. of Hooker, of Jeremy Taylor, of John Howe, of Eichard Baxter, of Algernon Sidney, of Thomas Fuller, of Andrew Marvell, among many others, was infinitely more potent than anything that came from the pen of teachers like Thomas Hobbes. Men might be pushed to the background in person, but no edict of king or Parliament could push out of sight the hateful written words to which from generation to genera- tion new lessons were added. Firm in the face of the new order of things stood persons of very different views and character ; the Puritans, within and without the Church ; the Sectaries, so-called ; the EepubHcans ; the Men of Intellect who had imbibed the spirit of Milton's Areopagiiica — our first and grandest defence of " the liberty of unlicensed printing ; " the men who had seen something of other lands ; the philosophers — men, according to Voltaire, never really dangerous, as fanatics are, but according to history other than that of Voltaire, capable of more good and more evil than almost any other class of persons. Much that was noblest in England, much that England will revere longest, was arrayed against the principles of the Eestoration, although there were men whose names will long be honoured who were silent when the choice was between a genial and a harsh creed. Certainly, for one who advocated passive obedience, Hobbes was the most rebellious of philosophers in cases where his own freedom was infringed. His defence of an ecclesiastical system was pre- eminently devoid of religious feeling. Of all the men who talked of the divine right of kings, at a time when the doctrine was the shibboleth to place and power, perhaps he was the one least actuated by mere personal gain. In the present time his views, if newly enunciated, would pass unnoticed as the vagaries of a dreamer, unless, indeed, his great literary ability redeemed, as it has redeemed, from oblivion his strangely retrogressive opinions. At the time of the Eestoration, his writings were what was needed to invest with the halo of philosophy that ignoble political creed which soon became known at court as Hobbesism. Against these doctrines rose in all its majesty the spirit of the Commonwealth, and that 11.] LEGISLATION AGAINST NONCONFORMITY. 9 spirit, after the manner of the Persians with their sacred fire, was carried on to the Eevolution of 1688, through the High- Church reign of Anne, and the corruption of the five reigns that followed hers to our own time. Had this spirit not existed, had it been effectually crushed, men like Chancellor Clarendon and Sir Eobert Walpole, nay, men of the high intellect of Chatham and Fox would not have been powerful enough to preserve England from the fate of Spain. Charles II. began to reign on his thirtieth birthday. May 29th, 1660 ; and curiously enough, on the preceding day, the Electress Sophia of Hanover gave birth to a boy, who, although of small account in England in the year 1660, so small indeed that his existence was probably never once thought of, amid the din of preparations for the coronation, was destined one day to have a coronation all his own; and to call the throne of Alfred, "the throne of my ancestors." If people with special interests to serve had been shut out from the presence of Charles, it is probable that after the first executions he would have been shrewd enough to see, and good-natured enough to act on the perception, that a throne founded on popular approval and freedom, is safer than one founded on despotism. Apart from Presbyterianism, he had no special hatred ; and the Presbyterians had given him cause for hatred. He would in any case have made his court what it was in licentiousness and profanity ; but it is hardly likely that his reign would have been notable for political action which more than a century would be needed to undo. The Divine Eight clergy, however, were eager to put the political position somewhat in this shape : — We declare that there is no warrant in Holy Writ or in human nature for any claim by subjects as a right ; everything is of the free grace of the crown. On no pretence whatever can a subject take up arms against his sovereign; on no plea whatever can he claim to worship God in any other form than as the State — that is the King — shall decree. This we the clergy solemnly declare. Then we claim on the other hand the right to pursue Sectaries, Firebrands, Papists, and Heretics, Quakers and Fifth-Monarchy men. 10 POPULAB, PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. Presbyterians, and Anabaptists, Unitarians and Unbelievers, whitbersoever tbe Divine Spirit may lead. This was the virtual compact. On the eve of this arrangement, it encountered a danger. An attempt to secure uniformity by moral means, before using force, was deemed necessary ; and twelve bishops and twelve Presby- terian divines were assembled in the lodgings of Dr. Sheldon, Bishop of London, at the Savoy, in the Strand, to bring together all disputants in one National Church. It is an undoubted fact that there were many very good men, on both sides, at that time, who meant exactly what the conference was ostensibly intended to secure. There were many others, however, who meant no such thing ; and the discussions, long before the end, were mere wranglings. The twenty-four divines sat from April to July. Meanwhile the Solemn League and Covenant had been burned by the hands of the common hangman ; and this and sundry other actions of the same kind sufficiently indicated the tendency of the court. The Corporation Act became law the same year. It provided that no one should take a seat as member of any corporation unless he had received the sacrament in a stipulated manner according to the rites of the English Church; that he took the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and that he declared it unlawful, on any ground whatever, to take up arms against the sovereign. The Act of Uniformity was passed early in the following year, 1662, and came into effect on the 24th August — curiously, if an accident, but probably by design, on the anniversary of the massacre of St. Bartholomew's day. The fact of enforced uniformity was by no means new ; but the new act was carefully constructed to leave no loopholes for escape. The day when this Act came into force has been called the birthday of modern Nonconformity; and not without reason, for on that day two thousand clergymen, comprising men of eminence, learning, and piety, gave up stipends and houses, and went out, in many cases, into helpless, hopeless poverty. To comprehend the sacrifice, we must follow stiU farther the enactments of this reign. The Parliament that passed these measures received the n.] THE ACT OF UNIFORMITY : THE CONVENTICLE ACT. 1 1 name of the 'Pension Parliament,' because of the iDribes it received from foreign powers. It was elected in the first flush of the Eestoration, and sat from 1661 to 1679. The Scottish Parliament, known as the Drunken Parliament — "a Parliament," Bishop Burnet says, "mostly drunk" — endeavoured to vie with the Parliament of England, as to which should the more speedily obliterate everything that had been done in the period between the death of Charles I. and the accession of his son. The counter feeling in Scotland, however, was too intense to be easily put down. Forty years later, in the reign of Anne, a Scottish Parliament, in which republican Fletcher of Saltoun had a seat and great influence, declared that to tolerate " those of episcopal ways — which God avert ! — would be to establish iniquity by law." Scotland had to unlearn that lesson at the right time, as England had to unlearn many other lessons of the same kind. Ireland, unfortunately, was almost shut out by circumstances from any part in the general action of England and Scotland. The terrible severities of the Commonwealth were repeated, so far as the confiscations of lands were con- cerned, after the Eestoration; the Catholics, who had lost aU. but their lives, were made to feel that what was left to them had become a burden. In 1664 the Conventicle Act was passed. It was the natural sequel to the ejection of the two thousand clergymen. At the root of its provisions was that famous one that no more than five persons, in addition to the family forming a conventicle, should meet together for worship, or without the securities of the oaths already devised. At this time the great plague broke out in London, and wicked people affirmed that many of the fashionable clergy, who had taken the oaths, found aU at once that pressing private business called them away from London; and their places, it was said, were voluntarily filled by the nonjuring clergy. What may be taken as certain is that many of the ejected clergy in the tribulation of that mournful year found pressing business wherever the mortality was thickest, and did manful duty there. There had been previous plagues, of the horrors of which no true records had been kept. In one such case, in the reign of 12 POPULAR PEOaEESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. Elizabeth, in a very brief period, 18,000 persons had died; a few- years later 28,000 ; a few years later still 30,000 ; and then after a number of years, but all within human memory, 35,000. In this latest of the great plagues of London, however, the number of deaths vastly exceeded anything known at any previous time; and the facts remain pictured for us in all their horror. The fatal carts rumbled on the streets ; the fearful cry, " Bring out your dead ! " rose above the groans of the dying and the lamen- tations of those who dared to remain with them to the last, and fight for them as long as possible, that they should not be trundled alive into the plague pits. Persons of fashion fled from the pestilence. The grim representatives of the banished faiths drew near to their " people,^' and prayed, and helped in sundry ways, not lost to history, to save life, and comfort and support the dying. Next year the Five -Mile Act was passed, and was enforced with rigour. The beauty of this Act was in its capacity to fill up several important gaps in the acts which had gone before. No Non- conforming minister must now, unless travelling, approach within five miles of any city or corporate town or any place where he had formerly done duty as a minister. Consider the effect of these acts on a man, for instance, like Baxter. First, he was not to preach without taking oaths which would destroy his Nonconformity. Next, he was not to preach where more than five persons in addition to the household'were present. Now he was not to approach nearer to his friends than five miles. Greater stringency could not have been required if the Non- conformists had been banditti, ready to imbrue their hands in blood. To such of them as could apply themselves to manual labour, or emigrate to the cities of refuge over the Atlantic, — cities which would have a mighty influence some day on the destines of England — there was a chance of escape. The old and weak went to the wall ; in most cases they found that the best city of refuge for them would be the grave. It may be granted that the law was not more severe than in Tudor times, if it was anything like as severe, save in exceptional instances. The picture Dr. Lingard gives of the reign of Elizabeth, and II.] THE FIVE MILE ACT AND THE TEST ACT. 13 especially of the operations of her Conformity and Treason Acts ; prisons crowded with popish recusants — as many as 400 and 600 presented at a single sessions — ears bored with hot irons, disgraceful and cruel whippings, scaffolds reeking with noble and generous blood, domiciliary visits, resulting in men and women being harried from bed to prison, are features of that fierce Tudor time. If such facts as the bloody circuit are set aside, the Stuarts were less high-handed than the strong-willed Tudor queen. But the people were now different from those of Eliza- beth's reign. 'Eeading was becoming common ; the nation had tasted liberty ; peaceful pursuits were increasing ; a return to Tudor times was as impossible as a return to the nomad state. In 1673 the Test Act was passed. It provided that all persons holding public office of any kind should take the oaths, accord- ing to the rites of the Established Church, and should specially abjure the doctrine of transubstantiation. This enactment, an ex- ceedingly unpleasant one to King Charles, was directed specially against the Eoman CathoKcs ; and the Duke of York, the King's brother, and heir-apparent to the throne, was a Eoman Catholic. It was now found that intolerance is a double-edged weapon which cuts both ways. Worse than this, however, remained. In fact Parliament was beginning at this time to reflect a wide- spread fear that the next reign would be signalised by a return to the Communion of the Church of Eome, and an acknowledg- ment of the Papal Supremacy. Possibly no preaching either of Episcopal or Nonconforming divines could have effected so great an end as to convince the people that a return to the old communion would be inimical to the interests of England. The English, unlike the Scotch, were repelled by the long sermons of the divines of Cromwell's time, and never again, at least tiU Wesley, were very easily influenced, nationally, by fervid preaching. Hence perhaps we may partly account for the general leaning to the Established Church, which never made preaching the primary consideration in its communion, and which eschewed fervour, and at times earnestness, on principle. It must be granted that in the time of the Commonwealth preachers had great influence; but many of them were imported 14 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. preachers — imported, that is, from north of the Tweed; and imported or otherwise, Presbyterian or Independent, their influence was ephemeral when once the imminent danger had passed. There were two facts, however, which accomplished what no preaching could have materially influenced. There was the reign of Mary, still vivid ia people's minds. There was also the massacre of St. Bartholomew. There had been in other times great cruelties, that had been disowned by the persons who perpetrated them, or by persons who employed or incited the perpetrators. In these two cases the Church of Eome had accepted and approved the holocausts ; and the people of England knew it, and dreaded the accession of the Duke of York to the throne. Five years, more or less, after the passing of the Test Act, which had proved sufficient to drive the Duke of York from his commands, the Paeliamentaey Test became law. Here it was provided that no one should sit in either House of Parliament who did not, in addition to taking the oaths, abjure the doc- trine of transubstantiation and the worship of the Virgin Mary. When the Bill went to the Lords the Duke of York pleaded, and even wept, it is said, as he besought the House to leave him his creed in private as " between him and his God ; " and the privilege was at last accorded, but only by a majority of two votes. It was the year of the murderous perjuries of Titus Gates, fully believed in by the nation at large, and the miserable proceedings that followed the so-called revelations included this Parliamentary Test. The temper both of Parliament and of the nation had unmistakably changed. Fourteen years earlier an Act of the Long Parliament, which had made it imperative on the King to call a Parliament once in three years, was swept away. There was to be no check on the royal prerogative, no distrust of so wise, so just, so pure, so religious a King. ISTow here was an Act directed against the King's brother, on the ground that a check was necessary, and that distrust and apprehension were the prevailing sentiment. The prosecutions emanating from Gates and Bedloe, and men of that kind, had brought about a veritable reign of terror. The King at last ii.J PARLIAMENTARY TEST: HABEAS CORPUS ACT. 15 took the necessary courage, and dissolved his Pension Parlia- ment after an existence of eighteen years. The last notable act of the Parliament was this baneful Test. Prom that time for a hundred and fifty years, no Catholic sat ia either House of Parliament. The New Parliament met in March, 1679, and was found to be so decidedly Protestant that the Duke of York withdrew to the Continent, having first obtained from Charles a declaration that he never had been married to Lucy Walters, the mother of Monmouth, ^nd hence that the succession was undisputed. In May, the same year, the Act of Habeas Coepus was passed, at the instance of Lord Shaftesbury, whose name it long bore. The principle of the Habeas Corpus Act was really embodied in the Great Charter and elsewhere, and was of the nature of those things which Englishmen delight in terming of imme- morial antiquity. Here, however, it became a defined law — became in fact what it has been termed, the Second Great Charter of England. It provided that no judge should, under severe penalties, refuse to a prisoner a writ of Habeas Corpus, directing that the body of the prisoner should be produced in court, with a clear certification of the cause of imprisonment ; that the prisoner should be indicted the first term of his commit- ment, and should be tried on the second, and that no person once set free should be recommitted on the same charge. Neither the Court nor Parliament appears to have had a correct conception of the real nature of the BUI that was becoming law. Lord Shaftesbury, to whom the Act was in so great a measure owing, had, and still has, a name so curious, that it may be said to stand almost alone in English history, as representing versatility, unearnestness, intrigue, a sharp wit, a clear perception, and an utter absence of principle. Like some men, however, to whose names we shall come. Lord Shaftesbury had no lildng for arbitrary power, and this led to his great service to the nation in the Habeas Corpus Act. If we look through the history of England at this time, we shall find a number of men of somewhat the same character, though we shall certainly not find one that would answer to the same description. Men of 16 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. great vices, and really ignoble character in the main, had the one virtue of hating arbitrary power, A few days after the passing of the Habeas Corpus Act the Commons carried a Bill to exclude the Duke of York from the throne. This — the Exclusion Bill — was what the King most of all dreaded, and he immediately dissolved his third Parliament. It can hardly be said that Charles, in view of the professions made to him on his accession to the throne, had not been somewhat long-suffering with respect to the relations of Parliament to his brother. This, however, was to have an end. The Parliament now dissolved had only sat from March till May. Alarming news had arrived from Scotland. The cruelties of Claverhouse had led to fierce reprisals. The Archbishop of St. Andrews had been dragged from his carriage and murdered. A little later there came news that Claverhouse himself had been defeated at Drumclog. The Duke of Monmouth was sent with an army ; and two successes followed. First, he defeated the insurgents at Bothwell Bridge; secondly, he followed up his victory with healing clemency. The latter, however, did not commend itself to the court. Monmouth was replaced in his command by the Duke of York, who went to Scotland as Lord High Commissioner, and committed atrocities which make the blood curdle to this day. It is not difficult to see that Monmouth, with all his weakness, of which there can be no doubt, must have had some qualities of the better kind, to endear him, as he certainly was endeared, to the people. King Charles had not as yet seen his way clearly to dispense altogether with Parliament. Some very disagreeable facts were transpiring in England. The party headed by Lord Shaftesbury, had gone the length of presenting the Duke of York, on his arrival in England, before the Grand Jury of "Westminster as a Popish recusant, and so critical did the presentment seem that the Chief Justice (Seroggs), discharged the jury. Parliament met on the 21st October, 1680, and by the 11th ISTovember, the same year, had passed another Exclusion BiU, which, as before, was met by dissolution of the House. A new Parliament — the last Charles ever called — met n.] THE KYB HOUSE PLOT. 17 at Oxford on the 21st Marcli, 1681. It was thought that under the shelter of the quiet cloisters of Oxford the members would be free from all bad influences^ such as those that prevailed in London. It was soon apparent that this was a mistake. The cries of " No Popery " were louder at Oxford than they had been at Westminster. An Exclusion BiD was immediately proposed. Then Charles dissolved his last Parliament, which had only existed seven days. He had secured, by treaty with his magnificent brother of France, a fresh pension. To this state, in Jess than twenty-six years, the England of the Commonwealth had come. Some other devices for procuring money had also been found, and the King was no longer dependent on the Commons for supplies. So he published a declaration of reasons for the dissolution, made many good pro- mises as to calling another Parliament — promises intended to be broken ; and from that time he had peace, in his own way. The two most infamous judges in our history, Scroggs and Jeffreys, were empowered to crush out every indication of popular disaffection ; and they did their best to that end. The charter of London, on a poor pretence, was taken away, and a large fine extorted for its restitution. The Protestants found also that others besides Titus Oates and Bedloe could discover plots, real and fictitious, and bring people to the scaffold. The Eye House plot was real enough; its object also undoubtedly was to exclude the Duke of York, and place Monmouth on the throne. A portion of the conspirators, however, went farther, and it is about as clear as anything can be, that their object was to stop the King and the Duke of York near to the Eye House, in Essex, on their return from Newmarket, and muider them. History has always been greatly concerned with this Eye House Plot. In the conspiracy to prevent James from ascend- ing the throne several persons whose names are bright in history were involved. That men like Lord WiUiam Eussell and Algernon Sydney were conspirators to murder has gener- ally been discarded as to the last degree improbable. That they were involved in the larger conspiracy, there can be no doubt. Lord Essex cut his throat in the Tower. Lord William V . c 18 POPULAR PEOGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. Russell was executed on the 21st July, and Algernon Sydney on the 29th December. Monmouth escaped to the Continent. No one could blame the King for these executions. The plot, however, was made use of for acts which very soon outstripped even those brought about by Gates. No better lesson in toleration and forbearance could have been given. It was not, in this case, a change of reign that brought about a change of policy, but merely a change from Parliamentary to personal government. "Under the former. Catholics were sent to the block.; under tlie latter, Protestants. Each party argued that the other was treasonable. The Catholics asserted that their opponents were setting aside the legitimate succession ; the Protestants held that the Catholics were maintaining that succession by the destruction of the law. Narrowed to the one issue, the Protestants were certainly right, if tested by constitutional principles, now undisputed ; while the Catholics were as certainly right if tested by the principles of govern- ment acknowledged at the time and maintained with such effrontery by the Divine Pdght clergy. The whole future of England, however, rested on the Catholics being beaten; and it is for this, and not on any mere technicality, that Russell and Sydney have been by many persons termed martyrs, and by many more patriots. On the 6th February, 1685, Charles died, "under circum- stances," the nobleman who wrote " Letters to his Son," among others, says, "which led to the suspicion of poison." The general opinion of history has altogether discarded the suspicion as untenable, although the grounds for it were more numerous than those upon which, at a later period, the reality of the birth of a son to James II. was disputed. A little before the. end, Charles, who had made all right with Eather Huddleston and the Roman Catholic Church, recommended to some people around him to " take oare of poor Nell," — Nell Gwynne ; and not to let " poor Nelly starve." It is notable that he had no word for the clergy whose theories had been so fashionable, and so much in request, at the beginning of his reign. The " noble- man " to whom reference has been made above says : " A great II.] DEATH OF CHARLES II.: WHIG AND TORY. 19 divine and popular historian regarded this (the reference to ' poor Nell ') as a blemish on the character of Charles ; but the philosopher judges differently: he is glad to find that so profligate a prince was capable of any sincere attachment, and considers even this sympathy with the objects of sensuality, when the illusions of sense could no longer deceive, as an honour to his memory." This very beautiful reflection is well worthy of a philosopher. The idea of anything being regarded by an eminent divine as a blemish on the character of Charles, and by a philosopher aiad man of the world as honourable to the royal memory, will remain among the curiosities of literature. In this reign the two great political parties — not for some time yet, however, presented to us in any definite form — began to be called Whig and Tory. The former term was at first applied, as one of opprobrium, to a part of the Scotch Covenanters — a stigma on their presumed wild poverty and wilder fanaticism. The "gentlemen" who came into power with the Eestoration thought the term an excellent one to apply as a niclcname to those Englishmen who were held, justly or unjustly, to have a leaning to the principles of the Commonwealth. In Ireland, at the same time, there chanced to be a body of men not very respectable to polished society, and they had the name of Tory, a term expressive of their tendency at once to Popery and to the plunder of English settlers, many of whom were Cromwell's men. The Whigs, therefore, found that they could effectually reciprocate the compliment of their opponents by applying to them the term Tory. In this way the now famous party lines were drawn. The reign of Charles is notable in the history of the army. The Coldstream Foot-Guards, formed from a regiment enlisted ten years earlier at Coldstream, and trans- ferred by Monk to the King in 1660 ; the Life Guards ; the Blues; the Eoyal Scots; the 2nd, or Queen's; the 3rd, or Old Buffs; the Scots Fusiliers; and the King's Own, were embodied,— the beginning really of our standing army. The London Gazette was begun at Oxford in 1665. A penny post for London had been started four years earlier. A general post- office also was established. London began to be lighted with oil c 2 20 POPULAR PEOGEESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. lamps in 1681. A year later William Pena received the grant of land whieli became Pennsylvania. These may be taken as items, showing that what are now stable institutions and facts in life were to some extent assuming the forms with which we are acquainted. Prom the time of the Restoration the ancient trust of the kings of England, that in times of emergency their lieges would supply men and money for the national defence, had vanished. It is worth noting also that the reign which gave birth to the terms Whig and Tory, and to the term Cabal — vindicating cliqueism within both parties and beyond "both — also may be said to have given birth to the still more significant term, Mob. The Divine Right of Kings ; the con- tention of the two great Political Parties under modern names, but with very -indistinct principles ; the establishment of plot and counterplot in Cabal ; the decided material progress ; and then, the Populace which had become Mob. It is also worthy of note, however, that the Parliament which framed so many bad laws, and a few good ones, hardly, in the latter case, know- ing what it did, carried out the immense reform involved in the Abolition of Feudal Tenures and Purveyance. Henceforth the King had his revenue, and the people held their lands free from the claim of military servitude. In this fact — to which the nation had long been drifting — the standing army itself represents a whole chapter of social and political progress. Three great religious facts confront us at the end of this reign : the Roman Catholic hoping almost against hope for supremacy ; the Anglican Churchman having secured supremacy after a few years of dismal eclipse ; the Nonconformist, under many different names, demanding freedom. The last of the three in his day of power had not been noted either for tolerance as to opinion, or for mercifulness as to sin. Indeed, it is not too much to say that if the entire body of Nonconformists could have been welded into one they would have been less endurable in social life than either the Catholic or Anglican Church. The safeguard had been that they never could be welded together. Their strength, as well as their weakness, had lain in the diversity of their views. In order to secure union they were compelled ii.J CATHOLIC, ANGLICAN, AND NONCONFORMIST. 21 to discard uniformity. A genial Nonconformist would have perfectly understood the couplet of the weU-known hymn : — " And Satan trembles when he sees The weakest saint upon his knees." A genial Churchman would have been quite as likely to go farther, and render the couplet : — " And Satan trembles when he sees The vilest sinner on his knees." The clergyman, having taken so large a number of oaths, naturally inclined to swear in company ; but if the person pro- fessing to swear was willing to obey the form, there is no evidence to prove that the spirit of the oath was too rigidly exacted. The intercourse and amenities of social life remained as they could not have remained if the Divine Eight principles had been pushed to extremity. For instance, it was possible for two such men as Dr. Tillotson and John Howe to be warm and confiding friends; and many similar instances might be given to show that in the private relations of life there were some very estimable men among the clergy entrusted with the sharpest weapons of intolerance, as instances might also be given of many similar men, and also of some very intolerant men, among the Nonconformists. The established clergy, forming, as Mr. Matthew Arnold tells us, a national institution for the promotion of goodness, were ready to forgive everything but rebellion, which, to them, was as the sia of witchcraft. " Lord, send us peace in our time," was the prayer of many good men. "Lord, send us power in our time," was the prayer of some very bad men. " Lord, make us tolerant, as Thou art tolerant, of all honest and sincere views," was a prayer that had yet to be learned slowly and painfully, and through several generations. The Nonconformist had the grandest of all political creeds, and frequently had to make the most magnificent of all stands for freedom. But there is no evidence that he had the magnetic power which was necessary to absorb the genial elements of the social life of England. He could not wink at morrice-dancing on Sundays, could not enter a theatre, could not brook the 22 POPULAK PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. tavern, which even then stood conveniently near to the church doors. He was believed to account himself better than other men, as, however, he very frequently did not. A woman taken in adultery, in the very act, would hardly ever, so much is there in character, have sought mercy from a Puritan, though if she had, she would probably have found his brotherliness equal to her need. The Catholic was in the worst plight of all, and in that plight we shall find him many stages farther in these historical inquiries. Once he had ceased to be a member of the dominant English Church he became a member of a dominated foreign Church. Driven from the great educational institutions at home, he was compelled to send his children to seek their education abroad. Careers for his sons had to be similarly sought in foreign lands. Social position in England he came in time to have none. Tolerant he never professed to be, profess it who might. In times long subsequent to these, when he could not, from the nature of things, become a Conservative, still less could he call himself a Eadical, and least of aU was he a Catholic, save in the sense of a claim to universal domination ; and the term has only been conceded to him by Protestants as one of courtesy. In politics when the Churchman was a Conservative by birth, and the Dissenter a Eadical by birth, the Catholic remained a hybrid. We may, at the end of this reign, see many features of the social life of England assuming long-continued forms. In statesmanship the Eestoration might have been rich if the best men had not been pushed into the background. The King liked clever men, humorous men, and he had a quick eye for the qualities he liked ; but he had no esteem other than of a transient nature for sincere men of that highest intellectual calibre which cannot simulate. Sir William Temple was shrewd and able vsdth- out being intrusive. Lord Shaftesbury was what has been stated above, and was marked dangerous. Lord Halifax would have been all that the King desired, but unfortunately he was too proud not to chafe at times under slavish dogma, and too brilliant to affect admiration for the bigotry of James. There were few men among the statesmen of the time who could II.] LAUD AND PEYNNE. 23 safely be pointed to as embodying anything at all resembling an ideal of statesmanship. It may be said, and truly, that a statesman should not be taken at the estimate of his enemies, but on the strength of this we have had Laud raised to the position of a martyr, and Sir William Noy pronounced an enlightened lawyer. Happily it is generally possible to test the calumny and eulogy by facts. In the case of Laud one fact overweighs all argument. The Puritan lawyer, Prynne, wrote a book condemning women who acted on the stage, and using some strong epithets against the practice. About the same time the Queen chanced to appear in private theatricals. It was placed beyond dispute that Prynne's book was printed prior to the Queen's acting. It chanced also, however, that Prynne had written against the Church of England, and Bishop Laud, who could not quite iind a plea against the enemy of the Church, induced Noy to prosecute the presumed satirist of the Queen. The culprit was sentenced to stand twice in the pillory on two consecutive days, and to have an ear cut off on each ; to be heavily fined, and to be expelled both from his University and from Lincoln's Inn. A subsequent attack on Laud and the Church led to another severe punishment. There are some portions of Laud's career not discreditable ; but his bloodthirsty and relentless character offers no example to Englishmen, and never will be referred to in history without horror. In due time the Archbishop, then an aged man, had to face judges as inexorable as he had himself been, and foremost among his prosecutors was Prynne, who might have been supposed the most interested of advocates. Prynne, however, was an altogether unaccountable man — opposed to the court of Charles I., opposed to CromweU, persecuted by men of aU parties, agreeing thoroughly with no one, and so strangely constituted, that, apart from the unpleasant feeling which his name might call up in the mind of one who had injured him so deeply, Laud was none the worse, if he was not a little the better, for falling into his old enemy's hands. There is another fact recorded of a very different man. When Charles II. visited Winchester, the Prebend's house was 24 POPULAR PROGEBSS IN ENGLAND. [chap. assigned to Mistress Felly Gwynne. Tte Prebend sternly declined to have his house so appropriated, and Mistress Nelly had to go elsewhere. James II. would have contrived to punish this as an offence ; Charles made the delinquent Bishop (Ken) of Bath and Wells. There were depths in Bishop Ken's character for which Charles had no plummet. He was the author of that Evening Hymn which, day after day, since that time, has ascended from the ancient parish churches and the homesteads — from the aged and the young — of England in thanksgiving to God for the mercies and blessings of each passing day. What Charles did understand was that the clergy- man was right with respect to the Prebend's house, and perhaps he would have understood something more, if other clergymen had been equally faithful. It may be well here to note as another fact of great historic importance the individual character of the men who, at this time, represented conflicting principles. Every Church has its history of persecution, and each individual history reads as if it stood alone of its kind. It were hardly too much to say that the principles represented by an extreme portion of the clergy of the English Church at and after the Eestoration were among the worst political principles ever known. It would be difiBcult indeed to conceive anything more despotic. If the laws had been carried into effect England had become a pandemonium. That they were not carried out may be taken as certain. There was undoubtedly much mercifulness in the great body of the Anglican clergy. The Compromise embodied in the Prayer Book, although often adduced as a defect, was really a merit of the Establishment ; there was an attempt on the part of many to unite men of all creeds in a State Church. With that view there was a balance of formula, and indeed an inexact- ness, which have ever since been a dire offence to many persons ; but which were really a necessity, if the nation was to possess an Established Church at all. Of the personal relations of the better part of the divines, one fact is pleasantly suggestive. Frightened at the substantial danger — not bugbear — of papal pretension, Dr. Tillotson, on one memorable occasion, preaching before II.] THE COMPROMISE OF THE CLERGY. 25 King Charles, not only said that the King had the sole right to choose the religion of his people, and that the duty of the latter was at least silence, but also that God was as " necessary to the welfare and happiness of mankind as if the being of God him- self had been purposely designed and contrived for the benefit of men." Both these doctrines were at once assailed by men of Dr. Tillotson's own Church: by Dr. Patrick, for instance, after- wards Bishop of Ely, and others. But it was reserved for non- conforming John Howe to succeed in bringing the future archbishop to Jiis knees in unfeigned penitence. When the hereditary champion of Nonconformity heard of the sad falling away of his friend, he, according to Dr. Calamy, wrote a letter which went, through surplice .and everything, direct to the heart of Dr. Tillotson. Mr. Lowth, afterwards a high dignitary of the Church, had written severely from another point of view, on the same subject ; and the great divine had turned away in silence. He could not be silent, however, when John Howe appeared, bringing with him the sharp letter he had written. Mr. Howe talked "till the dean fell to weeping freely, and said that it was the most unhappy thing that had a long time befallen him ; and that he saw what he had offered was not to be maintained." It was most honourable to both the un- swerving Puritan and the future representative of the compromise of the Anglican Church. This, however, is not the reason why the circumstance is referred to here. The object is rather to show that the bad laws were not inexorably carried out ; that sincere friendships did still exist between men of conflicting creeds in spite of the Act of Uniformity and acts for the repression of schism. It shows, moreover, that men like John Howe still had an important influence on public affairs. Was, then, an Established Church necessary at all ? and if so, was the Anglican Church the best that could have been established ? The following reasons are offered as suggestions that an Established Church was necessary. First, the nation as a whole was not sufficiently advanced in the knowledge of Christianity to afford to dispense with an open recognition of that faith as the faith of England. Some rule must be laid 26 POPULAR PKOGKESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. down, with the concurrence of learned men, and men in power, for the guidance of the masses of the people who could not possibly fathom for themselves the mysteries involved in a faith which challenged inquiry, and yet was beyond reason, and who needed to be instructed even in the simplicities of the faith. Children would be born, young persons would seek each other in marriage, many would need the solace of religion in their last hours, and many too would find, or fail to find, solace in affliction in the sacred words, which, in some form and fashion, would have to be spoken over the grave whether there was an Established Church or not. It is difficult to see how this national responsibility could have been evaded at that time. Secondly, a network of instruction was needed, and no power other than that of the State could undertake to weave that network on any given principle. It would have been the wildest folly at such a period to leave each town to form a standard of its own — to have, say, Chichester Unitarian ; Portsmouth Catholic ; and Canterbury of the Anglican Church. Yet that principle might, and to some extent certainly would, have been the result of the nation refusing to commit itself to an Established Church. Thirdly, if it was, and we can hardly doubt that it was, necessary to have an educated man and his family set down to every certain area, or population, it is very difficult, to the present writer at all events, to see what better machinery than an Establishment could have been provided for the purpose. An educated squire might have become a despot from seeing that he was so far in advance of his neighbours. An educated clergyman could only become so in defiance of his principles; and that those principles were often strong enough to render defiance of them impossible, our whole social history attests. It is, therefore, accepted here as a simple axiom that an Establishment was a necessity at that time. The founders of the colonies of America went out educated to disown the National Church as it existed in England, and to dispense with it on their own part, and in form they succeeded, while they failed essentially in fact, and failed on the very grounds upon wliich their resistance had been made in England, II. j PUKITAN ESTABLISHMENT IN AMERICA. 27 It is quite certain that the Puritan colonists while proclaim- ing an intense dislike to the principle and form of an Established National Church, adopted and enforced the much more oppres- sive and exacting principle of established local churches, among •which heretics and schismatics had a bad time. The Church of the village or town was the centre of the social life of the place. If Milton was right that Presbyter is only old Priest Writ- large — and he was rarely wrong where questions of freedom were involved — his assertion might have been carried farther, and perhaps might have had an application to religious bodies with which he was more closely connected. The men who fled from England and founded new homes for "freedom of worship,'' were by no means disposed to grant to others the freedom they had gained for themselves. Eoger Williams was compelled to withdraw to the desert to escape a dominant Church. In fact the Pilgrim Fathers did not disown, any more than . the Covenanters disowned, the principle of .an Establishment ; but simply an Establishment that was episcopalian. If the Independent or Baptist minister could not be strictly termed old Priest Writ-large, he had in many cases, at least, all the love for priestly power, and especially for that social influence which is supposed to have been a characteristic of priests in all ages. These remarks are not offered as an argument for an Established Church under all future conditions of English life ; but as suggestions that at the time with which we are now dealing, it was impossible in free America to escape the fact of Establishment, even though the name was avoided, and though the men who founded the new homes were in many cases of the best blood of England. The social fact still existed ; nay, the lines were drawn far more tightly in America than in England. This assisted to save the Church of England. To be let alone was always one of the most cherished of the assumed rights of Englishmen. The Puritans made the cardinal error of letting nothing alone in daily Ufe. The Divine Eight clergy in the main preached merely of moral duties, not of doctrinal subtleties. They stood in bland good nature on the "legality" doctrine which men ]ikp "Rnnvan abhorred 23 POPULAR PEOGEESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. as little less dangerous than schism. In many cases they knew little of any faith that demanded truth in the inward parts. They acted, in short, as men who knew that they belonged to a Political Church— a "National Institution" for decorum. They were great at the maypole and the harvest home ; they avoided spoiling people's dinners by too long sermons ; and with respect to httle faults or misdemeanours they were ready to act in the spirit of the Welsh jury (real or mythical), who found a man " not guilty," and exhorted him " never to do so any more." Wherein, it was argued then and long after, was the good of opposing men who so well understood the principle of " live and let live ? " Politically incorrect, the clergy were socially in accord with the amenities of English life. The fruit of this was seen to their advantage under circumstances of apparent untowardness to them, and to the principles they represented. It must also be stated that in referring to the Church of England as a political institution of the Eestoration, and in that sense as a re-creation of the reign of Charles II., there is no intention here either of conceding or disputing the Eoman Catholic position, that the Church of England began with Henry VIII. The question has frequently been put by clergy- men in a form which involves a gross fallacy, and at times an absurdity. All the same though it is true that from the time of Ethelbert — from the time when Augustine came to England at the close of the sixth century of the Christian era — there has been a visible Church of England. Our great National Cathe- dral, St. Paul's, was begun ; and the Archbishopric of Canter- bury, and several bishoprics established before the seventh cen- tury was five years old ; Westminster Abbey was begun a few years later. Whether the Church so founded should be Eoman or English, was a question of centuries. Dogma changed with changing times. The relation to the civil power also changed. In the early Saxon period bishops were elected by the clergy ; in later times they were selected by the Crown ; at one period by the Pope ; at another, the scenes shifted, but the Church remained the Church of England. Now, the King successfully ii.J THE BATTLE OF THE CREEDS. 29 withstood the Pope ; now, the Pope was too strong for the King. In the reign of Henry VIII., the position taken was that the Church should be National — an ugly thing in some respects, in its political aspects, but at least anti-Papal, and hence separated from aU the traditions of Eome. In dealing, therefore, with the Church of the Eestoration, reference is not made to its parochial system, in many particulars old, or to its doctrine, or its order of ministers or priests, or to the liturgy — the product of a gradual evolution of the thought of many minds ; but to that organization Tfhich, identifying itself with the Ecclesiasticism — the Divine Eight of Charles, as it had identified itself with the Divine Eight of Henry and of Elizabeth — was made the tool of a base kingcraft. The Church as a faith was deeper than all this ; but this was the fact which stood out most palpably in the times with which we are dealing. It is to this fact that the national instinct was opposed. Politically, it may be repeated, Baxter and Howe would, in one sense, have founded a grander Church. But, it is also true, that when Baxter tried to frame a Liturgy he failed where the men of compromise — the men possibly who lacked in intensity of zeal — succeeded. He would have made a ritual as grim and verbose as a Presbyterian service, and the at least healthy and genial features of the Liturgy had been lost. Again, all other views of the Church of England at the Eestoration would be very partial and imperfect if we missed the one fact that there was in it a vein of deep seriousness with respect to the designs of Eome ; a seriousness without which the plots of Gates had been fruitless ; and which in emergencies awoke a response not to be misunderstood from Nonconformists. One Friendly Gall, or a Seasonable Perswasive to Unity, Directed to all Nonconformists and Dissenters (1679), with one or two passages of which the reader may be interested, is a model of Anglican Churchmanship in both its narrowness and com- prehension. The writer asks, why, in view of the aims and pretensions of Eome, " should not every man put to his help- ing hand to build up the walls of unity ? Are we not brethren ? Have we not one Father God ? One Head Jesus Christ ? Is he 30 POPULAR PEOGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. not our Common Shepherd 1 Have we not one Faith, Salvation by Christ ? Do not we believe him come in the flesh ? Do not we confess his name ? Are we not all Christians ? And indeed are we not also of one Mother the Church ? "Why then this separation ? This division ? This drawing several ways ? Why cannot or why do not you unite as you ought to do ? If there be any obstacles and stumbling blocks of offence that lie in the way, set to your hands and endeavour to remove them." In order that this may be carried out — " You [Dissenters] must then lay aside that bitterness of Spirit, which some of you call Zeal, wherewith you upbraid those of the contrary Party, and to the multitude cunningly insinuate an Opinion of Holiness and Integrity of your Selves, and of loosness and neglect of your Adversaries : always on the least occasions lashing them with sharp and severe reproofs, ripping up the faults of Bishops and the Clergy of the Prelatical Party. You must leave these common Assersions which abound among many, throwing all Faults and Errors on the Ecclesiastical Government ; and to it impute all Faults, all Corruptions, endeavoring thereby to win to your selves the Opinion of Wisdom and DisttDgnishment, calling your selves the Godly, the Brethren, the Good People, God's Children, the Sanctified ; and others, the Ungodly, Reprobates, Worldlings, Time-servers, Men-pleasers, Moralists, and Latitudinanans, Arminians, and the like. You must also lay aside that eager endeavor of making Proselytes, especially of the weaker Vessels who are apt to be easily led and perswaded by godly and Religious pretences, though thereby they do great damage to their Husbands and Families, making the separation within their private Walls as wide as that which you have caused in the Nation. You must also cease to cry out and exclaim against Magistrates and Rulers, Kings and Governors, as Severe, Cruel and Tyrannical, upon the least restraint of your Liberties ; as if you were thereby become Martyrs for the Cause of Christ, and branding those, that perhaps not without occasion given thereto, put some moderate restraint upon you, with the Titles of Blood- suckers, and Blood-thirsty Men, Persecutors and Tormentors ; drawing all the Scriptures that any way favour the Innocency of such as have Suffered for the Truth by wicked Tyrants, to your own selves, and apply them still to your Case as if you were the Persons pointed out by the Finger of the Holy Ghost, and for whom they were chiefly intended. Also you must not speak contemptibly of Bishops as you too frequently do, giving them scurrilous Names, as Limbs of Antichrist, Locusts of the bottomless pit, domineering Lords, Usurpers, Spiritual Tyrants, Lordly Bishops, &c., and calling the Ministers of the Gospel in contempt Priests, nay Baal's Priests, Time- servers, Hirelings, State Divines, dumb Dogs, vain Bablers, with such like Ti.] WHAT THE CHURCH MIGHT HAVE BEEN. 31 Language ; those whom the Scriptures Dignifle and Honour with the Titles of Christs Embassadors, Gods Stewards, Pastors of Christs flock. Stars, Angels, Gods, receive too often from you contrary Denominations ; being scandalized at the Title of Lord given to Bishops, which is an Honorary Name annexed to their Temporalities by the Kings of England, you call them in Disdain, Lordlings, Proud, Imperious, Arrogant, and the like." These passages may sliow both that there was a vein of intense earnestness in the Established Church, and also that even in the opinion of some of its best men, the concessions necessary for the proposed Union were all to be made by Dissenters ; a very great stride indeed from the position of the Savoy Conference, which- rested on mutual concession. Grant- ing, however — as of course a great many people never will grant — that an Established Church was a necessity of the time, was the Anglican Church the best for the purpose ? For the purpose, at that time, we may safely conclude yes. The great danger of the nation was from the Eoman Catholic Church. If there was to be tyranny at all, the Anglican Clergy were prepared to centre it in the King at London, not in the Pope at Eome. So far there was clear gain. The future was within the nation's reach. The battles of freedom could be fought out on the banks of the Thames, without any reference to the palaces and the potentate on the Tiber. Then the Eoman Catholic and the Puritan alike stood on exact dogma which admitted of no surrender. The Church of England as a political institution came into existence, in spite of all the penal laws against opinion, on the principle of cutting away a little here and a little there, so that this man or that might be compre- hended in the ecclesiastical fold. Whatever, therefore, may be said of the intellectual character of the Ecclesiastical creation of the Eestoration the Anglican Church alone per- haps was possible as an Established Church ; and watched and checked by other churches, it answered all the purposes of the time. It provided, on a uniform plan, for receiving children into the Christian communion, for marriages and for the solemnities of the services after death, for weekly religious services, for a myriad centres of social life, and a myriad 32 POPULAR PROGKBSS IN ENGLAND. [chap. civilizing influences. Wherein it succeeded, and where it failed we shall consider hereafter. Among the religious sects which rose into note during the Commonwealth, the singular community of the Quakers never can be overlooked by any Englishman who wishes to form a right conception of the influence on public affairs of private life and character dominated by religious faith and zeal. No religious body can show a brighter, sadder history of heroism ; of unflinching obstinacy and courage in what men deemed essentials of Christian life and political honour, and of marked inoffensiveness in what they deemed innocent or non-essential. Their difficulties began with the first of the bad enactments of the Eestoration, and continued down to a very recent period in our own time. Their founder was poor and illiterate, and, according to his enemies, was little if at aU better than a mad- man. The sect he founded differed from other professedly Christian bodies in the novelty of its views, and was by nearly all termed infidel. Moreover, when in a time of extreme fashion, the "Friends" wore with a rigorous adherence to rule their one adopted garb, they were marked out as distinctly as soldiers in uniform, and were a butt for aU ridicule. They discarded baptism, disowned a paid priesthood or preacherhood ; were offensive in fact to "hireling" priests and preachers everywhere, and they made the word hireling to ring in men's ears. Eeasonable — if severe — criticism on the language of the Athanasian Creed led to the charge that they denied the doctrine of the Trinity. Their silent worship was accepted as indicating a disbelief in the efficacy of prayer. In fact there was hardly any heterodox idea, or any immorality even, that was not laid to their charge. The prejudice against them ran into all classes, and, in spite of both private and public virtue almost if not altogether unique in the history of sects, existed long and bitterly. Cobbett spoke of them as English Jews; mobs were incited to hoot and deride them. In this way the trials of the Quakers were very severe, and were con- tinued long after those of any other religious body in England except the Catholics. No amount of patience and forbearance II.] THE QUAKERS. 33 secured them from outrage. Yet they were among the safest and most reliable of political allies so loDg as party action rested on political principle. The sincere men among them braved any difficulty or danger, ia politics as well as in religion, for what they believed right. They are the only body of religious men in England of whom it can be said that they have as a body been in the front in eveiy battle of freedom from the time of the Commonwealth till now. " Is it right ? " is the question that runs through their history — not "Is it poKtic?" The most politic of men in business, they fought Ecclesiasticism, the State Church, the immoral clergy, the persons who made war, and the persons who kept slaves, with a grand forgetfulness of selfish consequences. So much is simple truth as to the Society of Friends. That there were and are many worthless and insincere men among them is undoubted ; but where a man truly believed in the central doctrine of his faith — the never-ceasing influence of the Spirit of God in the affairs of each individual person — he was of an order of manhood never yet surpassed for high principle in human history. The doctrine of the Divine influence was not new, even to the forms of English popular Life. It was an accepted principle of the Eoman Catholics, only they vested it in the Church and in a perpetual priesthood. It was recently the principle, in another form, of M. Mazzini, who held with the fervour of a devotee that Almighty God is guiding and directing by means of His creative and all-pervading Spirit the well-being and future happiness of mankind; and that revelation will succeed revelation by the same Divine power and never-ceasing influence. Many good Quakers also and M. Mazzini, dissimilar in much, are very nearly akin in history, in their devotion to the interests of mankind without reference to name or creed. How to save people from needless suffering ; how to inculcate purity of life; how to serve freedom and beat down oppression ; and, finally, how, after failing a hundred times at last to succeed, are among the lessons taught to Eng- land by the followers of George Fox. Logically there are hardly any bounds to the creed of a member of the Society K D 34 POPULAR PROaEESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. of Friends. There is no reason wliy the same influence that made George Fox the founder of a sect of religious persons, should not some day influence another teacher to widen the foundations of the sect. On the masses of the people, how- ever, the Quakers had little influence. Silent prayer, or com- munion, did not conduce to that enthusiasm which was a vital element in the success of Wesley. The political and social influence of the Quakers, on the other hand, has been vastly greater than that of any other religious body in England of so small an account numerically, and though the influence was not so marked during the reigns from Charles II. to George III. as it was afterwards, there is certain proof that it existed as a living and active principle and produced sensible results. The Unitarians, from the fact that they too were disowned by all other sects, have a history similarly marked by extreme oppression and injustice ; and they too, through a long period were ever ready with courage and sacrifice to bear witness to the truths of Liberalism. The value of the Presbyterians in struggles for freedom was incidental merely ; in power they were violently favourable to Establishment, as in our own time they accepted the Regium Donum in Ireland. The Inde- pendents and the Baptists, on the contrary, cannot be identified with any willingness to countenance or support the principle or fact of an Established Church ; and with them in this were the Quakers and the Unitarians to a man. The Quakers, however, went farther. A broad, genial, and at times most humble feeling of humanity, such as had not been known in a sect for more than sixteen centuries, was the basis of their creed. Lord Macaulay has written of the Literature of the Eestora- tion in terms of scathing and enduring severity. JSTothing, he thinks, could weU be worse, taking as akin the literature and the life it depicted and to which it appealed. In answering the question, however, whether such literature should now be pre- served, and placed in the hands of the young, he suggests that while Sir George Etherege vt^as unquestionably a vile man, and Plato a man of strict morals, passages might be pro- duced from Plato less delicate than those alleged against ir.] LITERATURE OP THE RESTORATION. 35 Etherege. Very likely this is the exact fact, but does not the fact suggest another idea ? Bad as the Eestoration was, we must remember it was tested by a much higher ideal than anything known to the Greeks of Plato's time. The morals of the reign of Charles were perhaps lower even than those of the Eomans of Pompeii ; but an hour or two in the museum at Naples would be sufficient to convince any one they were merely so because they were tried by another standard. The illiterate people of London have sacked houses before to-day for doings not fit all as bad as many that were accepted as ordinary affairs of life in ancient Greece and Eome. If Charles and his court had been left to themselves, it is hard to say what they would not have done ; but they were not left to the.jn- selves — there were other influences afoot to save England though as by fire. D 2 CHAPTER III. JAMES II.— TEE Wnm REVOLUTION OF 1688.— ANNE. 1685— James II. — National Dread of Papal Ascendency — The Duke of Monmouth — The Bloody Circuit — ^Work of Jeffreys Within One Year — Burial of Charles II. — Monmouth Executed — Jeffreys Rewarded — Temple Bar — Baxter and Jeffreys— 1687 ; The Church— The Trimmers— Kirke— Lord Halifax— Test Act and Habeas Corpus Act Challenged — Test Act Maintained by ParUament ; Stultified in the Law Courts — Fatal Importance of that Step to the King — Eelations of the Clergy to James II. — Bishops sent to the Tower — Trial, and Acquittal — Birth of the Prince of Wales — Prompt Invitation to the Prince of Orange — 1688 — The Revolution — Williain III. — Marlborough — William's Title to the Throne — The Bill of Rights —Mutiny Act — First Suspension of Habeas Corpus Act — The King's Proposals for Comprehension— Toleration Act — Episcopacy Abolished in Scotland — Wars in Scotland and Ireland — 1690 — Defence of Limerick — Sarsfield and the Irish Brigade — Glencoe — William's Second Parliament — Tory Majority — Beginning of the National Debt — Bank of England Founded, 1692 — Intrigue and Treason — La Hogue — Greenwich Hospital — First Triennial Parliament ; Whig Majority — Treason Act, 1696— Freedom of the Press— Death of William III., 1702— Queen Anne — Lord Somers — The Tories in Power — Insult to the Memory of William — Tyrannical Conformity Bill ; Rejected by the Lords ; Carried at a Later Period — " High Church" and De Foe — Semper Eadem — Queen Anne's Bounty — New Churches in London — Union of England and Scotland — The Union Jack — First Parliament of Great Britain — Landing of the Son of James II. ; Temporary Ascendency of the Whigs — Our First Historic Mobs ; Incited by the Clergy— Lord Somers— Saoheverell — Position of the English Church — Influence of Education — Popularity of the Church — Litera- ture ; the Tatkr, Spectator, and Examinet — Addison, Steele, and Swift Eleven Years of War— National Debt, 1713— Property Qiialiacation for Members of Parliament— Schism Bill — Death of Queen Anne — Walpole. During the latter part of the reign of Charles II. we see not merely the Church of England but the entire nation in a state of marked uneasiness as to what the King meant, and what his brother, if once raised to the throne, would attempt and perhaps CHAP. III.] JAMES II.: THE BLOODY CIRCUIT. 37 perform. The cruel nature of James had been placed beyond question by his doings in Scotland. His not dishonourable refusal to disown his creed, even for the succession to the throne, reminded people of Mary ; and the name of Mary was a fearful name in the vastly greater part of EngHsh homes. If James won effectually and beyond dispute there was everything to fear, and nothing to hope, save from another uprising ; and that, the Church of England had for a generation pledged itself, was under no circumstances permissible by the Word of God or the ancient law of England The Duke of York had yet to discover how much and how little ecclesiastical pledges and professions meant when directed by self-interest. His first opportunity of making what he deemed a wholesome impression was in the case of the Duke of Monmouth, who, utterly defeated by Feversham and Marlborough, was captured in just such a plight as James would have wished; half-famished, and only half clothed, a poor, pitiable, broken-down suppliant for mercy. Would King James only see him, the prisoner said — see him once, and once only, that he might plead for pardon ? Yes, James would see him ; it was quite in the range of his tastes to see the man he intended to kill. Monmouth was led into the royal presence, where he abased himself to the extent of his wishes. Then he was executed. Then Judge Jeffreys and the soldier Kirke — the man with recollections of Tangier — were sent to the West of England to punish those who on the march of Monmouth had espoused the rebel cause. Jeffreys carried all the power of the law ; Kirke led what he called his " lambs," and them he sent out among the helpless country people to use a savage pleasure which was amply gratified. They tortiired and slew in aU directions. Jeffreys went from town to town, holding his Bloody Circuit. At Dorchester, Taunton, Exeter, Wells, and elsewhere, some deeds were done such as no pen ever can record, but which still remain in local tradition. At Taunton you are shown where the brutal Judge, while dining, had three toasts drunk, — one to the King, one to the Queen, and one to himself, — and where at each toast ten persons were " thrown off" — hanged in the street before the 3S POPULAR PEOGEESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. Judge's eyes. You see where men were executed to the merry strains of fife and drum ; and there is one story, fearfulest of all, of a young girl who sacrificed her virtue to save her father's life, and who was then pointed by Jeffreys to her father's dead body hanging in front of the hotel. The poor girl went raving mad. Families reduced to destitution were but incidents of this fearful circuit which James, with playful delicacy, called " Jeffreys' campaign." A few words were sufficient to bring a person to death. All this was done within the year. Charles was buried on February 14th. Monmouth landed at Lyme on June 11th, was defeated at Sedgemoor on the 6th July, and executed on July 15th. In September, Jeffreys returning triumphantly from his circuit, was made Lord Chancellor by his grateful master. Yet there came a time when loyal English men and women swore by the name of this wretched King and of his dishonoured house, when gentle English ladies wore the Staart colours, and loyal English gentlemen drank in dumb show, when "walls had ears," to "the King over the water;" when Scotland gave some of her best blood on battle-field, and on the far more terrible scaffold; gave some of her noblest heads to bleach on turrets and ramparts, on the walls of Carlisle and on Temple Bar, in defence of the family of a King who had the tastes of a tiger and the talents of a low order of Jesuit. Temple Bar, built in the thirteenth year of the Glorious Eestoration, has stiU its story against the Stuarts and their minions, and against some of those, and the minions of some of those, who supplanted the Stuarts. To the House of Commons James assumed the tone of a master. He required money, and asked for it in so ominous a manner that he had sums voted larger than his demands. The Nonconformists saw Eichard Baxter handed over to Jeffreys for a " scandalous libel on the bishops and clergy," in a paraphrase on the New Testament. The clergy were bidden to do or forbear to do this and that on their peril. Edict after edict went forth to the Bishops, the Universities, and so to the parishes. The Test Act, which prevented the employment of Catholics, and the Habeas Corpus Act, which left undue power in the hands of III.] KING JAMES AND THE TKIMMERS. 39 the Juries, were to be repealed on the meeting of Parliament in November. Jesuits were, by the fiat of the King, allowed to open schools ; Eoman Catholics were instituted to Church benefices. The Universities were ordered to confer degrees on men who had sworn allegiance to the Pope. The Protestant clergy were ordered not to preach doctrinal sermons. A Declaration of Indulgence in April, 1687, made religion "free" in England and Scotland. A second Declaration, dated April, 1688, was ordered to be read in all churches on the 20th and the 27th May.. Among the statesmen of the time there were those who called themselves the Trimmers. In reality they were the product of the Eestoration, and were the connecting link between it and other Trimmers in the reigns of William, and Anne, and the Georges. They had trimmed from choice in the reign of Charles II. They trimmed now from necessity in that of James. The spirit of levity, of sport with religion, with the virtue of women and the honour of men, that had prevailed during the twenty-five years of the reign of Charles, had now its reaction in a reign of grimness, not known before since the time of Mary ; and the Trimmers felt that their interest was in continuing to trim. The whole spirit of society King James knew was impregnated with trimming, and he hoped everything from that fact. He even ventured to ask Kirke, the butcher of the Bloody Circuit, to become Eoman Catholic, but Kirke, who could presume, only laughed, and said he was pre-engaged ; he had promised the Emperor of Morocco that if ever he changed his religion he would become Mohammedan. What could James do with a man like Kirke ? The chief of the Trimmers as a party was Lord Halifax, who had the gift to trim almost, though not quite as much as the King wished, but who heartily hated the King and the King's principles. Halifax drew the line of trim- ming at the repeal of the Test Act and the Habeas Corpus Act. The King declared that there must be a real standing army, and that he could only have it by being able to employ Eoman Catholics. Therefore the Test Act must go from the Statute Book. The Parliament refused. The King tried the Law Courts 40 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. " [chap. by appointing a Catholic gentleman to a colonelcy, and ordering that a servant of the gentleman should prosecute him, and so force a decision. Solicitor-General Finch, and four Judges remonstrated against this attempt to break the law. They were dismissed from office. Eleven Judges decided in favour of the Colonel. One, Lord Chief Justice Herbert, said that the laws were the King's and that he could dispense with them when he thought proper. If, however, the reader will ponder over the chief events of English history, he will find that the King had here feloniously touched the one thing which the English people never yet for any long time suffered to be so touched with impunity. The people have forced Parliaments, Kings, Law Courts, and Mobs, to observe the law. They have again and again, down to our own time, stood quietly, under a load of oppression while bad laws were being maintaiaed. They may have rioted, but they never rebelled till the law was broken. It was this feeling that gave Mary and James the throne, that held back willing and eager spirits from violence in the reign of the first Charles, and at the end of the reign of Charles II. It was exactly the same feeling that held back vast numbers of wildly-excited people, in 1816-17, and in 1830-32. There was " no cause '' till the law was broken. At last James broke the law. Trimmers, political and rehgious — trimmers in name, or trimmers merely in fact — would now, unless utterty infatuated, move with the heartiness and decision of men who had the law on their side. Of all trimmers there had been none quite so shameless as the clergy ; but to ask them actually to go into their pulpits, and give up at once their own special interests as against a rival Church, and their darling supremacy, was too much. Primate Bancroft, and six other Bishops, petitioned the King that they might not be compelled to read a declaration contrary to law — Primate Bancroft, who afterwards refused to crown William III., and went into retirement as a non-juror. On the 20th May only four clergyman read the Declaration; on the 8th June the Bishops were committed to the Tower. Dissenters even (another proof, perhaps, how little social tyranny there had been III.] TRIAL OF THE SEVEN BISHOPS. 41 on the part of the great hody of the clergy) had hy this time caught the fact that the repeal of the Test Act did not mean freedom but slavery, and they too joined ia the deafening cheers that followed these seven persons, who were actually suffering for the maintenance of a test altogether inimical to freedom, and the equality of all men before the law. There was no credit to the Bishops as a body, though there was credit to some of them, in the course taken. In the case of Sancroft there was simply a man who desired to maintain laws which made him in the most palpable of senses supreme before the law. However, the Church was for the moment National. It was England against Eome, — and the Nonconformists were English. The trial of the Bishops was on the 29tk June. At night the Jury were locked up. On the morning of the 30th they presented, by Sir Hugh Langley, their foreman, a verdict of " Not Guilty " — one of the most memorable of all our historic " Not Guiltys." On the 10th of the same month a Prince of Wales had been born. There was now another life, people saw, between England and the hope of freedom. On the 30th June, before the night had well fallen on the scene of the trial. Admiral Herbert, in the disguise of a sailor, left London for Holland, and in due time he delivered to the Prince of Orange, from nobility, and others, an invitation to rescue England from a detested tyranny. There was no longer any great fear that the Eling would be able to maintain his throne by force. The shouts of the people, echoed by the army on Hounslow Heath, were the death-knell of the sovereignty of James. The import- ance of the decision was not in the acquittal of the seven Bishops, but in the assertion, in the face of a King, of the higher supre- macy of the law. Trial by Jury had won a great victory and established a great precedent. Then in that victory was involved the triumph of Protestantism. Not of a Protestantism willing to be tolerant ; simply of a Protestantism from which toleration would some day come with all the certainty of an unerring law. It cannot be denied that there was a real victory. Nor can it be denied that the Established Church had done its part towards that victory with something of a new-born 42 POPULAR PROGEBSS IN ENGLAND. [chap. dignity. Of the conduct at this time of the clergy generally Lord Macaulay says : — " Did they serve the King for nought ? He laid his hand on them, and they cursed him to his face. He touched the revenue of a college and the liberty of some prelates ; and the whole profession set up a yell v^orthy of Hugh Peters himself. . . . : The clergy went back, it must be owned, to their old theory, as soon as they found that it would do them no harm." The clergy richly deserve the picture ; but it can hardly be deemed a complete picture. Assuredly there were many eminent men of the time to whom it does not in the least apply. The Prince of Orange was not long on the throne before he found that it was a throne of thorns. He, it is quite certain, would gladly have made his reign the era of religious freedom, which means a little more than religious toleration ; but the law and a powerful national feeling were against him. In the end he had unquestionable evidence that Englishmen of great ability and distinction not only were not heartily inclined to toleration, but were looking away, and more than looking away, from his stern court to the intrigues of St. Germains, to the craven King who had been expelled. The old story of the fleshpots of Eg3rpt was being repeated. The Trimmers stiU trimmed ; and the prince of them was the ablest soldier in Europe — nay, the greatest soldier of the age, the future Duke of Marlborough. A courtier from the early age of twelve years ; page at that time to the Duke of York, and henceforth scarcely ever, if ever, unemployed, Churchill had even before the great victories that are indis- solubly connected with his name, seen all manner of service, and climbed to every eminence he had really attempted. He had served in the Guards at home, against the Moors at Tangier, under Turenne in Europe, against Monmouth in the West of England. He had for wife one of the most beautiful and most self-wiUed of women, and one of the most ardent intriguers. His own manners were charming, his temper perfect ; his loyalty up to a certain point undoubted. William read these facts as if he were reading a book, and never seems to have questioned that the genius of Churchill would be the one peril or the great safeguard of the reign. It is not clear, m.] CHAEACTBR AND POLICY OF MARLBOROUGH. 43 however, whether Marlborough's talents for intrigue were not over-estimated, or whether his deception has not been too readily assumed. He had deserted James in the very crisis of the Eoyal affairs, and by the aid of Lady Churchill had carried with him the Princess Anne. It is difficult to see that in taking this course the intriguer did not overreach himself, if we assume that he was an utter intriguer. There was open to him the part which Wellington afterwards played in becoming the main prop of the throne as it stood — a part of remarkable honour and status, not to speak of wealth — the god of ChurchOl. Granted, again, that Marlborough was a consummate intriguer, as Lord Macaulay pictures him, it must have occurred to him that it was useless, after the first betrayal, to attempt to intrigue for James, who had given pretty strong evidence that he never forgot and never forgave. In the first place, then, loyalty to William was a duty ; in the second, it was apparently a necessity. It is more than probable that Marlborough, who was not cruel, and who certainly had quite as much principle as Halifax and the other Trimmers, had determined in his own mind that, as far as his power went, England should not again fall under the shadow of a gloomy despot. It may be partly true, as Lord Macaulay so fearfully paints it, that the great soldier had in effect risen by his sister's dishonour ; but the strong terms of the pictiire need qualification. It has been placed beyond dis- pute that he had constant communication with James, and that in those intrigues he made promises which he never fulfilled. It would be easier, however, to set this down to other causes rather than to an intention to bring back the male Stuart Line. It would, for instance, be easier to believe that Marlborough hedged his position, so that he should be safe in any eventuality. It must have been evident to him that on the death of WiUiam — the sick and childless King — there was everything to gain by the succession of Anne, and that everything would be endangered if the succession recurred to her brother. A great deal has been written as to whether William's title to the throne was or was not elective. It was elective this far, that without Mary, William was not at all in the direct 44 POPULAK PROGEBSS IN ENGLAND. [chap. succession ; and tliat even with Mary, lie was o'nly in the direct succession by the rejection of the heir in the male line. When WiUiam reigned alone, after the death of Mary, he did so not only to the exclusion of the direct male line, hut of Anne. At the same time it is frequently forgotten that "William's title to the throne was much nearer than that of George I. He was not only the husband of the daughter of James II., but was himself grand- son of Charles I. His mother was sister to Charles II. and to James. If Eoman Catholics were to be passed over, he was the real heir, for he was of good Protestant stock, if anybody in Europe could be so deemed. The settleinent of 1688, therefore, was the settlement in the right and true line of succession, without being in the direct line. It was the settlement of the Protestant succession and of the BiU of Eights — facts which have satisfied Englishmen ever since, and which wHL probably satisfy them for all time. The notable features of William's reign may be very briefly summarised. The BOl of Eights was a new charter — the third; generally reckoned of what we call our Great Charters. It secured the succession ; declared that it is illegal for the sovereign to dispense with the laws, or to levy taxes without the consent of Parliament; that it is contrary to law to raise or maintain a standing army in peace; that subjects have the right of petition. Members of Parhament the right of free speech in debate, and that Parliament should be called together frequently. This was the first real step taken with the consent of both sovereign and people to break the rivets of the Eestoration. A refusal of some Scotch regiments to embark for HoUand in 1689, led to the Mutiny Act, which has been renewed annually from that year to this. The intrigues with St. Germains led to the first suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act for a year, dating from April, 1689 ; but this step was twice renewed in this reign of war and intrigue. Proposals by the King to admit Dissenters to places of trust, and to include in the Established Church men of the kind expelled from it in 1662, were rejected ; as like proposals for comprehension would be rejected by Convocation to-morrow. A Toleration Act, to relieve from certain penalties III.] THE BOYNE: EXPATRIATION OF SARSFIELD. 45 all Nonconformists, except Catholics and Unitarians, became law in 1689. A little earlier the Scottish Convention had abolished Episcopacy, and expelled the Bishops ; but had, at the same time, proclaimed WiUiam and Mary King and Queen of Scotland. In this memorable year war had been waged both in Scotland and Ireland. The battle at the head of the romantic pass of Killiecrankie had been fought, and Dundee slain. Londonderry had been gloriously defended and relieved. Schomberg had reduced Carrickfergus, Belfast, Dundalk, and Newry. Finally, as a foreshadowing of more war, early in 1690 WUliam prorogued his Parliament, that he might himself be free for military command. The dissolution of Parliament almost immediately followed. In the same year the Battle of the Boyne was fought, and the character of the Irishmen who stood with James was redeemed by Sarsfield's glorious defence of Limerick. This reference is made here chiefly for the purpose of noting the first great exodus of Irishmen to a foreign land. In October, 1691, Sarsfield and 12,000 volunteers left their country for ever, and became soldiers of France. Their voluntary expatriation is one of the most painful circumstances in the history of modern times, and is singularly like a leaf from the history of some great depopulation of the East. Women and children followed the boats into the water, with wailing that was heard in the ships far out to sea, and that even yet finds echoes in tradition. Long after this, Sarsfield and his men were heard of and more than heard of by Englishmen on fiercely-contested battle-fields, and the men long after their great leader's death. Six years earlier (in 1685), in the midst of the mad crusade of James against Protestantism, the revocation of the Edict of Nantes had sent 50,000 French Protestants into England, with their precious manufactures of silk and lace. The expatriation of Sarsfield was equally impolitic, and the massacre of Glencoe, which followed, was hardly less disastrous to WiUiam and to the nation. The new Parliament met in March, 1690, and was found to have a strong Tory bias. William procured a settlement of his revenue, with the avowed intention of borrowing money on the security 46 POPULAR PROaRESS IN ENGLAND. , [chap. of it for the war. In 1693 a loan of a million was raised, on life annuities ; the foundation was laid of our ISTational Debt. In the following year the Bank of England was founded for purposes connected with the debt. Meanwhile, in England itself, there was for the King little but turmoil. The Primate (Bancroft) had refused to crown him, and the duty had been performed by Dr. TUlotson, then raised to the primacy. Several Bishops had refused to take the simple oaths of allegiance where no obnoxious tests were required. Marlborough, in the King's absence, was caught in the very midst of intrigues and sent by Queen Mary to the Tower ; but he was subsequently and magnani- mously released, almost unconditionally. It was a dark time. There was one set-off, however ; the battle of La Hogue, fought in the very sight of James and his army, ready for the invasion of England, inspired the nation with new confidence in the invulnerability of its homes ; and Mary's graceful act of giving up for a naval hospital the Eoyal Palace of Greenwich — one of the earliest graceful acts of any English sovereign for the benefit of the undistinguished masses of the people — was almost worth another victory. In 1695 William refused his assent to a Bill for Teiennial Parliaments, but in the following year, on a threat by the Commons to stop the supplies, he was induced to pass the Bill. The first Triennial Parliament met in November, 1695, with a clear Whig majority. This Act differed from that of the Long Parliament, repealed in the reign of Charles II., in providing, both that a Parliament should be called at least once in three years, and that no Parliament should exist longer than three years. In the following year the Tkeason Act was passed, securing to a prisoner a copy of the indictment against him, and of the panel, that he should be assigned counsel, and should not be convicted on the evidence, taken on oath, of fewer than two witnesses. This was the most important step yet taken for giving effect to -the provisions of the Bill of Eights. Finally, Parliament, by refusing to re-enact the law for the censorship of printing, conceded, or rather secured, all that Milton had contended for as Liberty of the Press. In this measure all III.] TREASON ACT : LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. 47 the relations of sovereign and subject, of the upper and the lower classes in society were altered. The effect was immediate. The London Gazette, which had hitherto enjoyed a monopoly of publication, at once found competitors which, in a short time, more than equalled it in influence and mercantile success, and pushed it aside as a popular journal of news. William died in March, 1702, leaving a name for enemies to cavil over and to remain the watchword of a fierce religious party for several generations. His reign had not been one of unbroken warlike glory, and so far as he was personally concerned, it had been very chequered. His victories in Ireland had owed much to Schomberg, Marlborough, and Ginkell. On the Continent he had never, save in repairing disasters, been deemed a match in war for Luxembourg. Then, he was a foreigner. His trusted troops were in the main Dutch. His wars were Continental wars in a sense of which England had had little experience; that is, the interests were presumed to be, as however they were not, purely Continental, although William in his hatred to the policy of the French King, had represented Holland more than England, and foreign treaties had had a meaning and importance in his eyes which Acts of Parliament, unless directed to foreign affairs, had not. Yet no one who has read carefully the history of these times will doubt that here at last was a real King, ready to second, or to lead, if he were allowed, sensible and determined opposition to the principles that had been laid down and declared to be unalterable at the " Glorious Eestoration." Anne's reign of twelve years, during which she had no fewer than twelve Parliaments, was notable for its great wars. It was the reign of Blenheim, Eamillies, Oudenarde, Malplaquet — of the capture of Gibraltar. Among its great names were those of Marlborough, Peterborough, and that old Admiral Benbow whose fame is still so well preserved in our popular national song. Marlborough's warlike policy like his character has been the subject of dispute from that time to this. That his wars in some important senses led to national' demoralization and corruption is unquestioned. The advantage was that they proved once more what Englishmen could do in war, when led 48 POPULAR PEOGEESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. by men of genius and determination. In that way the battles of Marlborough warned off intruders for a long time to come. We see also in this reign some new historical personages, and begin for the first time to find traces of our modern ministry and ef certain political facts destined to long duration. Sir John Somers, undoubtedly one of the chief authors, if not the author, of the Bill of Eights, appears in certain bodily form as an important historic character. He had held high office in 1699, and had been dismissed from that office with some ignominy in 1700, on a charge of connivance with piracy, after- wards shown to be entirely false. His fame all the time had broadened. He seems at this time like a calm power in reserve — one of those men to whom nations look in time of great need. On the accession of Anne, Marlborough, Godolphin, and those who followed them, rose at once to high power. The ministers were Tory. When the first Parliament met on October 20th, 1702, it, to the Queen's great joy, was found to be Tory also. The spirit of the House of Commons may be judged from three facts. The new members had scarcely taken their seats when they voted (October 27th) that Marlborough had " signally retrieved the ancient glory of the English nation; " and the word retrieved was retained by a vast majority of votes in defiance of the declaration of the minority that it would be accepted as an insult to William's memory, which of course was the intention. Ministers also introduced, and the Commons passed, a Bill to punish with heavy fines, and for a second offence with trans- portation, all persons holding public office, who having once taken the Sacrament in the Established Church, should after- wards attend a conventicle. The Bill originated, it was said, in a Lord Mayor of London, a Dissenter, having in the previous reign attended his meeting-house in his official robes. The true fact was that the Tories had determined to cut up ISTon- conformity root and branch. The Lords spiritedly rejected the Bill ; thus making one good mark for civil and religious liberty. In 1711, however, in the turmoil of the Sacheverell madness the same Bill, on the motion of Lord Nottingham, a bigoted and intolerant person, of poor intellect — became law. The third Ill,] QUEEN ANNE'S BOUNTY: THE UNION JACK. 49 notable fact which deserves attention is that the Church after becoming well-nigh wild with joy over a book, entitled, Tlie Shortest Way with Dissenters — an admirable defence, as was thought, of the Occasional Conformity Bill — discovered that the book was written in mockery by that worst of aU Dissenters, Defoe. The obnoxious writer was dealt with in February, 1703 ; fined, pilloried, and utterly disgraced. That is, the Court put him in the pillory, and the people pelted him with bouquets of flowers. That was the disgrace of Defoe. All this was within a year of Anne's 'accession to the throne. Meanwhile Her Majesty had adopted as the motto of her arms the words, "Semper JUadem," as if to make certain that the new policy should be changeless. For the Church it was evident the Queen had an affectionate regard ; that she would be to it a great benefactor. She restored its " first-fruits " and " tenths," a rehc of the Pope's dues, and a fund of late times often appropriated to royal mistresses, but henceforth to be known as Queen Anne's Bounty. Meanwhile (1710-11) Convocation met, and prayed the Crown and Parliament for more churches. The Commons answered the demand by voting money for fifty new churches in London alone; churches which were in due time designed by Sir Christopher Wren. The Tories were now in the full swing of power, and with a slight interval, from 1708 to 1710, they retained power during the whole of Anne's reign. The interval was when the Queen and the nation were threatened with an attempt to upset the succession. In 1707 the Act of Union of England and Scotland was duly passed without any great manifestation of feeling in England. It received the Eoyal assent in May, and on July 28th the Union Jack was hoisted as the flag of Great Britain. The first Parliament of Great Britain met in October the same year. Lord Somers was made President of the Council, indicating a slightly different feeling in the Eoyal Councils. In fact, Prince James Edward, now about twenty years of age, had landed in Scotland, and it seemed likely that the principles of the Eevolutiun of 1688 might soon again be in demand. The Tories also found that E E 50 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [raAP. possibly a little more reticence might be advisable than when, iu the first days of Anne's reign, they drank the health of the horse, " Sorrel," from which William had had the fall that caused his death. Habeas Corpus was suspended, measures for defence were pushed on, and for a couple of years the Whigs held office. When the danger was over the Tories returned to power. They had no more checks or semblance of checks during Anne's reign. Perhaps there is no better evidence than the lifvs of Lord Somers that the principles of the Commonwealth still influenced public affairs, and assisted to form as well as dominate Whiggery at its best. His father, a Parliamentarian of great zeal and high character, had commanded a troop under Cromwell, and there can hardly be a doubt that the after principles of the far more eminent son, as lawgiver of the Whigs, was owing in a great measure to the lessons of his earlier days, though, like many other young men educated under the stern rule of the so-called saints, he subsequently allowed nature to run riot in a course of lax morality, for which he would have been the last to offer a defence. His pen was engaged in such works as A Just and Modest Vindication of the two last Parliaments " (1681), against the King in the case of the Duke of York ; The Security of Englishmen's Lives ; or, The Trust Power and Duty of the Grand Juries of England, explained according to the Fundaments of the English Government. He also wrote, translated, and collected much. Probably he wrote some keen satires that are now nameless, and many that are lost. His rise to a first position as a lawyer and politician is dated from the trial of the Seven Bishops, for whom he was an advocate. He was a prominent speaker in the Parliamentary debates which ended with the declaration that James II. had abdicated the throne. He was chairman of the second of two committees that drew up the Declaration of Eight. In fact in all that Lord Somers did with a grave and responsible object there are traces of the stern pur- pose of the men who read of the relations of rights and duties by the light of the Commonwealth. Of the charge that he was a supporter of piracy, there cannot he two opinions. He simply III.] LORD SOMERS: CHURCH MOBS. 51 fell before his political enemies, who knew that with him fell the soul of his party at that time. It speaks well for the temper and tact of this great man, that he succeeded in causing even Queen Anne, almost against her will, to confide in him. It is certain that without him, Whiggery, during many years, had remained a poor pitiable creed, with few, if any, redeeming qualities, and that when in long after years it was in a measure redeemed from worse than even existing Tory principles and practices, it was by recurring to the writings of Lord Soraers. Another great distinction was achieved by the Church of England. This reign was the era of our first real mobs in the modern sense; and to the glory of our national religion they were High Church mobs. In December, 1709 — the Whigs then in power, and the so-called Pretender threatening invasion — two sermons were preached by Dr. Sacheverell, a South wark rector, who advocated the prosecution of Dissenters, declared the Eevolution unholy, and passive obedience and non-resistance the duty of all Englishmen. The mad rector's sermons were ordered to be burnt by the common hangman, and his own rights as a clergyman suspended. Then began the opportunity of High Church. Sacheverell was pronounced a martyr; the people kissed his hand, and fell at his feet, and destroyed the property of Dissenters in his name. The Commons impeached him, and he was condemned ; but during his trial the precincts of Parliament were invaded by the mob, and the Queen herself heard on every side, and doubtless with unfeigned joy, the cries of — " God bless your Majesty ; we hope your Majesty is for Dr. Sacheverell." It was madness on a small scale, not unlike that evoked by Peter the Hermit on a large scale. It is worth notice how this firebrand Tory priest, who, let alone, never had been heard of in history, should, by means of the notice accorded him by Parliament, have been able to create an entirely new fact in our history. There had before this time been mobs and mobs ; but it was the glory of the Church to produce in many respects the most senseless, stupid mobs the country had ever known. To find a mass of people anxious to cast off slavery might have been understood, but to find masses of people anxious to. cast t: 2 52 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. off freedom was a strange spectacle. The history of the English Church for a century previous to this time had shown many vicissitudes : -^ Paramount power in the reigns of the first James and the first Charles ; a healthy sifting during the Commonwealth ; brilliant supremacy, with unpleasant draw- backs in the reign of Charles II. ; victory in the reign of James II. ; a steady position, which the King could not touch, in the reign of William ; and now, in the reign of Anne, such glory and position as no Church ever had had before ; a position in fact almost regal, with security for future power. What did the Church of England do or attempt during this time to justify its selection as the National Church ? what to raige the condition of the masses of the people ? We have seen that it did not with any gerieral decision raise its voice against the prqfiigacies of Charles II. ; that it did not protest against the cruelties of James II., till those cruelties touched itself. John Knox, in Scotland, laid the foundations, from Church revenues, of a system of national education, which the sons of many poor Scotchmen have had reason to reverence ; for it was education for the poor. The Buddhist monk in Burma is the village teacher, and so worthy is he of his poor hire, that hardly a Burmese child is unable to read and write. What large-hearted effort did the clergy of the Church of England make in a national sense to educate the poor ? With such wealth, such social influence, such politipal power; with the universities, the cathedrals, the parish churches in their hands ; with their opponents of the older church and the newer churches excluded from cherished rights of citizenship, in what way did the Established clergy prove their right to their stipends? This question had to be met or evaded at a later day, with secret societies springing up, and fierce disloyalty to both Church and Crown claiming to represent the larger loyalty to England. It is true the clergy, by high-class education, gave tone and character to polished society, and some beautiful characters were the offspring of the great efforts made. If, however, the highest success was to give tone to polished society, then, though the value of these need ^pt be disputed, the Church m.] LEARNING AND ZEAL OF THE CLERGY. 53 loses its greatest claim to nationality. Is there proof of any- manful effort, on a large scale, to use for national education the revenues entrusted to the clergy ? If we take the great -names in high scholarship and literature from 1660 to 1T27, the Established Church so far outstrips all others that comparison were a chimera. Such names as those of Pearson, BaiTow, Sherlock, CudWorth, Burnet, Patrick, South, Atterbury, Tillotson, Bull, and Beveridge represent a stUl larger number of great names, and an array of scholarship which leaves out of questfbn any possibility of comparison. Some of them are English classics ; many were liberal theologians even in cases where they were not always liberal politicians. Nearly all were men of whom England has ever since been proud, and who are marked as belonging to a great age in theology. These facts must have had something to do with the popularity of the Established Church. We must not forget, on the other hand, the exceptional position of the Church, and that after the first generation of the Puritans of 1662 had died out, high culture was placed beyond the reach of aU but members of the Established Church, or at least of all but those who could take the oaths. This fobs the Church of the glory of her pre-eminence, though it cannot rob her of the fact of that pre-eminence, nor lessen the importance of that fact in her history. If we turn again to the splendid endowments which were provided during those times, we find a kindred story of indi- vidual character and influence in the Church. Prom 1684 to 1727 no fewer that ninety-six grammar-schools were founded. Of these at least fifteen were by clergymen of the Church of England, among whom were Archbishop Sancroft, Bishops Lloyd, Law (non^juror), Archbishop Tennison, and Bishop Wilson. Of endowed schools for the poor — free and not classical — there were established in London and the immediate vicinity, between 1684 and 1727, no fewer than seventy distinct foundations; in extra-metropolitan Kent and Surrey, twenty- seven ; in North Hants, twenty-four ; in Cambridgeshire, seventeen; in Suffolk, twelve — three counties Puritanically inclined. In Stafford and Worcester (Eoyalist, or Tory, 54 POPULAE PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. counties) the numbers were eighteen in the first case and twenty-one in the second. The Tories were by no means be- hindhand here. Many like instances might be given, all over the country, of schools not subsisting from year to year, but possessing the elements of permanent life. These facts are from the Eeports of the Endowed Schools Commission, which has done so much, and so weU, to revive old foundations, and adapt them to new and more exacting times. Nor should it be forgotten that in the catechizing of the young, in the personal influence of the parish clergyman, and in the fact that the poorer clergy were often schoolmasters, important work was done. In the north of England very interesting stories exist of clergymen who were also at once farmers, schoolmasters, doctors, lawyers, and general advisers to parishes. One fine old man, whose story has been well told by one of our great writers, was known as " Wonderful Walker." He wore clogs (shoes with wooden soles), farmed, dealt in cattle, was doctor for man and beast, and, among many other good acts, provided a basin of broth for every one who went from long distances to church on Sundays. The stipend was, in Walker's time, originally 5?., increased to 111. a year. The living is now certified at 80Z. a year. If, therefore, the Church, as a Church, fell far below the Church of Knox — and it did — in organizing its revenues and directing its polity with a view to reacliing educationally all the children in the land, individual clergy- men certainly did their duty with a singleness of purpose which never was surpassed. This leads naturally to the notice of the parochial system, and its effect on education. The idea was to set down a clergyman in a certain place, which he was to call his parish, and within which he was to become the centre of many influences, but beyond which he was not to interfere — a rule often strained to absurdity in our own time. The result was that one parish might be as a hive of intelligence and industry in learning, and another as a mass of ignorance and stupidity. In this the Episcopal Church differed widely from the Presbyterian Church. The latter, educationally, had far more of the spirit of the Act III.] THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM OP THE CHURCH. 55 of Uniformity than the former; a somewhat curious but an undoubted fact. The Scotch plan — the plan of Knox — was to educate Presbyterians on a uniform system ; but then the system was based on also communicating general knowledge, to which Scotland has owed everything. The English plan was to educate Episcopalians on a system resting on many centres of life, and on individual character ; but then it did not rest on the founda- tion of the necessity of secular knowledge. Hence the Scotch boy had the guarantee that the elements of knowledge were within his reach, while IJie English boy had to take his chance. The result is seen in the fact that north of the Tweed every poor boy reads and writes, while in the South of England (the rule does not so clearly apply to the North) the farm labourer — the man on whom the Church ought to have had the most direct influence — is altogether ignorant as a rule. When the defenders of the Church say that the Established clergy, and the laity whom the clergy guide, have done more than Dissenters for education, they raise a wrong issue, v.^hich will become only the more apparent as we proceed in these inquiries. The Church occupied the ground and the revenue ; and though individual clergymen and laymen did splendid service to the nation, if an angel had been sent to write on the wall of Westminster, or of St. Paul's, the fiat of Justice on the Estab- lished Church at the time with which we are concerned, can it be doubted, in view of the comprehensive system of John Knox, that the words would have been: — "Thou hast been weighed in the balance, and art found wanting " ? The popu- larity of the clergy, however, from Charles to Anne, may be said to have even increased, and perhaps never had been wanting since the Eeformation. The people rejoiced when Elizabeth succeeded Mary. They did not rejoice for the Com- monwealth. They assuredly rejoiced for the Eestoration. In the reign of Anne the clergy were like the inheritors of the earth ; and from some cause or other they enlisted the popular sympathies. Was it simply that they continued more genial than the Puritans, and that their geniality chorded with that of the nation? We shall again renew the inquiry under 56 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. different circumstances from those of the reign of Queen Anne. Under the conditions already narrated, the question of the popularity of the Church requires further explanation than that the clergy did not put on men heavy burthens hard to be borne, and that the Puritans somehow did make that mistake. It is usual to say that this reign was an important one for learning and literature. Letters began, too, to have an important place in statesmanship. Men Hke Locke and Halley stood aloof from party ; but Swift and Bolingbroke went clearly together on one political side, and Steele and Addison clearly together on another. The Tatler, the Spectator, the Guardian, the Tory Examiner, the Whig Examiner, filled up a vast field, and repre- sented genius of a high order, with very much that was base and mean. The pungent wit of the Examiner (Tory), with Swift, Atterbury, and Bolingbroke as contributors, had made itself a veritable power in the State before it was confronted by the Whig Examiner, with Addison and Steele, as contributors. The Whigs, however, were then fairly in sight of the promised land, and in a short time the new organ accomplished its work by driving its competitor from the field. Then the Whig organ, with a flourish of trumpets, closed its own brief existence, and its contributors found employment for their pens in other, different or kindred, publications. It was a time when there was ample scope for wit and humour, for sarcasm and scandal, for profound thought, and for efforts which never again ceased for the purpose of brightening the lives of "common men." The Spectator alone is said to have sometimes sold 20,000 copies in one issue. The ideal of life seemed to have been reached ; and this ideal continued till workmen began to inquire what all this literature represented to them. No high and pure writings could possibly be produced without benefiting all the people directly or indirectly, and political writing of a high order existed. Yet when the case came to be pressed home from the standpoint of the untaught, it was not easy to show in what way these great writers represented the sufferings and privations of the poor. Where taste and philosophy were concerned, it would perhaps be difficult to say what subjects Addison did not touch iii-J LITEEATURE : DEAN SWIFT. 57 and adorn. Where light and graceful gossip was concerned, Steele in many respects stands alone as a sketcher of life and manners. In satire, Swift was unapproachable in his time, and in some particulars never has been approached since. What fierce bigotry — what intense scorn — what licence as to taste — what utter disregard, at once of conventional religion and human rights ! He was so often right, too, as against extreme views and unrealities, that his works are an excellent tonic, even if they clash with a reader's opinions at every line, and especially if "the reader have been passing through a course of Puritan literature. The Sentiments of a Church of England Man, and the views On the Sacramental Test, might be read with advantage even in these times and by the opponents of the writer. In Swift's own time, his satire cut to the bone ; and he, was cut deeply in return. When he was made dean, some wicked enemy of his fastened to the door of the cathedral : — " When Wharton reigned a Whig he was, When Pembroke, that's dispute, sir ; In Oxford's time, what Oxford pleased, Non-con, or Jack, or Neuter. This place he got by wit and rhyme. And many ways most odd. And might a Bishop be in time Did he believe in God." It is difficult to say whether this work of an enemy did not convey a part truth ; whether in fact, though the faith in God could hardly be doubted, the faith in Christianity as under- stood by the Church was not very questionable. Of Swift's political and social services to the nation at a corrupt and troublous time there can be no doubt. Yet, when we consider how little the people who were carried away to Marlborough's wars were indebted to Swift, any more than to Addison and Steele, the question of the direct influence of literature on the nation involves a difiBculty. The truth is that the great writers, like the statesmen and lawyers of the time, have left nothing to show that they ever gave a thought to the condition 58 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. of the great body of the nation. They taught each other to talk about " society " in much the same sense as that in which the French king is reported to have said — "France, that is me." By society their aims and thoughts were bounded, and from it literature took complexion. A few more glances at Queen Anne's reign, as a whole, are necessary. War began with the accession to the throne, and ended in 1713, the year before the Queen's death. All Europe agreed that it had been a very glorious war. What it had cost in life was one of the subjects not to be too minutely entered into. That was and is a dark subject. Very probably there were a few widows and orphans in some parts of England at the end of Anne's reign, but of suggestions of this kind history takes no note. If a Bishop had had the good fortune to be killed, he would have had a grave in Westminster Abbey, and a name to live for ever. If Prince George of Denmark, Anne's husband, had been killed, the event would have been notable enough for many speeches in Parliament and a national mourning. But what of these common, undistinguished people, who must have in some cases died under painful circumstances ? The cost in money is more easily computed than the cost in life. In 1713 the National Debt was over 54,000,000^. The ever- increasing figures are interesting. The Commons complained that the Queen had been paying the expenses of her allies as well as her own ; but they were pointed to the glory, and there the complaint ended. It was not an earnest complaint in any way. The glory covered all. Towards the end of the reign — great intrigue then afoot — an Act was passed making it necessary for a county member to possess a Property Qualifi- cation of 600^. a year, and a borough member 3001. a year ; an Act which remained on the statute book till 1858. Later, in 1713, on the motion of Bolingbroke (an " unbeliever "), a Schism Bill passed both Houses, providing that no person should keep a school, or act as tator, who had not subscribed to the tenets of the Established Church, and received a licence from the Bishop of the Diocese. The penalty for breach of the law was impri- sonment without bail. Happily, before the Bill received the Royal m.J "GOOD QUEEN ANNE:" WALPOLE. 59 assent, the Queen died ; and a few years later the measure, which had passed both Houses, was repealed with the Occasional Conformity Act. Plotting with Bolingbroke to bring her brother to the throne, Anne was caught in the meshes of a sovereign from whom there was no escape. She died on the 1st of August, 1714. Of her character, Marlborough's asserted reply in a foreign court expresses everything. " She is a good sort of woman," he is credited with having said. When that is said, all is said of " Good Queen Anne." Dr. Smollett extols her virtues in ampler terms. She waa a pattern, he says, of all the virtues, and no subject suffered for treason in her reign. It is certain she was inordinately fond of eating, and ill-natured people added of drinking ; but the latter has been denied. Governed, in the first instance, by the Duchess of Marlborough, and in the next by Mrs. Masham, the Queen was never altogether mistress of herself, and apparently never wished to be so. She was happy in being governed. She wished to be, as she was, a good sort of woman. None the less, however, she thought herself also a great Queen. One person, towards the end of Anne's reign, began to have an importance which would not again be denied him for many a long year. While Bolingbroke, and Harley, and Godolphin, and Marlborough were intriguing with the Qaeeu's help, Mr. Eobert Walpole was nobody in the state. He had held office during the short Whig triumph of 1708, and had paid the penalty by being expelled from the House for corruption when the Tories under Harley returned to power. When the Queen's end approached, Walpole began to be busy; he became one of the leading elements in a great organization which would decide for a long period ' the politics and, in a sense, the destinies of England. CHAPTEE IV. FRESH CENTRES OF HISTORY: THE HANOVERIAN LINE. Three Central Facts in History from 1714 — Landing of George I. — Root of the Succession — Absurd Arguments as to the Succession — Dr. Price, Burke, * and Paine — King George and King Charles — Action of Party — The Stuart Plot — The Whig Counterplot — Whig Ascendency — "Walpole's Accession to Power — Haheas Corpus Suspended — The Riot Act — High Church Mobs— The Rebellion ; its Chief Duration— North of England and West of Eng- land Traditions — Whig Administration, 1716 — Occasional Conformity and Schism Acts — Convocation — Bishop Hoadley — Septennial Act; a Whig Measure — First Septennial Parliament — Peerage Bill — "Encouragement to Loyalty in Scotland " Act — National Debt — The South Sea Scheme — Birth of the "Young Pretender," 1720— Press Prosecutions — Burridge and Mist — Execution for a Pamphlet — Honour to Addison, Prior, and Steele — Immoral Clubs — Death of George I. — His Influence as a King and as a Man. In the foregoing chapters an attempt has been made to direct attention to four great events which may be termed the pivots of English history from the accession of Henry VIII. to the reign of George I. From that time three fresh facts must be considered: — A Disputed Succession, American Independence, and the French Eevolution of 1789. These are the aU- pervading influences of the six next reigns. If we lose sight of any of them we lose the gist and pivots of the history of these times; the mainsprings of popular discontent, of the strange longings for freedom and for knowledge, which even the most prominent and clear-sighted of conteiaporary states- men so little understood; and finally of that wide-spread defiance to authority which, through many errors and great suffering, never really was hurled back in absolute defeat. Our Sovereign Lord King George I. landed in England on CHAP. IV.] TITLE OF GEOKGE I. : BURKE AND PAINE. 61 September the 18th, 1714, more than six weeks after Anne's death; a proof, possibly, that George was not over glad to leave his Electorate for what he was pleased to call the " throne of my ancestors." It came to be the throne of his ancestors from the fact that by the Act of Settlement of the reign of William III., confirmed in that of Anne, about fifty persons more or less clearly in the direct succession were passed over, that the son of the Princess Sophia of Hanover, granddaughter of James I., and wife of the Elector of Hanover, should by right of his Protestaftt faith be King of England. The reader wUl recall the fact that on the day previous to the Coronation of Charles II. — that is, on the 28th May, 1660 — the son of the Princess Sophia was born, and was of so little account in England that his advent to the world caused not a ripple on the vast sea of preparations that reflected back the glory of the already risen sun of the Glorious Eestoration ; and, indeed, so little were the prospects altered in the course of many sub- sequent years, that when our gracious sovereign landed at Greenwich, he could scarcely speak a word of that, which to be consistent, he must have called his mother tongue. A year and a few months short of a century had elapsed since James I. gave his daughter Elizabeth to Frederick Elector Palatine — that is, early in the year 1613 — and there were few probable changes or chances of human life that seemed at all likely to bring about the succession to the English throne in the exact way in which it came to pass in this year 1714 ; that the descendant of the Elector Palatine and of Elizabeth his wife, would, with the great right of national choice and approval, condemn to perpetual exile the direct hereditary Stuart line, tiH the last of that dine passed away. A hundred years later, in a dangerous time, an excellent Dissenting minister, Ur. Price, preaching on the anniversary of the Revolution of 1688 to the members of the so-called English Eevolutionary Society — ^which really only meant an English Eeform Society — stated that the English people by the Revolution of 1688 had acquired the right to choose their own governors, and to cashier them for misconduct And what a display of eloquence Mr. Edmund G3 POPULAR PEOGEESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. Burke a little later made about that sermon ! ' Choose their own governors ? ' he said ; ' why, it was expressly stated in the Act of Settlement, that the English people not only had not chosen their own governor, but that on behalf of themselves and of their posterity for ever they abnegated the right to do what Dr. Price affirmed they had done.' This rejoinder of Mr. Burke was made in the first crisis of the French Eevolution of 1789. Then another combatant appeared in Mr. Thomas Paine, whose Mights of Man went into a hundred cottages for one in which Burke's Essay on the French Eevolution would ever have been heard of, if Paine had not written a reply. The sermon of Dr. Price was a simple statement of a fact ; only it was incorrectly, and in any case needlessly, put. Mr. Burke and Mr. Paine were both wrong. The English — ^that is, the Whigs — in 1688, had asserted no new fact. They simply had asserted a law of nature, and a law which it never could be necessary to reassert till the occasion for reassertion arose. Therefore Mr. Burke was quite right in stating that there had been no assertion of any new principle in the constitution of England. The people of England had not put forth any plea of right to dethrone James II. They simply dethroned him, and in so doing acted exactly in the spirit of their ancestors, and exactly, we may well hope, as their successors would act if the liberties of England were in danger. The Queen of England is as truly the successor of Alfred as if there had been no break in the line ; and again we may loyally hope that there may be no more break in the Line, even to the end. Burke wrote nonsense, but it was brilliant nonsense, and it fell on prepared ground. Paine wrote common sense, but it was common sense which fell like seed in a wintry season, so far as affected the national policy with respect to France, if indeed it was not one of the main causes for the general alarm that soon ensued, and amid which Paine was stigmatised in terms which history would be glad to drop out of sight. Whatever the merits or demerits of this man, and his faults were great, he was no coward. As " a citizen of the world," when the life or death of Louis XVI. was in question, Paine voted for life, and was IV. J LANDING OF KING GEORGE. 63 answered by the opprobrious epithet of " Quaker," by Marat. He was made to be silent, and to pay a heavy penalty for his fault. Of King George let us note one other fact of a curious or interesting kind. The reader has seen that the Electress Sophia gave birth to her little child at the very time that the carpenters were putting up platforms, from whence the grand coronation of Charles II. might be viewed. Observe, also, that on the night of the 18th May, 1714, the year of his accession to the throne, the Electress Sophia died. George I. remained the figure-head of the State for thirteen years, from August, 1714, to June, 1727. Of his landing at Greenwich Mr. Thackeray wrote these pungent words : — " Here we are all on our knees. Here is the Archbishop of Canterbury prostrating himself to the head of the church with Kieltnansegg and Schulenberg, with their ruddled cheeks grinning behind the defender of the faith. Here is my Lord Duke of Marlborough kneeling, too, the greatest warrior of all time ; he who betrayed King William, betrayed King James II., betrayed Queen Anne, b'etrayed England to tlie French, the Elector to the Pretender, the Pretender to the Elector ; and here are my Lords Oxford and Bolingbroke, the latter of whom has just tripped up the heels of the former, and, if a month's more time had been allowed him, would have had King James at Westminster. The great Whig gentlemen made their bows and congas with proper decorum and ceremony ; but yonder keen old schemer knows the value of their loyalty. ' Loyalty,' he must think, ' as applied to me, it is absurd ! There are fifty nearer heirs to the throne than I am. I am but an accident, and you fine Whig gentlemen take me for your own sake, not for mine. You Tories hate me; you Archbishop, smirking on your knees and prating about heaven, you know I don't care a fig for your Thirty-nine Articles, and can't understand a word of your stupid sermons. You, my Lords Bolingbroke and Oxford, you know you were conspiring against me a month ago ; and you, my Lord Duke of Marlborough, you would sell me or any man else if you found your advantage in it. Come, my good Melusina, come, my honest Sophia, let us 64 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. go into my private room, and have some oysters and some Ehine wine, and some pipes afterwards ; let us make the best of our situation ; let us take what we can get, and leave these bawling, brawling, lying English to shout, and fight, and cheat in their own way." It would have been cowardly to recall these particulars for the purpose of reflecting invidiously and by a side issue upon the throne. The Queen, or any of her successors, male or female, must ever be the one person at any particular time in the realm on whom all eyes are fixed, whose every act is watched, and who can reply to no aspersion. If the same sort of criticism applied to them were applied to others many a reputation would be effectually destroyed. If this were remembered we should probably have fewer idle and objectless attacks upon members of the. royal family. At the same time we shoidd have less of that flattery which makes every royal personage have the virtues of a saint and the wisdom of a sage. There is the line of sober, restrained loyalty and respect, not by any means connected with fulsome adulation, and to preserve that line it is above all things necessary to picture men and women exactly as they were. It is in this spirit that Mr. Thackeray treated the first Hanoverian king. The action of party in 1714 is a curious study. We have previously noted the Tories in the full flush of power, and what they did then. We have seen the Church of England in the height of its glory, and how little it did — for instance, for national education. We shall now see the Whigs in a like position. It will be our duty to notice what they performed for freedom, for " progress," for giving effect to their own principles of the Eevolution of 1688. A short time before the death of Anne, the clever and now essentially Tory intriguer, St. John, Lord Bolingbroke, triumphant over his old colleague and co-intriguer, Harley, Lord Oxford, was in the midst of a plot, with Marl- borough, and unquestionably with the Queen's real, if not avowed, concurrence, for the restoration of the exiled Stuarts. The great soldier who had won Blenheim was at the time in disgrace, on his wife's account, and in relation to those money transactions in which he and Walpole had alike fallen under public odium. IV.] STATE OF PARTIES IN 1714. 65 He was the one man, however, who could not be spared if there was to be another struggle for the throne. Accordingly when Bolingbroke had made the field clear at home for his own special intrigues, communication was opened with Marlborough ; and so fair to all appearance were the prospects that if the Queen had lived a few months longer it is probable Bolingbroke and the haughty Duchess Sarah would again have been foremost in a Stuart Court. The Whigs had foreseen this and prepared for it ; and happily there were among them some men who knew how to act both with wisdom and promptitude. Halifax, Somers, Walpole, the Duke of Somerset, and others, with the Duke of Shrewsbury in high trust, were on the alert from the moment the Queen's illness was seen to be imminently dangerous. Addison and Steele — with Lord Halifax, vigilant as a fox on the background — were pouring out their strong, and, indeed, unanswerable, appeals for the Protestant succession, depicting in terms which carried conviction everywhere the dangers of popery and arbitrary power. Flushed at once with the sense of danger and a prospect of ofi&ce, the Whig writers were at last more than a match for the brilliance of Bolingbroke and the terrible satire of Swift. Late in July Bolingbroke was triumphant and Oxford an outcast. On the 30th July — the Queen then lying at the point of death — Bolingbroke had the unwelcome spectacle of the Dukes of Argyle and Somerset appearing at court, and of the Duke of Shrewsbury receiving them as if the visit was expected. There was no longer any doubt that a counter-mine was ready to be sprung. Queen Anne died on the third day from that time. Then the Privy- Council assembled, and the Act of Succession was read. Then the Archbishop of Canterbury (Tennison), the Lord Chancellor, and the Eesident in Anne's court of the Elector of Hanover, produced sealed papers enumerating the names of eighteen persons to act for the King till he amved. Nearly all these men, in addition to others who already held office, were Whigs. There were among the dukes, Somerset, Argyle, and Devon- shire; among the lords, Halifax, Cowper, and Wharton— the man who wrote the ballad " Lillibulero," and helped to sing 66 POPULAR PROaRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. James II. iT;om the throne. Addison was made secretary as the first fruit of his reward. Marlborough — who had landed at Dover the very day after the Queen's death, and M'ho would some days later enter London in triumph, and find his carriage break down in the streets — an unlucky omen it was thought — was not even named in the list of the persons to represent the sovereign. The haughty duchess has left some remarkable pictures of her feelings under these and earlier unwonted trials. That Marlborough never succeeded in winning the sympathies of the Jacobites the literature of the time bears marked evi- dence, and as he must have known this, the proof seems strong that he never was prepared earnestly to support the exiled -family till the death of Anne. One old song, of which Bishop Burnet is the chief subject, says : — ' Of every vice he had a spice, Although a rev'rend prelate, And liVd and died, if not belied, A true Dissenting zealot. If such a soul to heaven should stroll, And 'scape old Satan's clutches, We may presume there may be room For Marlborough and the Duchess." Of all melancholy remains, however, connected with the name of Marlborough there is nothing exceeds in that way the letters of the great Sarah herself when in disgrace, when Mrs. Masham rose to the Queen's favour, and when all hope of future in- fluence had gone. How she pleaded, threatened, and sent the duke to expostulate she has left in indelible chara,cters for all time. Her bitterness remained till the grave closed upon it and her. In London, Edinburgh, Dublin, and elsewhere George was proclaimed king. On the 31st August, before the landing at Greenwich, Bolingbroke's seals were taken away, and his offices locked up. The Duke of Ormond, who went in great splendour to Greenwich, was not even received at the court held there. From that day Ormond was a, confirmed rebel, and very soon was an exile and an outlaw, a brand he bore till his death in 1747. His estates were confiscated. There only remained his name IV.] THE REBELLION OF 1715. 67 — a watchword for High Church mobs. Lord Oxford had the gratification of kissing the King's hand, but in such a fashion that he was glad afterwards to glide away unnoticed in the crowd, to await events which soon overtook hira. On the whole, perhaps, no court more intoxicating to some, and more dismal to other of several, bands of intriguers was ever held in this world than that first court of the first George. The very stolidity of the King only made it more certain that his likes and dislikes would be immutable. All power was 'now in the hands of the Whigs, of whom Walpole made himself the chief agent, and eventually the head. Lord Halifax died early in the following year, after which there was the necessary shuffling of the ministerial cards. Then Walpole's long term of office began. Meanwhile the personage known in Whig histories as the Chevalier de St. George, or the Pretender, and in Tory histories as King James the Third of England and Eighth of Scotland, had also been proclaimed in his ancient kingdom and in the north of England, and the Whigs were put on their mettle. Bolingbroke had followed the example of Ormond and crossed the English Channel. Oxford, who had wisely stood his ground, was committed to the Tower, where he lay long ; when in quieter times he was set free from Walpole's implacable animosity, he retired into private life, and made that famous collection of manuscripts which bears his name in the British Museum. By the middle of the year the Habeas Corpus Act had been suspended, and a Riot Act passed. It was full time. Lord Mar, the man so well known to history as " Bobbing John," was fast collecting men in Scotland, and soon Mr. Forster and Lord Derwentwater began their fatal march to Preston. Large mobs in every town were screaming their loudest for " High Church and Ormond," de- stroying the property of Dissenters, and denouncing the Whigs, who always had a great dislike to such denunciation. But there was no very distinct shouting for James III. Opposition to the " Hanoverian rat " did not imply love for the Stuart M'olf. In December the " Pretender " landed at Peterhead, and found his cause hopelessly wrecked. The march to England had F 2 68 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. ended in utter disaster ; Mar had been hopeless]y defeated at Sheriff Muir. On tha 5th February, 1716, the exiled Prince re-embarked at Montrose, and the throne of King George's ancestors was secure to King George. It is worth notice that the Eebellion only lasted about four months, and was sharply and strongly dealt with. It is beyond the scope of this narrative to tell in detail of what followed. Mr. Thackeray makes light of the executions ; " a few persons put to death," he says, " and a number at their own request transported;" there the affair ended. There are different traditions, however, in the north of England and in Scotland, where Forster's march and Mar's defeat are yet, together with the later and still better remembered uprising of 1745, very deeply engraven on the popular memory. In London and the soath of England generally the event was one among many, as the bloody circuit of Jeffreys is to the north of England and in Scotland. What the " campaign " of Jeffreys- is to the west of England, so are these rebellions to the north — land-mark periods from whence other events are computed. A ISTorth-countryman going into Taunton or Exeter would be amazed to find how little he knows of deeds which West-country- men and countrywomen still talk of with horror, and of names which are the terror of the little children. Exactly similar are northern traditions as to the Eebellion of '15 and '45. The old people like the familiar omission of the century. It was in '15 — there never was another '15 ; or in '45 — there never was another '45 in all the world's history. So must it have been when the Romans, during their long four centuries of rule in Britain, avenged some trifling insult by a massacre ; and so, perhaps, will it be when some future India talks of certain deeds which will not readily pass away from the records of 1857. There were very relentless acts indeed after the Eebellion. Such items as this : " Sir Thomas John, for transporting 130 Preston prisoners to the plantations, IflOOL," speak volumes when we consider what transportation to the plantations meant. It has never been alleged against Sir Eobert Walpole that he loved blood-shedding for itself, but the contrary. It is certain, however, that he never spared an IV.] THE WHIGS IN POWER: CONVOCATION. 69 opponent, or hesitated to sacrifice an enemy who might be dangerous. Before the end of 1716 there could no longer be a question that the Whig power was supreme in England, and it is important to see what efforts were made to restore to the people of England just and righteous laws. Freedom of conscience was to some extent the gainer in the repeal of the Occasional Conformity Act, and by the consignment to the limbo of unaccomplished measures of the Schism Act of Queen Anne's reign. These are* the more prominent of the services which the Whigs in their day of power rendered to that civil and religious freedom which came to be their motto. Convocation, moreover, very fortunately ceased in 1717 for considerably more than a century, and the occasion gave to this famous step the aspect of a Whig measure. Bishop Hoadley of Bangor, hoping perhaps that a new rule in the state implied new political principles in the Church, had expressed certain liberal sentiments as to Toleration, and had been taken so sharply and violently to task in Convocation, that the subject took the historic name of the Bangorian Controversy; a memorable dispute, for Bishop Hoadley was in favour of abrogating several penal laws against the free expression of opinion, while Con- vocation was ri^dly in favour of maintaining them. How the after-result came about it is difficult now to say, but orders were indicated without being given. The clergy were made to understand that the sittings of Convocation were to cease. The gist of the dispute came to be one as to the principles of the Eevolution or those of the reign of Anne, and the Whigs, who cared little for freedom of opinion, were firm as to the party lines. A few years later (1721-22) a bill was passed to enable Quakers to 'give evidence without oath. These acts so far are in favour of the Whigs. There is, however, the other side. In 1716, the Triennial Act was repealed, and a Septennial Act substituted. This was a purely Whig measure, devised for the simple purpose of preventing an election at an inconvenient time, with Tory mobs and High Church clergy, inciting to something very like 70 POPULAR PEOGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. rebellion. The measure was concocted at the house of the Duke of Devonshire, and was introduced by the Duke to the Lords. The first Septennial Parliament met in February, 1717. The Whigs next tried to restrict the Eoyal prerogative as to additions. to the Peerage, but after carrying the Bill through the House of Lords it was defeated in the Commons — on the real ground, wicked writers have said, that the gentlemen of the Lower House were unwilling to destroy their own chances of becoming peers. An Act was also passed for " the Encourage- ment of Loyalty in Scotland " By this Act a loyal tenant was empowered to claim the estates of a malcontent landlord, or a son the estates of a father. It will be seen what a cunningly devised as well as wicked act this was, and how if carried out it must have completely reduced Scotland to the sad condition of Ireland. No one, in these days, will be at all likely to fall into the error of supposing that these measures were concocted from patriotic motives. At the same time it must be remembered that there was even then a broad line of distinc- tion between a "Whig who understood Whiggery and a Tory who understood Toryism. In all our history we shall rarely find a purely Whig mob, shouting for the restriction of freedom, as we shall scarcely ever find a Tory mob shouting for any- thing else. This principle came somehow to be inwoven into the nature of things. There were some very good Tories ; Bishop Atterbury, for instance, was undoubtedly an excellent man, as he certainly was an able writer. There were some very bad Whigs ; Lord Wharton, to whom reference has been made and who died early in this reign, was an utter debauchee, only less abandoned than his son, whose name became a synonym for licentiousness. Many of the Whigs were excessively narrow in their views, and still more so in their social action. Many Tories were broad and generaus, both in social action and in opinions. Yet the fact remains that when the action of the two parties came into collision on the basis of distinctive principles, the Whigs were generally in the right. When they came into collision, on personal or patty grounds, the reverse was much oftener the fact. IV.] SOUTH SEA SCHEME: THE YOUNG PRETENDER. 71 King George and the Whigs had another very considerable advantage besides the defeat of the so-called Pretender in 1715. Louis XIV., the arch disturber of Europe, the man against whose brilliant combinations and brilliant selection of servants, the genius of "William III. had all but struggled in vain, and for which only Marlborough was a fitting match, had died ; and more than one European Court breathed more freely. During this reign, also, the wars with Spain and otherwise, the cost of the King's mistresses, and the corruption in the public service had raised the national debt enormously. The amount was now becoming a little alarming. At the time most needed, however; the famous Blount brought gladness to court, ministry, and nation by undertaking to wipe the debt away, almost as with a sponge. A man named Law, had previously proposed to the French Government a like project, which went under the name of the Mississipi Scheme. Blount, with an equally great genius; formed a South Sea Scheme, and he was hailed as the saviour of society, as if society ever had been saved by financial " schemes." Unhappily for Blount, Law's bubble burst at the most unfortunate of times, just before the English financial harvest could be reaped. Then the South Sea Bubble burst also, and there 'Was such ruin as we can scarcely understand or compute in these days. These facts were a trouble and a thorn to the Government for many a year. There was still another trouble, and one perhaps that vexed King George most of all. In 1720, the wife of the gentleman who called himself James III., had been foolish enough to have a son. If King George could have sent out a dagger and a poison-bowl, and insisted on one or the other being used, all would have been well. As he could not, there was sore distress to Sophia of ZeU, George's wife, and to the Countess of Kendal, and some other people of her kind. "Worst of all, when the news camb to England the Jacobites drew together, and among them the famous Bishop Atterbury, who was caught in the fact — clear and undoubted treason — and sent to the Tower, and then exiled. At Calais he met the still more notable Jacobite, Lord Bolingbroke, who had had his outlawiy reversed and his estates restored. "My Lord," said the poor 72 POPULAR PKOGEESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. Bishop, "then we are exchanged." And they were. Boling- broke returned to write wittily, sarcastically, and without an a bom of conviction for many future years. There was another cause of great uneasiness to the Govern- ment. "With or without reason, people would print fly-sheets, squibs, and all improper things, secular and religious; and among other pubhcations there was one called the Weekly Journal, a Jacobite paper, which gave the Government no end of trouble. They at last caught Eichard Burridge, corrector for the Press, and ordered him to be whipped from the new church in the Strand to Charing Cross, to pay a fine of 20?., and to be imprisoned a month. Nathaniel Mist also had had the imperti- nence to put a few questions with respect to the Spanish war — questions such as, " What are you going to war for ? " Nothing of a worse nature. He was sentenced to stand twice in the pillory, to pay a fine of 50Z., to be imprisoned for three months, and to give security for seven years. The severity of the fine may be judged from the fact that the average cost each of poor persons, as shown by the books of a number of Poorhouses, was Is. ?>d. a week. Later, Mr. Mist was committed to Newgate by the House of Commons. These are a few from many specimens of comparatively lenient punishment. Very much greater severity was at times used. In the year 1719 a man named John Matthews had ventured to write a pamphlet entitled. Vox Populi, Vox Dei : being the true maxivis of Government; proving that all Kings, Governors, and forms of Gcvernment, proceed from the People." Por this, John Matthews was apprehended, and executed at Tyburn. Here were some of our precedents, "to broaden down" to other pre- cedents for Press prosecutions. There was a great compen- sation, however, for all this. Matthews, Mist, and Burridge might suffer; but Addison had died in glory; and so had Matthew Prior ; and Dick Steele had been made Sir Eichard. No one could dispute that the Press was in great honour. The punishment of a few such persons as these obscure publicists was not to be set off against polite literature, and the honours paid to it in the persons of Addison and Sir Eichard Steele. IV. IMMORAL CLUBS: DEATH OP GEORGE L 7S One other memorable fact iu this reign was the institution of what were termed Immoral Clubs. When the general subject of national immorality was brought before the House of Lords, and these clubs were referred to, one so-called nobleman objected to restricting freedom, and Lord Wharton, son of the great 'Whig nobleman and debauchee, pulled a Bible from his pocket and offered to discuss one part of the subject under consideration with some of the bishops. This occurred some time in 1721. There is every reason to believe that the bishops as a body would treat the 'scene in which Lord Wharton figured as an ebullition of youthful spirits. Pope, with poetic truth, termed the Bible-loving lord " the shame and wonder of his age." The immorality of the time had its first representative in the King. His low tastes, the utterly vulgar manner in which he flaunted his vices in the face of the public, in which he suffered Church livings and bishoprics to be sold by vicious mistresses to vicious priests, were sufiBcient to infect all society. The King was on his way to Hanover, after his favourite custom of holiday-making, when there were unmistakable signs that his end was at hand. He was hurried, as fast as possible, along with his mistress, the Duchess of Kendal, to the palace of his brother the Bishop of Osnaburg; but he died on the way, and, it is greatly to be feared, without having taken the Sacrament. " His heart," Mr. Thackeray says, " was in Hanover to the last " ; but he adds, after weighing all misdeeds rigidly, " I for one would have been on his side in those days. Cynical and selfish as he was, he was better than a king out of St. Germains, with the French king's orders in his pocket, and a swarm of Jesuits in his train." Mr. Thackeray is right. The Hanoverian king had a stupid sense of truth, which was better than a brilliant sense of falsehood. He came to rule England as a young landowner might come to rule an estate he never had seen and which he never had expected to inherit. He cared nothing for the tenants ; his heart was with those other tenants, to whom he had been known as a boy. But he was no hypocrite. He had no religion to conceal, as Charles II. had ; no religion to secure by secret conspiracy, as James had. He had a method of 74 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. iv. refusing to permit hand-kissing in certain cases, as that of Ormond ; and of inaking the kiss a very chilly one, as in that of Oxford ; and of going direct at an enemy, taking him in front, as he took Forster and Mar. In much the reign was not good, not wholesome, but one " would have been on the side of Eling George in those days ; " " he was better than a king out of St. Germains, with a French king's orders in his pocket, and a a swarm of Jesuits in his train." How different, though, from even the throne of Charles II., of James II., of WiUiam, and of Anne, was the throne of England when George I. went away on that last visit to Hanover ! Perhaps the contrast does not yet appear as it will to future times, but it was a marked contrast. He was no prince among men who had been chosen for the throne of Alfred. He did not affect the least regard for England, or for English interests; and his apathy was not redeemed by kingliness of spirit and deport- ment, as in the case of William III. King George and his people never even pretended to like each other ; but they both knew that the union all the same was compatible with great interests, and in the end, against all appearances, they made it and great interests accord. CHAPTEE V. A CHASM OF 'tRIBTY-FIVE YEARS.— THE EVENTS OF GEORGE THE SECOND'S REIGN j FROM THE REIGN OF GEORGE III. A Hundred Years — National Debt — Lord Bute — Frederick Prince of Wales — "William Pitt — Death of the Prince of Wales — Leicester House and the Priuce — The Boy Patriots — Pitt's Brotbers-in-Law, Lord Temple and Mr. George GrenviUe — Carteret, Lord Granville — Lord Lyttelton — Lord Holland —The Pelhams— Walpole from 1727 to 1741— His Secret Service Money — His Hireling Press — His Contempt for Nonconformist Grievances — First Prime Minister — Pitt — Dettingen — Pulteney and Carteret in Power — Henry Pelham's Government — Fontenoy — Prince Charles — Prestonpans — Advance into England — Retreat from Derby — Falkitk Moor — CuUoden — Cruel Policy after Culloden — Death of Pelham — The Newcastle Government— Pitt — Lord Mansfield — Pitt's Administration— Overthrown — Lord Hardwicke's Intrigue — His Views on the Law of Libel^ — Henley, Lord Northington — Mr. Pratt, Lord Camden — Lord Chancellors Yorke and Bathurst — Traditions and Principles of the Bar — Political Prizes of the Bar — Morals of the Great Lawyers — Political Judges. It is important to observe, that from the beginning of the reign of Charles II. to the beginning of the reign of George III. — that is, from the beginning of the Glorious Eestoration to the beginning of the glorious overturning of the Eestoration — was very nearly a hundred years. Charles II. began to reign in May, 1660. George III. began to reign in October, 1760. "We have spanned part of the chasm in the foregoing chapter. Let us endeavour to span the remainder — thirty-five among the most curious and eventful years of our history — looking back from the year 1763. George III. has now been about three years on ■the throne. The national debt stands at 139,000,000Z., with a yearly interest of nearly 5,000,000/. We find a new public 76 POPULAR PROGKBSS IN ENGLAND. [chap. spirit ; new impulses, to which previous times afford no counter- part. If the chasm were as real as we have made it, and the reader could be asked in fact to blot out all knowledge of the period from the end. of the reign of George I. to the third year of the reign of George III., what a chasm it would be. Of politics — ministries — ^what is it we perceive ? There is the Earl of Bute, First Lord of the Treasury, " a fine, showy man, who would make an excellent ambassador in any court where there is no business." So Frederick, Prince of Wales, said ; and he was much nearer the truth than usual when he ventured on epigram. Frederick, as the reader wUl remem- ber, was George II.'s son, and George III.'s father, a person possessing a great gift for rhyming, and repartee, and dinner- giving, and dicing, and all that belongs to that idle sort of life. He had found his way — say, in 1737 — to form a Prince's Party, as opposed to the Party of the Sovereign in the State. He had a house of his own, and a wife who assisted him to attract to their saloons a portion, at least, of the wit and wild ability of the young men then looking for a part in public affairs. There was one young man in particular, named WiUiam Pitt, whom Prince Frederick attracted. He was the son of an ex- Governor of Madras who had died in 1726, the son then about eighteen years of age, and noted for cleverness amongst those who knew him. He entered the House of Commons in 1735 as a member for Old Sarum, and hence under the direct shelter of a borough system that he was destined to effectively sap and impair. Sir Eobert Walpole was then at the head of the King's Govern- ment, and as the King's Government and the party of Prince Frederick were in antagonism, the friends of the Prince were the opponents of Sir Eobert. Mr. Pitt was a cornet in the Blues when he began to make speeches in the spirit of the Prince's Party, and Sir Eobert Walpole dismissed him from his cornetcy, a very serious pecuniary punishment at the time, for the cornet was as poor as he was aspiring. Prince Frederick, however, compensated him for the loss by an ofiBce in " the household" for which he had been martyred ; and Pitt remained in the House of Commons to thunder his anathemas against Walpole. The v.] THE "BOY PATRIOTS:" PITT. 77 veteran minister found a term of opprobrium to apply to these young men of the Party of Prince Frederick. He called them " The Boys," and " The Boy Patriots," and perhaps history will decide that Sir Eobert was right in many of his anathemas against the conduct and assumption of " the Boys." Happily for Pitt, at the very moment when Bolingbroke, again a courtier and a lord of fashion, was engaged in celebrating the merits of Prince Frederick as a prospective king, Prince Frederick had the one summons (1751) which can neither be disputed nor postponed. His'little son, afterwards Gj-eorge III., was left heir to the throne. Leicester House, where the Prince had held his great parties, was now ruled by his wife, the Princess Augusta of SaxBTGotha, whom observant people have said her husband had really loved. Both Prince and Princess, however, had been at open feud with the King and Queen. Prince Frederick's mother, on her death- bed, had refused even to see her son, and it is on record that, to the last, the King had no great affection for Prince Frederick's wife. George, at the time of his father's death, was a lad of about twelve years of age, one of eight children, with very little right guidance. His mother's favourite was Lord Bute, and Lord Bute was simply a lay figure where character and resolution were needed. There was, so far, very little in Mr. Pitt's course to indicate the man of whom George II. afterwards said, in the bitterness of his heart, " Sir, it is you who have taught me to look beyond Parliament" — that is, to look for opinions and influences bearing on State policy. Of Leicester House, during the life of the Prince, the least that can be said is that it must have been a scene of all that is least noble in what is called Society. Prince Frederick fancied himself a wit and a poet. He was a gambler ; he had mistresses without concealment. H6 went disguised to bull-baiting rings. He had, it is said, his fortune told three times in thirteen months. He left enormous debts, which never were paid. It is not pleasant to think of "William Pitt having had any place whatever in Leicester House. Pitt, however, who was lucky in Frederick's death — for Frederick would have been King — had also been lucky a few years 78 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. previously (1744) in receiving a legacy of 10,000Z. from the old Duchess of Marlborough, who thus rewarded the man who had been the greatest thorn in the side of her old and unrelent- ing enemy Walpole. The ex- cornet of horse thereupon had resigned his post in the household of the Prince — a fact that has been differently interpreted by different persons in the estimate qf his probity and public spirit. Did he strike out a new path because he was at last independent ? The best interpretation is the right of the foremost statesman of the age to act upon his own convictions. He had resolved to support the Government of the King. He had no longer any right to place in the house- hold of the Prince. It can hardly be doubted — for he was William Pitt — that he was sick of the intrigue, of seeing and enduring the inanity of society rotten to the core — sick of the frippery and hoUowness, even if he could have endured the wickedness of those scenes. Among the " Boy Patriots " were also the two Grenvilles, whose sister Pitt had married — Lord Temple, a bitter, pungent speaker, hated by George II. with a great hatred ; and George Grenville, destined to a short Premiership, which would be described as the most fatal England had ever known. Pitt, Lord Macaulay says, was the most uxorious of husbands, and certainly his lot was strangely intertwined with that of his wife's brothers. There were also in Parliament Lord Carteret (after- wards Lord GranviUe), at one time a colleague, and then a bitter rival of Walpole ; a man of great eloquence, and supposed to be equal to any office in the State. There was Lord Townshend, brother-in-law of Walpole ; but Lord Townshend, with great temper, retired before Sir Eobert's illimitable ambition, pre- ferring privacy to a state of chronic warfare. There was Lord (Jhesterfield, the wit, the leader of fashion, the patron, in the offensive sense, of literature, an effective debater, and also an enemy of the all-powerful minister. There was Lord Lyttelton, brilliant enough to be to the Opposition what Sheridan was to an Opposition later in history, and fortunate enough in due time to become Chancellor of the Exchequer, with the reputation of a great skill in verse- writing, and, like Sheridan, an inability to do v.] WALPOLE AND HIS ENEMIES. 79 a rule-of-three sum. There was Mr. Henry Fox (Lord Holland), father of the leader of another generation of Whigs, and grand- father of another Lord Holland, who would also speak with great effect against arbitrary laws apd arbitrary government. Mr. Fox was known as an ungraceful speake?; ungraceful alike in style and gesture, but possessing in debate skill of the highest order, and with the advantage of having learned under Walpole the whole art of statecraft. He was reputed a little loose in conduct, and inexact in money affairs ; but when he spoke on great principles, he spoke as Charles Fqx spoke in later years, with no regard for anything hut the simple right. The picture as a whole njight almost serve for that of the greater leader of another generation of Whigs, Lord Holland's famous son. There were also the Pelhams — rthe Duke of Newcastle, and his brother, Mr. Henry Pelham — the latter the favourite minister of George II., an adroit aud safe man, and till his death, in 1754, a man of great influence in the strife of parties. Of the Duke of Newcastle, a volume might be written. He was everywhere pronounced, in his absence, the clumsiest, awkwardest, most blundering, most ignorant, and, it was added, in many respects, the most successful man of his time. He was the one man who would sacrifice most for ' the power of conferring patronage, as Pitt was the one man who would most readily sacrifice all power of patronage to that of imperial rule. He tasted all the sweets and all the sours of office ; he has still the reputation of having been the best-abused and most unmercifully caricatured man of the age. There was Mr. Pulteney, whose sting Walpole had yet to feel. These are perhaps the chief characters upon which we look backward over the chasm of years, from 1763 to 1727. In the end Sir Eobert Walpole stood almost alone, or alone with the Pelhams, learning from experience the bitterness of the cup he had forced upon Harley. He stands pictured before us from 1727 to the end of 1741 like a piece of adamant. To the " Boys," — ^the " Patriots " — it is difiicult to say into which word he threw the greater contempt — he replied by proving what he had formerly asserted, that he knew how to manage the Commons, and, by a cynical adaptation of the axiom, justly or 80 POPULAR PEOGEESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. unjustly marked against his name, that all men have their price. In ten years he had spent a million-and-a-half of secret service money. 30,000^. are set down to an earl and 7,000Z. to a duke for services not specified ; and these are but specimens of many like facts. 170,000^. are entered as payments to a hireling Press, and a portion of the amount assuredly went to writers whose names have not come down to us as those of hirelings. For literature in itself Sir Eobert had the heartiest contempt — ciuious when one thinks of him as the father of such a son. For opposition literature he had a hearty hatred. " Scruples of conscience " he laughed to scorn. A " deputation " waited upon him one day to represent a Nonconformist grievance ; and Sir Robert, as was his wont, took refuge in an entrenchment. " The time was not , come,'' he said. An obnoxious person replied, " You say, sir, that the time has not come ; and as you have said so before, will you excuse me asking when the time will come ? " Certainly, Sir Eobert had no objection to such a question so courteously put He could even be jocular in such a case, and barb his arrow at the same time. He replied, in effect, that since the question had been put to him, he was bound to say that the time would never come. We must remember here that the man of whom all this was said, and will be said, was the representa- tive "Whig in Parliament. When the servility of the Press has been spoken of, however, it has been replied, and not unjustly, on his behalf, that he merely did what Bolingbroke and Pulteney did in opposition to him, and that, unlike them, he did it on a kind of sardonic method and with contempt. Yet he boasted, and not without some ground of reason, that he was the only man of his time who really tried to make the Press free. He was more disposed to buy writers than to hang them in chains or set them in the pillory. He had a Puritan's love for in- tellectual victory where the victory carried with it, or repre- sented, power. All else, — of style, or grace, or even thought, — was_only so much rubbish. He believed himself practical, and he was practical. If he had been the owner of stage-coaches he would have had the best coaches in England, and his accounts would have been the clearest in England — to himself. He v.] WALPOLE FIRST PRIME MINISTER. 81 would have had no sympathy with the Marquis of Worcester's wild notions of a new power to supersede coaches. He hated debts as he hated inefficiency. In his expenditure of money and life he was extremely careful to adjust means to ends. In his use of the human wiU he was lavish and inexorable. A man might have a conscience, and welcome ; but if he used it carelessly. Sir Eobert knew how to stop the supplies. It was related, truly or untruly, as a proof at once of his tact and effrontery, that on a certain occasion when a measure, to which the bishops generally were opposed, was to come before the Lords, he wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury (who had owed to him the archbishopric, and had frequently expressed his gratitude), asking him to keep close to his room for a day, and ask no questions. The Archbishop, it is said, did as he was required, and Walpole caused a report to reach all the bishops that his grace of Canterbury was ill, and on the point of death. Mean- while the measure was carried, the bishops as a body having also been suddenly taken ill with the disease of ambition for the archiepiscopal palace. This, if true, would show a very coarse, sardonic waggery in the old minister, but, true or not, it is certain that he despised those whom he was able to buy. In 1741 Mr. Sandys, reputed a Eepublican, moved that Sir Eobert Walpole be dismissed from His Majesty's councils. Sir Eobert, in the course of an able reply, complained that he had, with a kind of mock dignity, been styled " Prime Minister," and now he had imputed to him the unpardonable abuse of power which that spurious dignity conferred. In fact, like Whig and Tory, Quaker and Methodist, John Bull and Brother Jonathan, the term " Prime Minister" was at first a nickname. Sir Eobert Peel, Lord Palmerston, Mr. Gladstone, and others have taken quite a different view of their distinction as Prime Minister. Walpole was victorious in both the Lords and Commons, but the latter House had run to very nearly its seven years of existence, and when a new Parliament met, the astute minister found his hitherto invariable majorities coming to an end, and perhaps he had reason to doubt whether, if it was true that every man had his price, the purchase was not becoming 82 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. too costly. He resigned his post iu 1742, after fully twenty years of almost unrestricted power. He tried hard, before vacating office, to induce his own colleague, Pulteney, to pro- mise that there should be no impeachment, but Pulteney is said to have coldly repulsed the advance, while Pitt thundered out charges terrific and irresistible. A Secret Committee was appointed to examine accounts, but from the material supplied nothing was discovered against the fallen minister. When the Committee asked for an indemnification of witnesses as the only means of procxiring trustworthy evidence, the motion, in spite of Pitt's eloquence to the contrary, was rejected. Meanwhile Walpole, now Lord Orford,- retired into privacy, and there found a solace for his misfortunes in a collection of fine paintings, as his rival, Harley, had found a like solace in his collection of rare or precious manuscripts. Few more instructive pictures of the mutability of political power have come down to us from any time. . No picture from this particu- lar time represents more fuUy the humiliation of ambitious men. Let us remember that the men were not earnest politicians. No number of defeats ever humbled some statesmen whose names rise to one's pen. Walpole died in March, 1745, leaving a character which, in spite of a very clever son to defend it, will always remain a type of that kind of intellectual and moral power by which nations are often ruined, and only very rarely saved. On the break up of this famous ministry there was a complete disintegration of parties. The Whigs had lost their distinctive characteristics and power. Pitt and Fox, Carteret and Pulteney, the Pelhams, and others, were intermingled, and the question of who should take office with whom, was decided, not by principles, but by personal attachment. The one figure that rises above all others is that of Pitt. He alone cannot be reckoned upon with a view to pecuniary interest, as neither, however, can he be slighted when the King chooses his advisers. His infiuence on his time must not be estimated by errors such as were involved in his relation to the Prince's party, or his leaning to one sort of pohticians at one period, and to a different order of men at another. It is not fair even to remember, with Lord Macaulay, v.] WALPOLE AND PITT. 83 in connection with the Ducliess of Marlborough's legacy, that the young orator, immediately after that happy event, became a courtier. We can only take the broad characteristics of a great life ; and taken for this one period alone, when as yet the faculties were but half developed, it presents an aspect of states- manship with which no other life of the period can compare. It may or may not be true that the daring statesman intended to teach George II. to l6ok beyond even Parliament for the greater opinion of the nation; but whether he meant it or not that assuredly is the lesson of his life and statesmanship. One feature of Walpole's administration is worth notice. He strongly and persistently adhered to the Septennial Act, which the Tories very resolutely attempted to repeal ; a curious fact when judged by the political relations and action of the Tories in later years. To Sir Eobert Walpole we owe the first of oiir much- talked-of sinking funds for the reduction of the National Debt. The idea was mooted by Lord Stanhope, and came into operation in 1718 ; but it was unsuccessful, and the principle of a sinking fund was not recurred to again till 1786. It was then brought forward on the authority of the younger Pitt, and established as a sound principle of finance ; but it was finally, after a long series of adjustments, discarded in 1829, and the principle of payment of debt from surplus revenue adopted as the only sound principle of political economy. Still, to Sir Eobert Walpole is accorded the honour of the only attempt made for a long period of years to lessen the ever-increasing debt. Take again the picture from another point of view, stiU standing on the eminence of 1763. When Walpole died in 1745, George II. had been on the throne nearly nineteen years. He had made peace with Spain in 1729 ; had declared war against Spain in 1739 ; had secured, as he thought, the Austrian Succession by finding fresh guarantees for the Pragmatic Sanc- tion ; had taken part in the subsequent wars of the Austrian Succession, with men and money set down by Pitt and the nation to the debit of Hanover; had shown great personal bravery at Dettingen; and, finally, had been called home by news of the Pretender. With part of this Walpole had been G 2 84 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. intimately concerned ; part he had heard of in his retirement. He heard also that England was in a state of chronic disaffection, almost amounting to rebellion, and he knew that if disaster hefel the royal arms on the continent, another effort would be made to win back the crown for the exiled line. Nothing perhaps was more fortunate for the King than his behaviour on that notable day at Dettingen. His horse, people told all over England, had inclined to run away, when George leaped to the ground, and led his men to victory — quite certain, Mr. Thackeray says, that there would be no running away now. Walpole had seen also the scramble for power that followed his retirement. There were Pitt, Fox, Pulteney, the Pelhams, the GrenviUes, all ready to take the helm of affairs. He had seen Carteret and Pulteney try their skill, and fall under the public opprobium. He had seen Pelham Prime Minister in 1743 ; the Broad-Bottomed Ministry, still under Pelham, in 1744. Then he saw little more, save that Pitt, who had denounced both Carteret and Pulteney, agreed at last to support Pelham. It was a curiously shifting scene on which the ex-minister must have looked at that time. He did not see the grandeur of Pitt's character; he did see much of its littleness. He did not see that in that one man there was a spark that might set Europe aflame. He did see that there was a power sufficient to overturn ministries and to render the safe government of the nation doubtful. On the 11th of May, 1745, the battle of Eontenoy was fought. The Duke of Cumberland was defeated. On the 25th of July Prince Charles Edward landed at Inverness, with seven officers, a few hundred muskets, and a private purse, not over large, in place of the treasure-chest which usually accompanies the heroes of great wars. In September he defeated Sir John Cope at Prestonpans — a wonderful battle of ten minutes' duration, and almost identically of the same character as Dundee's famous victory of KiUiecrankie. On the 1st of November Charles began that romantic march into England which ever since has been the theme of story and song. He had six thousand men, very imperfectly armed. Marshal Wade v.] THE REBELLION OF 1745. 85 had ten thousand at Derby, and the Duke of Cumberland was fast organising a much larger army. Worst of all, England showed no sign of adopting the Stuart cause. A few hundreds of Lancashire men, who afterwards paid bitterly for their folly, were all, south of the Tweed, who took up arms for King James and the Pope. The retreat from Derby began on December the 6th ; and there are yet records in many a Cumberland and West- moreland farmhouse of the scenes that occurred during that famous raid home. On the 17th of January, 1746, the Prince gallantly defeated General Hawley at Falkirk Moor. On the 16th of April he was himself entirely defeated at Culloden Moor, and the power of the Stuarts was for ever broken. It has been questioned whether the policy adopted after Culloden — the policy that added to the titles of the Duke of Cumberland that of " Butcher " — or a policy of mercy would have been more statesmanlike. On the one hand it was necessary that rebellion should be distinctly marked dangerous ; that men who played, or assisted others to play, for the highest of earthly stakes should be warned in advance that they played with double-edged tools. Human instinct never has failed to recognise the fact that rebel- lion, just or unjust, indicates an intention, at great cost of life, to force and destroy existing law ; and as human life and all the interests of society depend upon law, rebellion never can be counted a light offence. On the other hand the circumstances were peculiar. The expulsion of the male Stuart line was so recent, and, considering the reign of Anne, there had been so little of expulsion at all, so far as the family generally was concerned, while in the case of the Hanoverian line the title was so far removed, that mercy might, as we now see, have been far the truer policy. Indeed this seems to have been, sub- sequently, the opinion even of the royal family itself, if it be true, as there seems no reason to doubt it is, that the so-caUed " Young Pretender " was present in London, as he thought in secrecy, at a very eventful time, and that his presence there was known to the King. A strangely romantic fiction may some day be woven on the foundation of that visit. Pelham was at the head of affairs, but Pitt was in the 86 POPULAR PEOaRBSS IN ENGLAND. [chap, government, when the cruel policy after Cnlloden was adopted. Pitt had evinced his public spirit by refusing, as Paymaster- General, to accept from foreign powers a percentage on subsidies ; a disgraceful practice of his predecessors. We do not find, however, that when these cruelties were ordered his voice was heard on the side of mercy. Seventeen executions on Ken- nington Common, with tortures "prescribed by law in cases of, treason;" nine at Carlisle; six at Brampton; seven at Penrith; eleven at York ; fifty in Scotland for desertion, and eighty-one more for treason are among the many fearful pictures of the time. The general atrocities of the army could not be chronicled. Transportation to the plantations was on such a scale that many a village in Scotland must have been well-nigh depopulated. The distress was terrible. The law and the military went hand in hand. But the people, with the truer instinct, called the one most notable man " Butcher," and revolted against the inhuman deeds of many concerned in what was called a righteous retribution. We look again at the period of Mr. Pelham's death in 1754, and the succession of his brother, the Duke of Newcastle, to the premiership. We see Pitt and Fox both insulted in the new arrangements. Then we see Fox appeased and appointed to high of&ce, and Pitt and he separated for ever. We see Pitt once more in the front of the Opposition, his fiery eloquence bearing down aU before it, rousing the country as no speeches in Parliament ever had roused it before since the history of Parliament began. We see the city of London and the pro- vincial large towns compensating the disgraced minister for the dislike of the King ; voting him addresses such as no subject ever before had received ; calling him the " Great Commoner " and the Nation's Friend. We see the royal dislike at length to all appearance overcome, and Pitt Secretary of State. Then we hear rumours that the Duke of Cumberland is dissatisfied, that the King is dissatisfied; and finally we find Pitt, after five months of office, driven from the councils of the King. During those five months, however, his fine spirit had not been idle ; a Militia Bill had been carried, and two regiments of Highlanders v.] LORD MANSFIELD. 87 had been enrolled for the service of the crown On his dismissal from office we find the city of London readier than ever to accept him as its chief ; to make his name a household word in a sense altogether new in English politics. Addresses came to him as in a shower ; pamphlets, fly-sheets, newspapers, street criers — all proclaimed the glory of his name, of his disinterested- ness, of his lofty grandeur. No king or court could disregard this contagious enthusiasm. A great lawyer, WOliam Murray (Lord Mansfield), now appeared on the scene — a man in his time credited with great wisdom and calm address ; a man, moreover, of proved and rare eloquence, and whose name has remained the pride of two generations of lawyers and politicians. The biographer of Lord Shelburne, however, has recently given publicity to some strange views of Lord Mansfield in an autobiographic sketch, for which, in the first instance. Lord Shelburne must be held responsible. " Like the generality of the Scotch," he says, " Lord Mansfield had no regard to truth whatever. Sir Thomas Clark, Master of the Eolls, said to Sir Eardly Wilmot, ' You and I have lived long in the world, and of course have met with a great many liars ; but did you ever know such a liar as Will Murray, whom we have seen capable of lying before twelve people, every one of whom, he knows, knows also that he lies ? ' " That any honest writer would care to publish this so long after Lord Mansfield's death, can only be explained on the ground that there was a conscientious purpose to serve — that is, a purpose which unserved would to that extent be a public loss ; but, conscientious or not, one may well cling to the belief that Lord Shelburne was wrong, as his autobiographic sketch shows him to have been bitter and vindictive, and that Lord Mansfield was a little higher in character than the picture given of him by this unsparing critic. Lord Mansfield was the person appointed to negotiate with Mr. Pitt for a Pitt-Newcastle government, and he succeeded in smoothing away difficulties. Now began Pitt's wonderful administration, one of the most marvellous instances ever given of the power of one individual to transform great disaster into 88 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. great success. It has been said that the time had come when the strength of the nation could in any case have been put forth successfully ; but look at the picture as we may, as it stands in the unfaded colours of the time, and we find evidence that on sea and land, in Europe, in Asia, and in America, every soldier and sailor and administrator felt that confidence which genius at the head of affairs inspires. Never before in human memory had there been a feeling so distinct that it was a proud thing to be an Englishman, because never before since the Common- wealth had great victories and great administration resulted from the pushing aside, as it were, of throne and court and all little cliques and coteries by the kingship of a Great Commoner. It was this that gave to Pitt the peculiarity of his position. He was at the helm of affairs, not because the King wished him to be so, but because the national instinct pointed to his virtual kingship as the only means of preserving the nation from ruin. We see all this wonderful vigour and energy cut short in its work by the death of the King. The person in favour at Leicester House was not Pitt, but the Marqais of Bute. The Great Commoner gave place to the showy gentleman who wo.uld have made an excellent ambassador in a court where there was nothing to do. It is recorded, and the fact is too charming to be overlooked, that old Lord Hardwicke (Sir Philip Yorke), who had been Walpole's Lord Chancellor in 1737, hurried away to Carlton House as quickly as carriage and horses could go when he heard of the King's death. Up to that time he had been an almost unnoticed member of Pitt's government. He was seventy years old, and supposed to be preparing his last will and testament, and putting his affairs in order, so that his mind, when there was no longer any mistake as to the approach of the last enemy, might be free for the proper solemnities. See him now, hastening away to catch the first rays of the rising sun, and to help to write the young King's royal speech. George was at that time twenty-three years of age, and much guided by his mother — the wise lady who is reported to have afterwards said almost with her last breath, "George, be a King." What the Princess meant then was that v.] THE LAW OF LIBEL AND JURIES. 89 her son should determine to retain the power in his own hands. She meant the same thing now, when a decision had to be made between her favourite, Bute, and Pitt. While the latter was minister, it was clear he must also be, in some essential particulars, king. Lord Bute would be gentleman usher simply, and George would be king. So Lord Hardwicke was successful in bringing about a much happier state of things, and after a few shifting political scenes, in which Bute is seen pressing himself, or is being pressed more and more into power, and Pitt is seen as gradually giving place, the great object was attained. So much we perceive of the statesmanship of the period on which we look back from 1763 to 1727. There is something very suggestive and instructive in the lives of certain lawyers of high position at this time. There is Lord Hardwicke, whom we have seen able to run away, at seventy years of age, in his anxiety for a new career in the new reign. He was the judge who condemned the rebel lords in 1746, and the terms in which he performed his sad duty were considered unnecessarily harsh and severe. He was notable also for having enunciated the law that juries, in cases of libel, were merely to consider questions of fact, as to the writing, or publication, or the inferences (the inuendoes — that is, whether K — g meant King, and so on) while the judge alone was to declare the law. Happily, juries never accepted Lord Hardwicke's reading of the law, and Mr. Pulteney wittily wrote of the ruling : — " For Sir Philip well knows, That his inuendoes Will serve him no longer, In verse or in prose, For twelve honest men have decided the cause. Who are judges alike of the facts and the laws." The two last lines Lord Campbell says were afterwards misquoted by Lord Mansfield, as : — " Who are judges of fact, though not judges of laws." There was also Mr. Henley, Lord ISTorthington, of whom Lord Campbell says, that " he held the great seal for nine years, in 90 POPULAR PROGEESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. two reigns, and during the whole of four administrations, the last of which he overturned." He was born in the reign of Anne (1708), in the midst of Marlborough's victories, and received the "Great Seal," in Mr. Pitt's administration, in 1757. Mr. Pratt (Lord Camden), Attorney-General, was in the same adminis- tration, and lived to see greater events than any recorded here in connection with his name. There was Lord Chancellor Yorke, son of Lord Hardwicke, born while his father, then Attorney-General, was engaged in Press and other prosecutions. He received the Great Seal in 1770, but a few days later died. There was Lord Bathurst, very active in his efforts to climb to place and power, though he did not receive the Great Seal till 1771. Then there was Lord Thurlow, who lived from 1732 to 1806, and who was, till Eldon, the type Tory of the age ; a man, it is said, affectionate in the relations of family life, a great friend of men of letters, a most devout Churchman, and one of the most accomplished profane swearers ever known on the Bench. It will probably have occurred to the reader that the tradi- tions of the Bar are in most respects different from those of the Church, the Army, the Navy, or even the House of Commons. The barrister, far more clearly than the clergyman, has his professional epochs identified with particular lives, and the sepa- ration of the Chancery from the Common Law Courts is more a fiction than a fact. Lord Mansfield was a boy when Lord Somers died, but the traditions of Lord Somers were as fresh in the Courts over which Lord Mansfield presided as if the stories had related to events of yesterday. There is another peculiarity in the legal chain of tradition. The arena of battle, wide as it may appear, is really brought within a very small compass. The fight for the semi-political office of Solicitor-General or Attorney- General, and for the Chief-Justiceship or the Great Seal — really also semi-political offices, though probably no lawyer would admit as much — are fought within a very small area in London, and under circumstances altogether favourable to legal tradition. Dr. Hook, in telling the story of the Archbishops, had to follow his heroes into far-away benefices, quiet professor- v.] TRADITIONS OF THE BAR. 91 ships, erudite works written in' country rectories, sermons preached in country churches. There is nothing in the Church corresponding to the Bar mess, to the bands of brotherhood on the circuits, to the narrowing of political effort in London. Lord Campbell had, for all essential purposes, the arena of his Lives in London, and in a, very confined area of London; the circuits are only Westminster extended. Then the gentlemen of the Bar have their prizes narrowed to a few distinct features, and in most cases there is no attempt to hide the ambition. *If a clergyman avowed his determination to make every effort bend to his becoming a bishop, the best men among the clergy would disown his ambition as an unholy thing. But when such a man as Mr. Wedderburn, for instance, came up from Scotland to London, determined to be Lord Chancellor — bent by bitter tongue, and an unswerving line of conduct, to be that if possible, he simply did what was strictly professional and what his brethren would allow to be within the line of the. right traditions of the Bar. The great lawyers were rarely great in Parliament, perhaps because they rarely ever were earnest politicians. No class of men so thoroughly imbibed that characteristic policy of the times from Anne to Victoria, that the first and last duty is personal success, and that the one right party, is the party in power. There was always a suspicion — a suspicion not yet by any means removed — that the speech of a lawyer was a bid for place, and was at best mere special pleading, which only chance had directed to the one side, and which some other chance might have directed to qtdte the contrary side. It was this that enabled Burke to turn his back upon Ellenborough at the conclusion of the trial of Warren Hastings, and that enabled Pitt to insult Erskinc: — a. much higher kind of man than Lord EUenborough. Then the, morals, in another sense, of many of the great lawyers, were far from unexceptionable even as compared with those of other men in the same station in life. Lord Thurlow, entreating the Lords "to put down adultery, was himself Living in open adultery. Such a fact could hardly have been recorded against any, other: profession. To the words of such a man no weight could 92 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. possibly attach, nor indeed could he attach any weight to his own words. It is recorded also that on one memorable occasion the same distinguished Lord Chancellor ventured to say in what another great lawyer pronounced " abominable cant," " When I forget my King may my God forget me ; " and that Wilkes, who was "sitting on the steps of the throne, and eyeing the speaker with his demoniacal squint, said in a whisper which was distinctly heard, ' Forget you ? He'll see you damned first.'" Wilkes was by no means a favourable specimen of humanity, in those particulars in which Lord Thurlow was an unfavourable one; but then he did not call himself Keeper of the King's Conscience, and did not give an air of unearnest- ness to a profession which some men have made very noble. In contradistinction to these there were men at that time, in the practice of the law, giving up large professional emolu- ments, that they might devote themselves to objects of pure phila.nthropy ; and no one who has noticed the conduct of really great lawyers in cases where life or liberty have been in question, can have failed to admire the patient tact, high courage, and generous devotion often manifested. These, however, are not men whose names can, as a rule, be associated with those qualities which for generations gave character to the Bar. The truth is, deny it who may, and support the denial by what argument people may, the high offices of the law had not, since far beyond Walpole's time, been the reward of high judicial character so much as of political service, and at times of political service which meant political subserviency. Nor has the rule changed even yet. That there were high judicial qualities together with the political characteristics does not alter the question. It may perhaps be said that the appointments have no very prejudicial effect in ordinary cases. The pride of profession, the more honourable traditions of the Bar, and the spirit of a gentleman, are generally sufficient to prevent a judge from doing injustice, as between any two men in ordinary life. It is not denied, however, that in such a case as that of Lord Hardwicke and the rebel Lords ; or in that of Lord Mansfield, on the one side, and Lord Camden on the other, in the v.] MORALS OF THE BAR. 93 prosecution of John "Wilkes, or in the cases of Lords Thurlow, Eldon, and EUenhprough, in prosecutions to which we shall suhsequently refer, the course of the judge was decided by political considerations. It is next to impossible for a Prime Minister, however distinguished, to disregard the services of an able man, who is trained and skilled in the art of making the worse appear the better side. Yet while it remains possible for a man to be raised to the Bench as a reward for mere political party services, the high office of judge must stand lower than it ought in the estimation of the nation. It may be said, and very justly, that when a great lawyer acts con- sistently with one party, as in the instances of Lord Camden, Lord Erskine, and Lord Eldon, his preferment to the Bench is a security for the better carrying out of those principles upon which his party supposes the good government of the nation to depend. But the instances of this consistency are so rare, as compared with instances to the contrary, that they only establish the rule. To make the law lofty and respected, the high office of judge, above all, should be beyond dispute, and should not, if English public virtue ever can reach so far, be in any sense political. These remarks wiU not be found need- less when we pass down to times nearer our own, and see, as we shall see, how the decisions of judges took their complexion from the exigencies or pohcy of the party to which the judge had belonged. We shall see,, too, with Burke, how the study of the law may be made one of " the first and noblest of human sciences," invigorating the understanding, and in some cases liberalising the mind. CHAPTEE VI. TH£J SAME CHASM OF YEARSj FROM ANOTHER SIDE. Men of Another Kind — The Gentleman's Magaidne — First Execution for Forgery — Dr. Johnson — Dr. Goldsmitli — A Eemaining Direct Link with Cromwell — Charity Schools — General Education — Law Against Combination of Work- men — Absurd Conventional Views of such Combinations^Publication of Parliamentary Debates — State of the Nation — Labour — Wages and Price of Food — Public Morals of Eich and Poor — Bishop Porteus — John Wesley's Great Work. We have referred to certain rough outlines of one side of a picture of this period of history. Let us look again, by the light of the facts already recorded, to another and equally important side ; to some political events little noticed then or since ; to some men of great eminence and high character, who had worked for enduring history, and passed away ; to some who remained doing such work as came to them. Newton had died a little before the period at which we rest. Defoe, Swift, Steele, Addison, were by this time — ^before 1763 — memories of the past. Fielding and Tobias Smollett, Philip Doddridge, Isaac Watts, Dr. Adam Clarke, the first really great scholar of Wesleyanism, are all gone ; men representing whole shelves in the British Museum had lived and laboured and passed into history. On the 1st of January, 1731, Mr. Edward Cave, who years earlier had made his way, with great credit, from the provinces to London, published the first number of the Gentleman's Magazine, and, in course of time, Mr. Cave had as a contributor Mr. Samuel Johnson, to whom Mr. Thackeray thinks, and not unreasonably, that Toryism, as understood, owed more than to all the law lords, all CHAP. VI.] DB. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 95 the priests, and all other persons whatever. In the year in which Mr. Cave began his magazine a man was executed in front of the Old Bailey for forgery, the first execution for that crime, and hence a notable landmark event. On the 2nd March, 1737, a letter was written by a gentleman in Lichfield, to one in London, stating that Mr. David Garrick woiild set out that morning for London, " together with another neighbour of mine, Mr. Samuel Johnson." Mr. Garrick was to learn law ; Mr. Johnson's head was busy with a tragedy, " Irene." Mr. Johnson was then in the twenty-seventh year of his age ; the son of a bookseller who had died in poor circumstances in Lichfield. The facts altogether were such as, taken in connection with what followed, to suggest the idea of one of the grandest of all life dramas. When three years old the bookseller's son had been perched on the shoulder of his father, and not only had gazed at Dr. Sacheverell, but had proved himself, his father said — in what way is not clear — a real Sacheverellite. So that if the father was right, the son was early enough in life a Tory, and he never, to the day of his death, could be reproached with political inconsistency. When thirty months old he had been carried to London to be touched by Queen Anne for the " King's Evil," from which he had suffered almost to death. " Taken from his nurse," Boswell writes, " at the end of ten weeks from his birth, he was a poor diseased infant almost blind." He began to learn at the Free School at Lichfield; then made his way to Oxford; then was driven away from Oxford by poverty and his father's death, without taking a degree. Thrown on his resources he tried the post of usher in a school in Leicestershire, but was not successful. Then, removing to Birmingham, he " won " and married Mrs. Porter, a mercer's widow, who possessed 800^., on the strength of which Mr. Johnson opened a school in Lichfield, and was fortunate enough to procure three scholars, of whom David Garrick was one. Of the poor teacher's courtship Mrs. Porter's daughter gave a rather curious account. '' He was," she said, " lean and lank, so that the immense structure of his bones was hideous to the eye, and the scars of scrofula were distinctly visible. He 96 POPULAE PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. also wore his hair (not even a wig), and it was straight and stiff, and separated behind. He had convulsive starts and odd gesticulations, which excited both surprise and ridicule." There is no doubt that he had suffered, and was at the time suffering greatly. Sttange to say Mrs. Porter came to the conclusion that the ugly, uncouth man was very beautiful. " He is," she said, "the most sensible man that I ever saw in my life," which proves that she, too, was sensible. So one day Mrs. Porter and Mr. Johnson rode together side by side on horseback from Birmingham to Derby, and returned married — quarrelling and making it up again more than once on the way, but affectionate towards each other to the end of their lives. Johnson went to London alone, but in a few months returned for his " Tetsy " ; and a year and a few months after the date of the letter from Lichfield, the Tory poem " London " had made the young writer a name in literature. He had thrown himself into the battle against "Walpole ; had, in fact, given to Toryism some- thing, that neither Swift nor Bolingbroke could have given to it, of a manliness which no rank or wealth ever could have prostituted. While Johnson was beginning his struggle in London in 1737, Goldsmith was learning to read in Paddy Byrne's school in the village of Lissoy, in Westmeath. Thus far were the two apart when the battles of Walpole and Chatham and others were being waged. Before 1763, Goldsmith had made a great fame in literature. A year later he had published The Traveller, and sold The Vicar of Wakefield. The old house in which he was released from his landlady by Johnson is still pointed out in Islington, and though it now stands in a densely populated part of London, there are all the marks about it of what it then was as a rural retreat. In Goldsmith, as in Johnson, there was a healthy influence brought into literature ; an influence, in Goldsmith's case, as of a fragrance of newly-mown hay, in a bitter party time. Turning from the vile pamphlets, piles of which exist in the British Museum, to The Traveller, The Deserted Village, The Vicar of Wakefield, the essays and plays of Goldsmith, is as if one turned from a city sewer to the green VI.] DE. GOLDSMITH. 97 fields that the Lord hath blessed. Here was one more man of whom it could not be said — " Who bom for the Universe narrowed his mind, And to party gave up what was meant for mankind." What sermons have come to us with the purity and holiness of The Vicar of Wakefield ! "What preacher has reached the hearts of rich and poor alike as Oliver Goldsmith has ? Yet when he died there were people who questioned whether he had " saving faith," and indeed hinted very broadly that he had doubted it himself. It is very mournful, for it is very true. In charity of sentiment and of life, he may be said to stand alone in his time. As far as history has discovered, he never, as a workman in literature, wrote a felon line, or uttered a felon thought. It is not too much, therefore, to say that among the healthy influences of a time which needed every true word and every honest life to redeem it from tyranny, servility, and an im- morality that had become fashionable, the life of Goldsmith, like that of Johnson, and perhaps more than that even of Johnson, had an influence the value of which can hardly be over-estimated. The author of The Vicar of Wakefield was lying in his chambers in Brick-couit, when a doctor, who owes immortality to that one patient, felt his pulse, and fancying that his illness did not sufficiently account for the wildness of the pulse, asked him if his mind was at ease, and he said it was not. On that the sug- gestion of his want of saving faith was founded. Of course his mind was not at ease. He Icnew not what hour the bailiffs might enter and take him to prison. But it pleased " society " — the society that would have called Charles II., or George I., a religious as well as a gracious king — to wonder whether those three words, "It is not," did not signify an uncertainty as to the future. It was a trifle, but it mirrors " society " in its self-righteousness and meanness. Burke wept, Eeynolds put away his work, Johnson spoke as in the tone of a mufiled drum ; the lessons of the great writer remained far above anything that King or Court or Minister could buy. ISTobody ever had dreamt of proposing to make the author of The Vicar of Wakefield. R H 98 POPULAE PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. Sir Oliver Goldsmith, as they had made a hrilliant essayist Sir Richard Steele. Kind to its kind. Steele, by all the fitness of things, had his title ; Goldsmith, by all the fitness of things, died poor. We may usefully note, also, that in April, 1731, EUzabeth, daughter of Eichard Cromwell, died, in Bedford-row, London, iii the eighty-second year of her age. Here was one person who, while Mr. Cave was beginning his Gentleman's Magazine, could have given him direct reminiscences of the then far-off time of the Commonwealth. Far beyond the M^ars of Chatham and Marlborough, and of William III., that one old woman whom Samuel Johnson might easily have known, had unbroken tradi- tions, from the time when England asserted the liberties which had since been wrested from her, and which she was fighting even then to regain. This event may remind us that the Cromwellian and the Puritan fibre still ran into the warp and woof of Englisli life, and would be handed safely down to later times. We may observe also that in the year 1735 there were in London about 132 charity schools — a fact in English life the birth of which dates from about the year 1697, towards the end of William's reign. There were taught in these schools mere than 3,000 boys and nearly 2,000 girls, and it was calculated that in the course of thirty-seven or thirty-eight years, more than 20,000 children had been educated, and 16,000 of them put out to trades or service of some kind. In all England more than 23,000 children were being educated ; in Scotland about 4,000, and in Ireland about 3,000, in charity schools. The number is very small, but it hiust be remembered in favour of Scotland that there a system of national education existed which was not termed charity. The figures show us how the leaven of education was beginning to work. Another educational fact worthy of notice is that in 1749 Parliament made a Law to Prevent Workmen from Combining to Raise the Price of Labour. It is significant that while the Church, which had really all the available funds for the purpose, was, as a Church, very nearly idle as to education. Parliament should not have been in the least idle as to the action of VI.] LAW AGAINST COMBINATION OF WORKMEN. 99 workmen to preserve a high or reasonable price of labour. Lord Chatham was in office at the time this law was made, which may be taken as one more proof of how little he was interested in social questions. Lord Macaulay tells us, indeed, that England was to Pitt what Athens was to the Athenian, but Lord Macaulay is not accurate here. The Athenians, unless aU history is at fault, were very greatly interested in the social condition of their poorer people. Of Lord Chatham, it may be said that he left most legal and domestic questions to the lawyers, and most Church questions to the clergy, while he handled England as a unit, — a sharp and irresistible bolt of war — as against foreign foes. Another notable fact is, that in the year 1747 Parliament began to be much troubled with respect to the publication of its debates. Mr. Cave, for whom Samuel Johnson wrote reports, partly from memory and partly from intuition, had made himself especially offensive by telling the public what was said, and at times, while professedly reporting, a little more than was said, in Parliament. Mr. Cave was compelled to give an under- taking not to offend again — a promise, however, which he was unable to keep, and which both Houses were glad eventually to let him break. The offence for which Mr. Cavei was literally and figuratively brought to his knees was a report of the trial of Lord Lovat, a case in which, if Mr. Johnson was the reporter, impartiality could hardly be expected, though the strict truth would not be one tittle departed from intentionally. It is placed beyond question that in after years Dr. Johnson lamented his connection with this method of reporting ; mourned over it, indeed, as only a true man — a man true intellectually and morally — can mourn an error or a sin. It would be hard, however, on Parliament if history forgot or ignored the fact that Lords and Commons, in refusing to permit the publication of their debates, were merely a fair representa- tion of English public bodies generally. Town Councils, Trust Boards, and Boards of Guardians, among others, down to a very recent time, took high ground with respect to the publication of what was said by their members. A number of cases, within the writer's own knowledge, might easily be adduced of editors H 2 100 POPULAR PBOGEESS IN ENGLAND. [chap, or proprietors of newspapers having been elected to public boards for the sole purpose of breaking the secresy of the transactions, and often the battles were much more exciting to a small com- munity than that of Mr. Cave was to London. One instance will show the nature of many. A quarter of a century ago the local parliament of a north country town was held, as it had been held from time immemorial, with closed doors. In the great excitement of the agitation for reform, reporters, after each fresh election, had presented themselves at the door of the board-room, and in the orthodox reporting way had asked for admission, but after each occasion the words had appeared in large print in the journals of the time, " We again asked for permission to report the proceedings, and were politely refused." At length, to the horror of society, an editor was elected to the board, and the floodgates of revolution were opened. At the first meeting the obnoxious gentleman spread out his note-book, perhaps ostentatiously. It was perceived that a grave crisis had come in public affairs. Would the gentleman — who, perhaps, as a young member, did not know the rules of the Board^ — put away that book? No, indeed, the gentleman replied, he absolutely required his book. To leave the book untouched was to sanction reporting. To take it away by force would have been assault and battery. To adjourn the meeting would have stopped all public business in the town (questions of piggeries, and other great matters), and possibly might have overturned the con- stitution in Church and State. A happy compromise was thought of and adopted. The obnoxious editor must have his way, but it was remembered that the town had two editors, and that their feeling to each other was anything but fraternal. The one was there by the vox populi ; why not have the other by the vox — they did not exactly say Dei, but something equivalent to it, and, at all events, the compromise was made. The rival editor was sent for, probably not to a great distance, and from henceforth what a man spoke privately in that one Board-room was proclaimed on the housetops. In the evening of the battle- day the victory was celebrated in bumpers of party wine. Yet tlie pun rose all the pame next dny, and the Cniistitution in '^i'] REPORTING FOR THE PRESS. - 101 Church and State remained. History takes little note of these local struggles ; yet the fact stated here occurred a generation and a half later than Mr. Cave's great venture, which has historical fame. In principle the two were essentially the same, and the municipal victory perhaps was even more clearly indi- cative of the prevailing instinct of the nation, and of the action and re-action in political and social affairs. It should be noted also that the subsequent prominence and the long life of the Gentleman's Magazine has pushed to the background, and often out of sight, the names of other persons who offended as greatly as Mr. Cave. Thomas Astley, for instance, who printed the London Magazine, shared at the same time Mr. Cave's fault and punishment ; but while every one interested in the early struggles of the press knows the name of Mr. Cave, only a very few know anything of Mr. Astley. The state of the country during the latter years of George IL's reign may be surmised from the advertisements of rewards for political publications ; from trade riots, food riots, turnpike riots, and the host of similar disagreeable items which one meets at every step of the chronicles of those years. As sug- gestive comments on Lord Chatham's glorious wars, we have such entries as : — " Order for 2,000 seamen to be impressed on the Thames to proceed to the West Indies ; " warrants for dealing summarily with riotous nailors in Staffordshire, and with people in Manchester, Bristol, Birmingham, and elsewhere, who have declared themselves, bludgeon in hand, against various evils, as they seem to think, connected with the lot of the poor. It is not difiScult to perceive that, to this day the views of rich and poor, as to the condition of the latter, and the laws that govern that condition, differed very materially. Persons who governed or represented public opinion generally appeared to speak or write as if when a workman earned suffi- cient to provide himseK with food and some little raiment he ought to be content. There rarely seems to have been the slightest thought of any need for the education of children, or for surplus wages for any purpose. It may safely be asserted that in the times with which we are now dealing, the rich did not wish the 102 POPULAE PEOGEBSS IN ENGLAND. [chap. poor to be taught beyond the catechism, and rarely troubled them- selves even about that, though a little later they did. If we look, to the wages of workmen in 1762 we shall find that the pay of a carpenter or bricklayer was 2s. 6d. a day, a mason 2s. 8d., a plumber 3s. in London. The wages of agricultural labourers ranged from 5s. 4d. a week in 1751 to 7s. 4d. in 1770. A list of items, showing the needful expenditure, and allowing for "clothes, repairs, bedding, and shoes. Is. ; " " bread, flour, and oatmeal, 2s. 6d." ; " roots, greens, peas, beans, 5d. ; " " flesh, 6d," brings the total items necessary for the food and clothing of a labourer's family to 7s. 4Jd. a week. So that at best the labourer earned one farthing less than he was compelled to spend even on the showing of an " economist." The contract list of prices of food and clothes at Greenwich Hospital in 1760 shows that the cost (" wholesale," it will be remembered) of a coat was 11. Is. ; of shoes, 4s. a pair. Omitting, therefore, all other items, the cost of bedding, one coat and one pair of shoes must have required the savings of six months at a shilling a week ; and the shilling a week allowed in the list is not merely for bedding, but also for all clothes. Of course labourers were not supposed to require, and rarely wore, coats even on Sundays. There is no doubt that when poor people began to read, they came to the conclu- sion that a state of society in which these views prevailed must, in spite of all learning and eloquence, all glories on sea and land, have been in an unhealthy state. In morals the nation seemed going from bad to worse. The Court was corrupt; the aristocracy was corrupt; the middle class had run into wild speculation; the Church — well, read that Lady Yarmouth, the King's mistress, made a wager with a clergyman that he would be made a bishop, arid that he was. She had sold him the bishopric. Lady Yarmouth was, it is said, the last of her class who received a title of nobility in England. The Church was dumb. Not a bishop, or clergyman, or peer, or minister of state had a word to say when the King's mistress was raised to the nobility, or when she sold a bishopric. The bishops and clergy, in common with the lawyers, were very busy indeed as to speculative opinion. They took great care of the VI.] "SOCIETY" AND THE "MOB": BISHOP POETEUS. 103 doctrine of the Trinity and of the I?oyal Supremacy. They hunted with avidity for blasphemy, heresy, schism. They were very fierce, too, against forgers, foot-pads, housebreakers, and all persons of that kind— against the use of profane language too, when it was used by the common folk. If a collier swore an oath, it was brutality. If a Lord, and especially a Law Lord, ewore such an oath, it was wit, and in the case of the Law Lord, " the proverbial humour of the Bar." Can it be supposed again that all this was unnoticed, or the records of it not laid up in public memory ? It would be a strain on probability to suppose so. The Press, busy with its beautiful poems and essays, and its satire that cut like a sharp sword, would in the end also send abroad facts which would outweigh military glories among the masses of the people. Of George II. Mr. Thackeray says : — " Here are some artless verses in which an English divine deplored the famous departing hero, and over which you may laugh or cry, as your humour suits : — ' While at his feet expiring faction lay, No contest left but who should best obey, Saw in his olTspring all himself renewed, The same fair path of glory still pursued. Saw to young George Augusta's care impart, Whate'er could raise and humanise the heart ; Blend aU his grandsire's virtues with his own, And form their mingled radiance for the throne — No farther blessing could on earth be given — The next degree of happiness was — heaven ! ' " If he had been good, if he had been just, if he had been pure in life, and wise in council, could the poet have said much more? It was a parson who came and wept over this grave, with Walmoden, the mistress, sitting on it, and claimed heaven for the poor old man slumbering below. Here was one ■who had neither dignity, learning, morals, nor wit — who tainted a great society by a bad example ; who in youth, manhood, old age, was gross, low, and sensual ; and Mr. Porteus, afterwards my Lord Bishop Porteus, says the earth was not good enough for him, and that his only place was heaven ! Bravo, Mr. Porteus ! The divine who wept these tears over George IPs. memory wore George Ill's, lawn." Fortunately for England and mankind, the history of the period does not end with the clergy, or the politicians, or the lawyers. There remains of this reign one of the loftiest facts 104 POPULAR PEOGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. of English history, the preaching of John Wesley. Lady Yarmouth might sell her bishoprics and welcome, so far as the permanent interests of England were concerned, for the faith of Christ was once more being carried to the poor. Once again there was vital meaning in the words " Not many wise, not many learned are called." There was no human being too low, too bad, too ignorant for John "Wesley. He had an aU- powerful word for the untaught labourer, the butt of polished satire, for the rough sailors of the great naval and mercantile ports, for the heathen miners of Cornwall, for the " back slums " of London, for the poorest and wretchedest of all God's creatures. Men whose every word was blasphemy, whose every thought was of immorality; men who had been on the Spanish main and on the middle passage, who had been pirates under the name of privateers ; raen who went into the mine after a daily or nightly debauch ^nd came out again to begin another, into whose haunts, on a Sunday especially, it was dangerous to venture — to these John Wesley proclaimed the Gospel that is for the lost. Seventeen centuries there had been proclaimed in the ears of Christendom, " I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance," but only a few men, and those in many cases ascetics, ever had caught the divine afflatus, and followed as the Master had led. Here was the truth again stated as in the first age of Christianity, and carried out as it had been by the first followers of the Lord. It were puerile to doubt that it was an epoch in English history. Clergymen and publicans, in many cases, joined hands that the theology and even the moral character of the meetings of Wesley might be overthrown. Persons of a secular turn of mind ridiculed the belief in the in- terposition of a Divine Providence in the ordinary affairs of men. People of high culture were shocked that persons without any culture, so far as schools were concerned, should be sent out to teach and preach. But there was amid it all an uneasy feeling that the Church of England had now an ordeal to face such as it never had faced before. It is true the Methodists, unlike the Congregationalists or the Baptists, were essentially non-political ; but it is doubtful, all the same, whether the followers of Baxter VI.] WESLEY AND WESLEYANISM. 105 and Calamy did more than the followers of John Wesley to create that public opinion which has led to so many political victories since the end of the French war, or did more to prevent England from rotting and festering in the corruption of that war. There is still a dispute as to who, at a later period than this, originated Sunday schools, but there can be no dis- pute as to the people who first made Sunday schools things of life. Mr. Eaikes did his duty in one town, the Wesleyans did theirs in many towns, and from the fact that most of their teachers were poor people they had immense influence. They had more to communicate than mere dogma — they gave instruction in reading and writing, and with a great effect, as we shall see. In every Wesleyan chapel, " class-room," Sunday school, it was proclaimed and reiterated that he who was " saved " must save others. There were abuses in all this, of course. It would have been marvellous if there had not been hypocrisy, vanity, and abundance of idle talk ; but let us not doubt there was a public opinion created that went to the marrow of the national life and helped to save the nation. The poor saw men going about without stipends to preach and teach. They saw, on the other hand, immense revenues appropriated by men of high character and good conduct in many cases, it is true, but still of men who rarely reached the lowest people. Dr. Johnson was greatly disturbed in mind because Wesley had a bad habit, whenever a man had put out his feet for a long talk, of finding that there was an engagement which must have preference over the talk. Dr. Johnson also discovered, and perhaps correctly, that Mr. Wesley wrote and preached more than he read, and so ran out of ideas. Long afterwards the Eev. Sydney Smith, in an article in the Edinburgh Review, satirised certain accounts sent home by Wesleyan missionaries, and succeeded in making the writers and some others connected with them to appear ridiculous. It was by no means a difficult task to ridicule the Wesleyan phrases, as it was never a difficult task to ridicule the phrases of the Quakers ; but ridicule never yet destroyed a fact, any more than the sharpest pen ever " wrote down a man who did not write down himself." •106 POPULAR PKOGEESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. As a political fact the teachings of Wesley stand high and hright in this dismal time, pointing the poor to a high ideal of life and duty, and shaming idlers into work. If there had heen nothing else involved but the creation of meetings for purposes for which men were ready to suffer, and if need be die, the organization that Wesley called into being would have been a living fact eveu in politics, not to speak of social life and character. In a time of great political corruption, when untaught people were counted mobs, and that in a peculiar sense ; when the cost of great wars was computed in money, and when lives were little thought of apart from the loss they entailed upon the available fighting material of the nation, the Wesleyans jipheld the manhood and womanhood which Christianity always upheld. John Wesley was far more important to England than all the Georges, and all the little men called great, who plotted and intrigued for place in the State. It is not necessary to this statement that it should carry with it approval of all that Methodist preachers and class-leaders might say, or of illiterate in preference to educated teachers of religion. That would be an exceedingly foolish position, opposed to all lessons of ex- perience. Doubtless there are to this day, as there have been through all the years since Wesley, preachers from whose sermons persons of culture would run away in horror. This, however, does not in the least affect the fact, that these poor, and often untaught men, came, and still come, to other poor men, to point to purity of life, and to an unseen but an ever-living and ever- present God. The loud " Amen," and " Glory be to God," that often grate so much on the ear in a Methodist chapel were no light matter — and assuredly were no laughing matter — when the person glorifying God had been saved from vileness and pol- lution, and raised to the higher life. It might be entertaining to Sydney Smith to cut to the quick these JMethodists, as he cut to the quick all sorts and conditions of men who came under his critical lash ; but his shafts of ridicule fell harmless upon John Wesley, who made of the poorest and vilest of humanity his brothers and sisters, and whose satire was reserved, not for the sinner, but for sin. Assuredly the age produced no other social VI.] IMPORTANCE OF WESLEY'S TEACHING. 107- fact more powerful, no social fact to which future generations of Englishmen are more likely to pay homage, than the life of John Wesley. The whole circumstances of the hirth of Methodism seemed to conspire to give it an exceptional position, and an exceptional power and influence. As a clergyman Mr. "Wesley stood on the same footing with Baxter and Howe ; but then he was more than a clergyman ; he was a conforming clergyman. His aim was to lead people to the Church, not from the Church ; and if he failed, it was because the failure was in the nature of things ; not becaiise his will went with the circumstances which involved the failure. This was a great difficulty to those who opposed his teachings. His sermons possibly were not in any sense great sermons. He left nothing that has been accepted by all Cliristian churches as they have accepted the Imitation of Christ, or that appeals to all men, from the most defiant strong- holds of heterodoxy like some of the beautiful conceptions of Theodore Parker, or that has made a way from a stronghold of orthodoxy to the national heart like the Pilgrim's Progress. But he organized a living Church, and very rare qualities were needed for such an organization at such a time. Where Luther would certainly have failed from. his impetuosity, and Bunyan from his dogmatism ; where some great teachers would have found their efforts wrecked from sloth, some from over-refinement or sen- sitiveness, and others from lack of persistence, or sympathy with wretched and uncared-for people, or of that courage which, trusting in God, knows not what is meant by despair, John Wesley succeeded, and, more glorious than all, knew not that what he had done was success. Whitfield was the greater orator, but Whitfield without Wesley would have been to future times but as Eobert Hall, whose name is by no means a national possession. When, therefore, cultivated people talk of illiterate preachers, let them make what they can of the fact, while the instinct of mankind recurs to the deeper fact, that this man tried to reach, and did reach, poor people, when to most other persons to be poor was to be of the " common herd." Burke, at a later period, and with a much more cultivated mind, and Brougham,, in a time very near to our own, talked very complacently indeed 108 POPULAR PEOGEBSS IN ENGLAND. [chap. vi. of the common herd, of whom John Wesley knew nothing. It was Christian communism in the first instance, tempered by )the ideas with respect to property of the English Church, and by the general instincts of English life. That is, there was the fullest latitude for a communism of ideas, and a distinct line drawn at that communism which was represented on balance sheets. When the system of Wesley grew "respect- able " in the eyes of the world, when its " Amens " grew less fervid and more restrained, then the old order of its society passed away. It looked to chapels in watering-places instead of missions to Cornwall. In earlier times it was a mighty power for good, a veritable revival of the earlier faith, a real reminder of the ancient promises which never failed, and which we may well believe never will fail while the poor remain upon the earth. CHAPTER VIL FBOM 1763 TO 1789— NEW TIMES. A.Eetrospect — Eight to Tax the Colonies— The Bute Government, 1762-63 — The Grenville Government, 1763-65— Lord Holland— John Wilkes— The North Briton — Arrest of Wilkes on a General Warrant — Released on Writ of Habeas Corpus, by Lord Camden — Parliament Opened — "Number 45" of the A^orth Briton and Essay on Woman condemned by the House of Commons — Wilkes Expelled from Parliament, November, 1763— Lord Sandwich — Strong Posi- tion of Wilkes — Damages to a Printer for False Imprisonment — Wilkes's Claim— Verdict for 1,0002. — Character of Wilkes — Lord Camden — Wilkes Elected for Middlesex — His Outlawry Reversed — Sentenced for Libel — Four Times Elected for Middlesex — Anomalous Position of the House of Commons —Verdict, with 4, OOOi.— Wilkes, High Sheriff-Lord Mayor— Fifth Election for Middlesex — Taxation of the Colonies — Resolutions of the House of Commons, March 1764 — General Conway — Pitt's Position with Respect to the Stamp Act — Franklin — Opening of the Session, 1765 — Passing of the Stamp Act — Estimated Revenue from the Act — Fall of the Grenville Govern- ment — Grenville's Vexatious Conduct — The Rockingham Government, 1765 — Pitt, Burke, and Camden — General Warrants Declared Illegal — Sinister Influences against Lord Rockingham — "The King's Friends" — Treachery of Lord Northington — Burke — The Duke of Grafton — Lord Chatham — Position of the Ministry — Lord North — Colonial Secretaryship instituted — Mr. Jeilkinson, Lord Liverpool— Retirement of Chatham — Fresh Pro- posals for Taxing the Colonies, 1767 — Life of Lard Shelburne—Ch3.T&ctet of Public Men— New Taxes, to Take Efl'ect Nov. 20, 1768— Fierce Spirit of the Colonies — Lord Chatham — Retirement of the Duke of Grafton, Jan. 1770 — Chatham's Motion for Parliamentary Reform — Maiden Speech of Charles James Fox — Beginning of Lord North's Twelve Years of Admi- nistration — Jenkinson and Fox, Thurlow Attorney-General — Lord North's Colonial Policy — American Revolution — Arbitrary Measures of the Govern- ment — Refusal of the Massachusetts Petition — Counsel for the Petition Wedderbum, Lord Loughborough — The Council Chamber — Character of Mr. Wedderbum — His Attack on Franklin and America — The Olive Branch Rejected— 1776 — Declaration of Independence, July 4th— Convention of Saratoga— Recognition of the States by France, February 1778— The Duke of Richmond's Motion for Peace— Opposed by Lord Chatham — Death of 110 POPULAR PROGRESS IX ENGLAND. [chap. Chatham — Surrender of Corawallis, 1781 — Resignation of Lord North — Second Government, and Death of Lord Rockingham, 1782— The Shelbume Government — Peace with America — Peace with France, Spain, and Holland — National Debt — The Coalition Ministiy — Presentation of the " First Gentleman in Europe " to Parliament — Breaking up of the Coalition Ministry, November 1783— Administration of William Pitt — Determination and Strength of Pitt. If we stand at the year 1789 — that is, a century farther down on the stream of time than the Whig Revolution of 1688, we shall find that from 1763 to 1789 the nation has passed through a series of events to the right understanding of which former years and events afford no guide, and wherein the whole chain of tradition has been rudely broken. Shall King George the Third and his ministers or Parliament, needing money, tax the American Colonies ? is the first and central question of these memorable years. Canada, won from the French during Lord Chatham's wars, had little to say on the subject, and apparently little concern in the great issue, and none whatever in the general principle involved. The Wew England States — English — talked of taxation and representation going together by old English law ; an assertion which did not, of course, admit of too precise a reading on the part of King George and his ministers, or indeed of any one else; for if the doctrine applied to New England as a state it applied to Boston as a community ; and applied to Boston west, there could be no sound reason why it should not apply to Boston east of the Atlantic ; an idea which would have deranged all accepted notions of social and political affairs, and did derange them far later than even 1832. First of all, moreover, the King must rule, and the colonists obey. The Grenvilles, Lord North, Lord Eockingham, Lord Holland, nay. Lord Chatham and Mr. Burke also, were puzzled. The difficulty had long been foreseen and avoided by cautious statesmen, who had no precedent to guide them to a right conclusion. If the difficulty were to be dealt with at all, it could not be by any reference to past history, but must become a law unto itself. The stumbles or falls would guide future times, but could not be avoided by any reference to the past. On one point there were no differences. It was not to VII.] DISGRACE OF CHATHAM: JOHN WILKES. Ill be thought of for a moment that a number of raw colonists, colonial in spirit and aim, and imitative of England in all the habits of life, could withstand the power of King George. It would be advisable, people thought, not to put forth the royal strength if it could be avoided, but once put forth the difSculty would be settled. Pitt was virtually disgraced in 1762, after having brought the Seven Years' War to an end. The peace that succeeded was not his work. The Marquis of Bute took office in May 1762, and held it till April 1763, when he was glad to retire. Among his ministry was Mr. George Grenville, who at a very critical time gave way, as if bending before the storm which Pitt's dismissal had caused. Then the Premier gave way too, and it only remained for the King to send for Mr. Grenville, who, unluckily for his own fame, undertook to form a government. He held office from April 1763 till May 1765, and succeeded, according to the general opinion of intelligent contemporary persons, confirmed by all subsequent writers, in working more mischief than any otiier minister had done in the same number of months in almost any time. In this readjustment of parties, Mr. Henry Fox was raised to the peerage as Lord Holland. Mr. Grenville's first act was to prosecute John Wilkes, and his newspaper, the North Briton, for a libel on the King. Mr. Wilkes, the son of a distiller, was born in 1727 in Clerkenwell, and at the time of the acces- sion of Mr. Grenville to office was a member of the House of Commons and Colonel of the Buckingham IMilitia, owing the latter, it is said, to his wife, who was a Buckinghamshire heiress. The birth of the North Briton was owing to Lord Bute, who, in May 1762, set on foot indiscreetly, as afterwards appeared, a paper of the kind since called " an organ." It was termed the Briton. Dr. Tobias Smollett was appointed editor. Eight days later the North Briton appeared, with humour in its .very name, as an opponent — nay, a deadly foe — of the most dis- tinguished ISTorth Briton at that time in London. The fun of the name was caught from the first, and John Wilkes and his colleague, Mr. Churchill, began on good terms with the public. The Briton lived six months of respectable inanity. The North 112 POPULAR PROGEESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. Briton ran through 217 numbers, and every number carried a sting. It had reached its forty-fourth number, when the King closed the session of Parliament in a speech warmly eulogistic of the peace, then concluded, but, for certain reasons, concluded without popular approval. The peace might in itself be very good, but it was associated in the minds of the people with Pitt's disgrace and Bute's ascendency — a state of affairs un- endurable to English flesh and blood. The obnoxious minister had been everywhere stigmatized, but nowhere more so than by WUkes in his North Briton. His name, John Bute, was trans- formed into Boot-Jack. He was burned in effigy, and a boot- jack and a petticoat thrown into the fire, in reference to his presumed position as the favourite of the King's mother. All this of course was most vexatious to both the court and to ministers. Down to the forty-fourth number of the North Briton, however, there had not it was supposed been any clear ground on which the obnoxious paper could be legally proceeded against. " Number 45 " appeared on April the 23rd, and contained an insinuation that the royal speech conveyed an untruth. Naturally the speech, as. the work of the ministers, was open to the same criticism as one of the Prime Minister's speeches, but this consideration was pushed out of sight. Here was an opportunity not to be disregarded for putting an end to the journalism of John Wilkes. He had, it was said, charged the King with falsehood. Lord Halifax, one of the Secretaries of State, ordered a General Warrant for the arrest of the authors, printers, and publishers of the North Briton. Wilkes was also at once removed from his colonelcy. On the 30th of April he was arrested and sent to prison, where he obtained a writ of habeas corpus. On the 3rd of May Sir Charles Pratt (afterwards Lord Camden, a trusted friend of Pitt) decided that Mr. Wilkes had done nothing to forfeit his privilege as Member of Parliament, and ordered his immediate release, evading altogether the question of libel or no libel, and resting the order for release on the simple ground of " privilege." This question of apprehension on a general warrant is well worth a little attention. The VII.] WILKES CONDEMNED. 113 subject ■sviJl be found interesting through many eventful years from this period to the end of the volume ; the instance before us certainly was the "precedent" which "broadened down" till the principle of general warrants overspread the whole land in a reign of terror, and was the gage of stern consti- tutional fight before it fell beneath the national indignation and scorn sixty years ago. In November Parliament was again opened by the King, and Mr. Grenville presented a royal mes- sage on the subject of Mr. Wilkes. On the motion of Lord North, 273 members against 111 declared " No. 45 " to be a false and seditious libel, and ordered it to be burned by the common hangman. Lord Sandwich at the same time called attention to a publication entitled the Essay on Woman, a parody on Pope's essay, and written by Wilkes. This production had not even been published, but Lord Sandwich, against whom it was directed, had procured a copy surreptitiously. The House of Commons took the same view of this as it had taken of the North Briton, and it was further declared that the privilege of the House did not cover libel. Wilkes was then formally expelled. "The conduct of Lord Sandwich," Lord Macaulay says, " excited universal disgust. His own vices were notorious ; and, only a fortnight before he laid the Essay on Woman before the House of Lords, he had been drinking and singing loose catches with Wilkes at one of the most dissolute clubs in London. Shortly after the meeting of Parliament, the Beggar's 0;pera was acted at Covent Garden Theatre. When Macheath uttered these ■5^ords — ' That Jemmy Twitcher should peach me, I own sur- prised me,' pit, boxes, and galleries burst into a roar which seemed likely to bring the roof down. From that day Sandwich was universally known by the nickname of Jemmy Twitcher.'' The worst feature of the case was, that neither the North Briton nor the Essay on Woman had been declared libellous by any court of law. Meanwhile a journeyman printer engaged on the paper had sued for damages for unlawful arrest, and had obtained 300^. This case also was heard before Chief Justice Pratt. On the 30th December, Mr. Wilkes also appealed to the 114 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. Lord Chief Justice, who, in summing up, said, that the defendants claimed a right, " under a general warrant and had precedents to force open persons' houses, hreak open escritoires, seize papers where no inventory is made of the things taken, and no persons' names specified in the warrant, so that messengers are to he vested with a discretionary power to search wherever their sus- picions or their malice may lead them." As to the damages, he said the jury were not limited hy the injury received, hut might " likewise consider the damages, not only as a satisfaction to the injured person, but as a proof of the detestati(5h in which the wrongful act is held hy the jury." The trial lasted fifteen hours ; the jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff with 1,000Z. damages. Again, when a new trial was moved for on the ground of misdirection, the Lord Chief Justice said : — " To enter a man's house, by virtue of a nameless warrant, in order to procure evidence, is worse than the Spanish Inquisition — a law under which no Englishman would wish to live an hour. It is a daring public attack upon the liberty of the subject, and in violation of the twenty-ninth chapter of Magna Charta, which is directly pointed against that arbitrary power." Popular feeling was excited to the utmost. Wilkes became a hero and a patriot. Lord Chief Justice Pratt was identified with his great friend Pitt, and applauded even more than Grenville and his Government were scorned and condemned. It ought to be remembered to Lord Camden's credit as a judge, that his opinion against general warrants had been previously, though not judicially, expressed, and hence did not rest merely on the political bias which some have alleged against it, in consequence of the leaning of the North Briton to Pitt. In the following year Sir C. Pratt received the freedom of the city of London, and the commendation of the citizens. Still the main question remained virtually undecided, and the riots which succeeded the decision of the Commons were so fierce, that Wilkes decided to withdraw to the Continent. He was then outlawed. The popular feeling, however, seemed only to increase, in the absence of the man whom no one questioned had been wronged, and neither the House nor the ministry vn.] CHAEACTEK OF "WILKES. 115 gained anything by the outlawry. Of the capacity of Wilkes there have been various accounts. Of his morals there has never been any difference of opinion, unless in the case of persons who took an extreme view for or against him. Of his great tact in the new and difficult position in which he found himself there could be no question. Lord Brougham, while giving proof of the wit and vigorous powers of the now distinguished outlaw, terms him a man of only moderate though ornamental abilities. Lord Macaulay describes him as possessing taste and engaging manners, but as being pert and feeble in speech, hideous in appearance, and known as one of the most profane and agreeable wits about town. Long afterwards Brougham made a still more bitter attack upon him, and has recorded that on the following day he was reproved for it by Sir Philip Francis, who objected to an attack upon a man whom the Court disliked. Wilberforce, however. Lord Brougham adds, expressed his ap- proval, on the ground of the immoral life Wilkes had led. The favoilrable impression he made upon one of his great enemies. Dr. Johnson, is well known to the readers of Boswell. There can be no possible doubt that the opinions of both friends and enemies with respect to Wilkes had a substantial foundation in fact. On the formation of the Eockingham ministry in 1765, Sir Charles Pratt was raised to the peerage as Baron Camden, one of the first affronts of that noble ministry to the Court. Of Lord Camden himself. Lord Campbell, a very different man, says : — "A fine portrait of him by Sir Joshua Eeynolds, with a flattering inscription, ' In honour of the zealous assertor of English liberty by law,' was placed in the Guildhall. Addresses poured in to him from all quarters .... English journals and travellers carried his fame over Europe, and one of the chief sights of London which foreigners went to see was the great Lord Chief Justice Pratt." Lord Brougham, referring to a later period when the Government had fallen, said: — "It may be easily imagined that he was no sooner freed from the trammels of office than a spirit so congenial to that which animated Lord Chatham would burst forth. He accordingly joined him in denouncing, as a violent outrage on the constitution, the vote of I 2 IIG POPULAR PEOGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. the Commons incapacitating Wilkes from sitting in Parliament because he had been expelled after his election. This celebrated vote, the soundness of which Charles Fox, such is the force of early prejudices, maintained to his dying day, appears to have staggered even Lord Mansfield, who, when Lord Chatham moved an address in the Lords declaring it unconstitutional, seemed through almost his whole speech to be arguing against it, and in favour of the motion. He said that he should regard himself as the greatest of tyrants and of traitors were he to be moved by it in his judicial capacity, though he added, mysteriously, ' that he had never given his opinion upon it, and should probably carry it Mdth him to the grave.' " In 1765, a man who had republished "No. 45" was con- demned to stand in the pUlory, and when the sentence was carried out the people kept the culprit company, and subscribed two hundred guineas for him on the spot. Yet stUl, the Ministry could not see the warning hand that might have preserved for them power, even when all chance of popularity had gone. Ministers knew nothing practically of the fine appeal of Burke on another subject : " Let the Commons in Parliament be one and the same thing with the Commons at large. Let us identify, let us incorporate ourselves with the people. . . . War with the world ; peace with our constituents. Let this be our motto and principle." Save at two brief intervals, many — very many — ^years had to pass before England had a Ministry that comprehended or attempted to comprehend this truth. In the elections of 1768, Wilkes returned from the Continent and was elected Member for Middlesex. He now appealed to the Court of Queen's Bench for a reversal of his outla^vry, and Lord Mansfield, upon a technicality, pronounced the outlawry void. On the original question of the libels the same astute judge allowed a charge to be made, and gave a decision against Wilkes, with a fine in each of the cases of libel of 500^., and provision of sureties for the future. The decision led to a serious riot. Wilkes's carriage was rescued from the officers and dragged in triumph to a tavern in CornhiU, from whence, however, he escaped and wisely surrendered. Twice again he VII.] POPULARITY OP WILKES. 117 appealed to the House of Commons, and was heard at the bar ; but his petition was pronounced frivolous, and discharged with contumely. In February, 1769, he was expelled from the House by a vote of 219 to 137. He was immediately re-elected. On the following day the House again declared lais election void. Another expulsion led to another election, and finally, on the 13th April, he was elected for the fourth time by 1143 votes against 296 for his opponent. Colonel Luttrell, whom the House, however, now declared duly elected. Lord Mansfield's decision, following upon that of Sir Charles Pratt, had placed the two foremost lawyers of the age in direct antagonism. The decision of the House of Commons involved a stiU more serious diffi- culty, for the House had undertaken to say that a man who had been four times elected for a great constituency, should not be permitted to take his seat. In the autumn Wilkes obtained a verdict, with 4000^. damages, for the seizure of his papers. Petitions against his imprisonment and for the dissolution of Parliament were presented from all quarters. His debts, amounting to 17,000^., were paid by public subscription,' — Mr. Home Tooke heading the committee to whom the money was paid. Eeleased from prison in 1770, Wilkes was made High Sheriff in 1771, Lord Mayor of London in 1774, and a few days later was elected, for the fifth time, member for Middlesex. In 1782 he had the great victory of his life. The House of Com- mons ordered the minutes for his expulsion to be erased from its records as " subversive of the rights of the electors of the United Kingdom." The importance of these facts lies in their relation to the first great constitutional victory won by the people of England against all the power of King, Ministry, and Parlia- ment. It needed a stubborn man, a courageous man, perhaps also, a man somewhat unscrupulous as to ways and means to grapple with and throw down the despotic ogre created by Mr. GrenviEe and Lord North. Wilkes has been termed demagogue, and perhaps was all that he has been termed. He has been depicted for the young in such a manner that, in many essential particulars, his name has been very nearly placed in the same category with that of Guy Fawkes. It is necessary to challenge 118 POPULAK PROGEESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. this decision; to remember that John Wilkes, -with aU his faults — and they were not few — was one of the very iirst men to fight despotism by the aid and strength of the popular will. At first he was an idol. Then he became a demon. We shall find the truth in beholding him as a man of strength and of weakness, of right and of wrong impulses, whom despotic minis- ters persecuted, but did not eventually defeat. Mr. George Grenville has, ever since that unlucky time, been censured severely, as if the terrible satire and censure of the time in which he lived had not been sufficient punishment for his undoubtedly foolish prosecution of Wilkes. It may be alleged in his defence, that ' general warrants had been acted upon by former ministries, that the questions with which he was deal- ing were in many respects new, and that he was not a man of original gifts. Perhaps the same excuse may in some measure be found for him with respect to that other question of vastly greater importance — the taxation of the American colonies. The reader has observed that not only was the question of taxing the colonies not new, but that the right to tax them never had been disputed in England. The general question of taxation may be said to have been prominently before the country from the time of Walpole ; and if Mr. Grenville's over- bearing temper precipitated the struggle, he certainly did not create the difficulty, though it was reserved for him to take the step, which the King afterwards admitted had lost him " the brightest jewel in his crown." In March, 1764, Mr. Grenville introduced his financial resolution : " That towards defraying the expense of protecting and securing the colonies, it may be proper to charge certain stamp duties to the colonists." It is pretty certain that Pitt was not present when the action to which this resolution led was submitted to the House. It is equally certain that he must have been perfectly acquainted with what was transpiring. The only noteworthy speech in opposition to the proposal was made by General Conway, whose course was beyond aU praise. He denied the right of Parliament to tax the Americans ; in fact he expressed precisely the view which twenty years later every man of sense knew was the truth, with VII.] BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 119 respect to tliis fatal legislation. The defenders of Pitt, in relation to America, always forget or ignore the fact that Grenville's notice of the Stamp Act was given in 1764, and that it was a notice of a year. The Act was not pushed into law till 1765. Lord Macaulay, in referring to the actual enact- ment, says that " we cannot find that during the Session which began in January, 1765, Pitt once appeared in Parliament." This statement, when 'taken in connection with the subject referred to, conveys a very incorrect impression of the fact. It is quite certain that Pitt not only was fully acquainted with what was transpiring, but that he had had a fuE. year in which to consider the subject in its relations both to England and America. The colonists all that time had been in a state of wild excitement ; had appealed almost frantically from the ministry to the nation. Franklin was in England as colonial agent with special reference to this Act. He had been examined with respect to it at the bar of the House of Commons, and had expressed opinions which lacked neither in strength nor clearness. It is, therefore, puerile to refer to the Stamp Act as a new idea evolved from Mr. George GrenviUe's inner consciousness. The truth was, Pitt, who had recently received another large legacy, an income of 3,000^. a year, from Sir WiUiam Pynsent, a man of whom he had previously known nothing, was busy with his estate, and was not anxious for the responsibility of the new measure ; a fact which detracts from the value of his later impetuous appeals. Benjamin Franklin, who at this time represented the colonies, was well known to the politicians of the time, or at least to such of them as condescended to think of colonial affairs. How calm, how resolute he could be under great difficulties and provocations, had yet to be shown. He was the son of a Boston soap-boiler, and as early in life as ten years of age, had been a worker at his father's trade. In due time he became a printer, and being industrious and intelligent, was advised by Governor Sir William Keith to begin business on his own account. In view of that important step, he arrived in London to purchase the necessary materials ; then, according to his own 120 POPULAE PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [cH^iP. account, he found that the representations made to him had heen iictitious. Crushing down his indignation as best he could, he began towork as a journeyman, and was notable for thrift, and a resolution which nothing could break, not to join his fellow workmen in the use of intoxicating drink. Eeturning to America, he speedily made a more than colonial name. Toor 'Richard's Almanac, pointed by the life of a man who never lived beyond his means, the foundation of public libraries, insurance companies and much beside, attest the activity of Franklin at this time. Before the period at which we now find him, he had been Postmaster of Philadelphia, an ardent scientific student, discoverer of the lightning conductor, father of many wise laws — the Militia Act among others — had been made a Pellow of the Eoyal Society in England and received the degree of doctor from Oxford, Edinburgh, and St. Andrews. He was now, 1764, again in England as representative of the colonial interests. In the following year he was elected a delegate of Congress, The Parliament of 1765 was opened by a royal speech, which referred to a slight misunderstanding with the colonists. Why was Pitt silent at this time ? He was ill, it is true ; but there is no proof that he was so ill that for a year he had been unable to arrest the fatal course of his brother-in-law. That he was chafing under ill-treatment is certain ; but then to one " who loved England as an Athenian loved Athens," that was a- trifle. In March the Stamp Act passed quietly, and received the royal assent. ISTo one appears to have thought that that" poor little Act, only estimated to produce 100,000Z. a year, had any greater importance than a common enactment for regu- latijig some ordinary parochial affairs. Franklin even did not see to the fuU extent the storm that was brewing. Ministers were thunderstruck when they heard that the Act had been reprinted, and was being hawked about with a death's head instead of the royal arms, and labelled " The folly of England and ruin of America ; " that the vessels in Boston harbour on receipt of the news had hoisted their colours half-mast high ; that the church bells had been muffled, and had tolled a funeral VII.] FALL OP THE GRENVILLE MINISTRY. 121 knell ; that the Virginian House of Assembly, inspired by the splendid eloquence of Patrick Henry, had adopted a petition to the King, and resolutions — addresses to the English nation — and others, denying the right of Parliament to tax the colonies, and that other assemblies had followed the stern example ; that no one would sell the stamps or buy them ; nay, that a Eepublic had been openly talked of and advocated by the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers. The most alarming feature of the case was, that hitherto the colonists had been noted for prudence and caution, and in the wars with France had been determinedly loyal. Of the constitutional features of the dispute, Lord Camp- bell, referring to Lord Northington as Lord Chancellor when the Stamp Act was passed, says that " A constitutional lawyer like Lord Camden would have reprobated such a measure on principle, and a wary one like Lord Mansfield would have dis- approved of it on principle." It is far from clear, however, that any reprobation or disapproval would have checked the madness of the Ministry in its headlong march to ruin. In July the Grenville Ministry fell, detested both by the King and the nation. To the King the Prime Minister had been personally offensive. It was related that in the smallest possible matters he had refused all concession, and where the feelings and tastes of the King were concerned, had been un- relenting to the verge of indecency. In one particular his obstinacy had taken the form of veritable persecution. Very early in the reign, the first appearance of the King's after- wards more than fatal malady, had, it was supposed, led to the necessity for a Eegency Bill, and his Majesty had naturally desired freedom of will, while he was able to exercise it, as to the appointment. Grenville had declined this, on the ground that the Commons would reject any bill which left an opening for Lord Bute. The choice, therefore, must be restricted to the Eoyal Family. This was annoying, but the minister went farther. He wished to exclude the Princess Dowager from the Eegency, and would have succeeded in that too if the party of the princess in the House of Commons had not forced a debate on the subject and defeated the unpopular minister, 122 POPULAR PKOGEESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. whose chagrin was intensified by the triumphant cheers of the House. An attempt was made to secure Pitt; but Pitt held to Lord Temple, and Temple, after long estrangement from his brother, had the misfortune to agree with him on this very Eegency Bill which had broken up the Government. There remained the great Whig families, who might be wiUing to make an attempt to serve the King in his need, and they were forthwith appealed to with success. After a little diffi- culty, and some graceful concession on the part of the King, the Marquis of Eockingham formed an administration, of which the Duke of Grafton, General Conway, the Duke of Newcastle, were members, and with Sir Charles Pratt, now Lord Camden, as Lord Chancellor, and Mr. Edmund Burke as the Premier's private secretary. As the ministry of Mr. George Grenville had been one of the most unpopular, so that of the Marquis of Eockingham has been accounted one of the most judicious known, not merely up to that time, but for long afterwards. But there was little time for the Government to become popular ; it lived only twenty days more than a yeai', and even during that time was fettered by Court intrigue and the suspicions of the King, whose policy with respect to America it had cancelled. During this period. Lord Macaulay says, "the House of Commons heard Pitt for the last time, and Burke for the first time, and was in doubt to which of them the palm of eloquence should be assigned. It was indeed a splendid sunset, and a splendid dawn." Both the great orators spoke against the Stamp Act, which was repealed. At the same time, however, the absolute power of Parliament over the colonies was confirmed, a vote which simply destroyed the effect of the former resolution, since it affirmed the whole principle involved. The ministry had yet to learn that it was not the mere amount of the tax to which the colonists objected, but the right to tax them to any extent. An Act in the interests of the Spitalfields weavers was passed to prevent the importa- tion of foreign silk. That is, the French who fled from Prance in 1685 were now to be protected from the French who had remained in France with their valuable artistic power. Another VII.] THE KOCKINGHAM MINISTEY. 123 important measure was the declaration of the Illegality of General Warrants, and of the seizure of papers to discover the authorship of libels. Sinister influences, however, were afoot. The two Grenvilles who were at length united even in their enmity to Pitt, in such vital measures as the repeal of the Stamp Act, the Eegency Bill, and the stultification of George Grenville's policy with respect to Wilkes were active movers in one set of agencies ; and with respect to the Stamp Act, the King himself also was an enemy of the Administration ; a fatal fact which may be ascribed t5 his malady rather than to his obstinate resolution to " be a King." Then there were a number of men who called themselves the " King's Friends," and of whom Lord Macaulay says, in language that can never die : — " There sprang into existence and into note a reptile species of poli- ticians never before and never since known in our history. These men disclaimed all political ties except those which bound them to the throne. They were willing to coalesce with any party, to abandon any party, to undermine any party, at a moment's notice They were the King's friends." The most sinister political influence of all, was that of Lord Northington, whom the ministry had mistakenly allowed to retain the Great Seal. A spark of gratitude would have silenced the intrigue of this by no means highly distinguished lawyer. But that spark Lord Northington did not possess. He saw that the King was dissatisfied with the repeal of the Stamp Act. Pitt, too, had not hesitated to declare that the ministry did not possess his confidence. Lord Northington's course, therefore, was quite clear. He contrived secretly to in- form the King that the ministry were hopelessly divided, and could not carry on the government. All this time ministers had been under the impression that their Lord Chancellor was iU, and had ascribed to his illness a certain peevishness of con- duct which they afterwards traced to his treachery. On the 6th of July there had been a cabinet meeting, and, if Lord Campbell is correct, when Lord Northington heard of it, he swore that the ministry should never meet again. Next morning he drove to the King, resigned the Great Seal, and advised His Majesty 124 POPULAE PEOGEESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. to send for Pitt. Of Lord ISTorthington, the only other fact necessary to be recorded here is, that in the debate for the repeal of the Stamp Act, in replying to Lord Camden, he spoke in the presence of Franklin with what Lord Campbell characterizes as extreme violence and coarseness, the effect of which Lord Mansfield strove in vain, with patience and calmness, to destroy. It would be impossible to pass over here one great name that came into note at this time — the name of Edmund Burke, whose genius] has given a lustre, which no treachery or intrigue could impair, to the Eockingham administration. When the ministry was iirst formed, the Duke of Newcastle, who had a gift for discovering mares' iiests, solemnly warned Lord Eockingham that his private secretary was an Irishman, and, there was good reason for believing, a Jacobite; but Mr. Burke remained one of the main props of the administration during its short exist- ence, and its unanswerable defender when its existence had come to an end. He was the son of an Irish attorney, and at the time he entered parliament, in the thirty-fifth year of his age, was known to the foremost literary men of London, as author of an Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful, for certain pungent remarks on Bolingbroke, and as the originator of the Annual Register, to which he largely contributed. Educated, in the first instance, by a Quaker schoolmaster in a Catholic country, Mr. Burke came to London open to all generous im- pressions, and whatever ^subject he touched he in some measure adorned. There were many vicissitudes in store for him ; and some would be bitter. He would live to have it said, and said truly, by the friendliest and most generous though most clear- sighted of critics, that "he thought of convincing while they thought of dining." He would see tricks of policy from which he would turn with disgust — the tricks of policy of little men in high position. He would be passed over in favour of titled mediocrity. He would be wrong in much, as he would be right in much ; but in the one case or the other, in prosperity or adversity, he would extort from his enemies the admission of a sincerity greater even than his eloquence — an eloquence that would in some respects stand almost alone in its grandeur. VII.] EDMUND BUEKE. 125 The " best-read man " of the time woiild say of him that you could not take shelter with Burke from a shower of rain with- out learniag something that it would be well not to forget. This was the man of whom the Duke of Newcastle whispered warning to the Marquis of Eockingham. The age that pro- duced George Grenville had no more beautiful fact than the friendship of Johnson and Burke and Goldsmith and Eeynolds, and no greater glory among politicians than the loyalty to Burke of the Marquis of Eockingham, and Burke's loyalty in return both to th^Whig leader and the party at the head of which he stood. There is, it must be granted, more than one fact which admits of question in the career of Edmund Burke. There came a time when the old "Whigs — the party of Lord Althorp and Lord Fitzwilliam — and the Tories agreed that he deserved pecuniary reward for public services, and when the young Whigs — the party of Fox — ^were silent. It must not be forgotten, however, that Mr. Burke had devoted himself to politics to the entire abandonment of his own profession, and that when he received money from the nation, as Mr. Cobden in our own time, received money from his friends for past losses, and as a means of future usefulness, no one whose name has come down with distinction from that time to this objected. At a later time the subject was revived, as we shall see ; but at that time friends and enemies alike agreed that the character of Mr. Burke might safely be trusted to Mr. Burke's own sense of honour. With the fall of the Eockingham ministry Pitt again rose to power (July 1760) ; but was not this time de facto Prime Minister, and not, this time either, the vital spirit of the ministry. The Duke of Grafton was First Lord of the Treasury, Mr. Charles Townshend Chancellor of the Exchequer, General Conway and Lord Shelburne Secretaries of State, and Lord Camden again Lord Chancellor. Pitt reserved for himself the Privy Seal, with the nominal Premiership, and was raised to the House of Lords as Earl of Chatham. The intensity of the popular feeling on the announcement of Pitt's retirement to the Upi^er House may be partly, but perhaps only partly, conceived 126 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. from a perusal of the ephemeral literature of the time. People were utterly astounded that the nation should from any cause but death have lost its Great Commoner. At Hayes, even when he was silent, he was the power in the background — in reserve. In the House of Lords his whole identity was gone. His voice, it is true, was heard again, and with effect, for those interests and principles with which his name was identified ; but it was no longer the voice of William Pitt. Something of the same popular feeling was manifested nearer to our own time in the case of Lord Brougham, but that only gives a faint conception of the feeling evolved when the news went abroad that Pitt was a peer. Brougham at his greatest never had the iirm hold upon the national feeling that Pitt had; his power of self-sacrifice never had been, like Pitt's, an article of the national faith. When Pitt became a peer it seemed as if a star had fallen from the firmament of England to bedizen the roof of the Court Theatre. Nothing resembling that strange promo- tion ever was knoAvn in England before or has been known since. Lord Northington was made President of the Council, as a token of the King's gratitude for his services in breaking up the Eockingham administration. WTiether the ignominy was sufficiently well paid for one may doubt. In the course of a few months it was clear that the ministry must either fall to pieces or be reconstructed. Chatham was nowhere to be seen. Conscious that he differed from the King on the essential point of concession to the colonies, and unquestionably in Hl-health, he seems to have almost entirely abnegated his right to direct the policy of the Government. Charles Townshend died in September, and Lord North suc- ceeded him. A little later the new office of Colonial Secretary- ship was created, and filled by Lord Hilsborough, future Marquis of IDownshire. Mr. Charles Jenkinson, afterwards Lord Hawks- bury, and then Lord Liverpool, was also made a Secretary of State ; a man able in finance, and notable for success in Ufe in a time when caution and partizanship were among the first political virtues — notable also as the father of a Prime Minister whose policy has not yet quite passed away. Lord Chatham VII.] FEESH PROPOSALS FOE COLONIAL TAXES. 127 retained his seals till October, but the ministry had before even that time ceased to bear his name. It must be noted, however, that in June, 1767, and while Chatham was still at the head of the Administration, the Chancellor of the Exchequer introduced fresh proposals for taxing the colonies. He invited the House to tax glass, paper, tea, and several other articles, and after his death the motion was re-introduced by Lord North. The taxes were only estimated to bring in a sum of 40,000^. a year, and the proposals had merely been introduced as a puerile demon- stration in the face- of the House of Commons, which, to the chagrin of the ministry, had rejected a land tax producing about 5,000,000Z. a year. The absolute puerility of the pro- ceeding is almost beyond belief, but it was successful. No reputation has suffered more by time than that of the author of this new scheme, Mr. Charles Townshend. In his own time he was counted one of the ablest, most accomplished, and most graceful of living men. Burke, even in condemning the colonial policy adopted, spoke of the reproducer of the fatal scheme, as " the delight and ornament of this House, and the charm of every private society that he honoured with his presence." " Perhaps," he added, " there never rose in this country, or any country, a man of more pointed wit and (where his passions were not concerned) of a more refined, exquisite, and pene- trating judgment." Alas, for contemporary fame ! The name of Charles Townshend has no more popular meaning now than if he never had lived, while the names of Chatham and Burke, and Pitt and Fox are household words— considerably better known than the names of Mr. Sydney Herbert or Sir James Graham. If the reader would see how exceedingly little the so- called great men of that time were, he would find an admirable picture in the recently published Life of Lord Shelhurne, to which reference has previously been made. No work, if it had been written for the especial purpose, could well have presented the contemptible intrigues of the time in a more forcible Hght. We see here men whom we have been taught to call great reflected in characteristics of pettiness, puerility, and jealousy, of vanity greater than that which has been called feminine, of 128 POPULAE PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. absolute falseness, both of word and character, in a craving selfishness which seems scarcely to have had bounds. We find among the published letters such an expression as " Be sure to burn this " ; and then we read the letter which was to be so surely burned; an act of M'hich a peasant would be ashamed. We find how public men met each other, and shook hands, and then went away and wrote of the person with whom they had been so cordial, remarks which people in lowlier life would hardly think of using to an enemy, and very rarely indeed would apply to people whom they had met in any cordial relation of life. One closes the book with a conviction that at least there were some huge hypocrites at that time, and that the spirit of political men was detestable. We arrive now at the beginning of the end of the loyalty of America. The taxes were to come into effect on the 20th of November, 1768. Up to the time of the new enactment the spirit of disaffection had gradually subsided. Now the popular feeling of the colonies threw off all restraint. It was resolved to use no article whatever of English growth or manufacture; to cut off all connection with the mother country. In January 1770, Lord Cliatham denounced the policy of the Govern- ment, and Lord Camden, who had voted with his friend, was next day rec[uested to immediately give up the Great Seal. It is here again impossible to view the course of Lord Chatham with satisfaction. The Duke of Grafton had begged for his advice and help, and had begged in vain. Then, acting on his own fesponsibility, with Chatham's friend and confidant in the ministry, he found his proposals denounced, as only one man could denounce them. The ministry were successful in the vote, and that by an immense majority ; but the opposition was overmastering, and the Duke of Grafton, who had no love for troublous scenes, resigned. Lord Camden was " now freed from the trammels of office," and under circumstances that " were not at all likely to mitigate his wrathful eloquence." If the Premier had resolved to continue at his post, it is certain that the King would have supported him stoutly, as he afterwards supported Lord North, with something also very liie gratitude towards VII.] THE DUKE OF GRAFTON: LORD NORTH. 129 him for taking the helm at such a time. The Duke of Grafton, who undoubtedly had a somewhat morbid feeling with respect to public opinion, and who had been stung to the quick by the venomed pen of Junius, was not disposed, if indeed he was able, to face the vials of wrath which were about to be poured on his head in the House of Lords. He gladly retired from the premiership, and after a time from public, office. Many years afterwards we find him engaged very earnestly in a course of theological studies, and he is said to have died a Unitarian. Is there not something« instructive in the " retirements " and sub- sequent employments of these public men 1 The latter part of life in most cases is altogether dissimilar from the earlier part — Harley subsiding into a collector of manuscripts, Walpole into a collector of paintings, the Duke of Grafton into a student of theology. The old men, in these and many like cases, are so unlike what we have seen them at twenty-five or thirty years of age, that it is difficult to persuade oneself there is not some species of third new birth, differing from those both of the theologian and the physiologist, and that the entire being is transformed. The debates at this time were notable for two facts, with which we shall be concerned for many years to come. Lord Chatham, in the House of Lords, spoke strongly in favour of Eeform of the Parliamentary Eepresentation. In the Commons, Mr. Charles James Fox made his maiden speech. Lord North accepted office in January 1770, as First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer ; a post he held under immense difficulties for twelve years, and with a courage which his bitterest foes admitted. Mr. Thurlow, at first Solicitor- General, was a few days later made Attorney-General, and speedily found a very important duty in the prosecution of the pub- lisher of Junius. Lord North's first effort as minister was to deal with America. He determined, as a measure of concilia- tion, to repeal all the duties save that of three pence a pound on tea. It is quite clear that the King was wilHng to concede' everything but the right to tax the colonists. It has generally been believed that Lord North would have conceded that right also if he had been free. So far, however, as America was K 130 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap concerned, to allow the tax on tea was to grant the whole question in dispute. In 1773, three tea ships were discharged by the coloaists into Boston harbour. To punish Boston, the Custom House was removed. As a punitive measure towards Massachusetts, a " Government Bill " altered the Charter, so that the members of the government should henceforth be nominated by the Crown. It was decreed that disturbers of the public peace should be brought to England ; and a little earlier (January 1774) a petition from Massachusetts for the removal of the Governor and Deputy-Governor on account of certain letters written by them, and obtained in some way by Dr. Franklin, was refused, under circumstances to the last degree exasperating. This memorable petition was, in one respect, the turning-point of the American Eevolution. The subject was referred to a Committee of the Privy Council, of whom thirty-five members attended. The story is told by Lord Campbell in a graphic way. Lord Gower was President of the Council, Mr. Dunning, afterwards Lord Ashburton, a man of high character, and Mr. Lee, also of high character, were counsel for the petitioners. Mr. Wedderburn, afterwards Lord Loughborough, was Solicitor-General, and appeared for the Crown. The place of meeting was the Council Chamber at the Cockpit, "Whitehall, and accommodation was provided for a number of distinguished persons, among whom were Burke, Priestley, knd Bentham. The appearance of Dr. Franklin, who was there as agent for the colonists, was afterwards described by Mr. Bentham ; — " The President's chair," he said, " was with the back parallel to and not far distant from the fire; the chimney-piece, projecting a foot or two, formed a recess on each side. Alone, in the recess on the left hand of the Presi- dent, stood Benjamin Franklin, in such a position as not to be visible from the situation of the President, remaining the whole time, like a rock, in the same posture, his head resting on his left hand, and in that attitude abiding the pelting of the pitiless storm." If the question had been argued moderately, the Solicitor- General represented a by no means bad case ; for, although it VII.] LORD LOUGHBOROUGH. 131 was a profound secret how the letters had been obtained, there could be no doubt that they had been obtained in some way by a breach of trust. But Wedderburn was noted as the pos^ sessor of the bitterest tongue of the time. Sixteen or seventeen years earlier, as a member of the Scotch bar, he had publicly insulted the Dean of Faculty, with a coarseness of vituperation for which the bar has scarcely any, if indeed it has any, parallel. Then, called upon for an apology, be had stripped off his gown, hung it on the rail before him, and immediately started for England. He became a pupil, jn elocution, of Sheridan and of the noted actor Macklin. For some time he tried with great assiduity to associate his career with Lord Chatham and the party which at the time might be called the Opposition. Find^ ing that his course in that direction was not very clear, in 1771 he began to draw to Lord North ; and early in the year of this appeal he was made Solicitor-General. Lord Camden wrote of him to Lord Chatham — •' I am not surprised, but grieved." This was the man in whose hands was entrusted the delicate charge of contending against the Massachusetts petition. Jeremy Bentham and Dr. Priestley, among others, afterwards declared that they were perfectly astounded at what one of them termed the " thunder and lightning " of the vituperative orator. He denounced the colonists in terms of unmeasured abuse; declared that Franldin had now ^n e^fcellent claim to be called " a man of letters," since he bad purloined letters ; and, finally, he was so sarcastic in manner as well as words, that the Committee, not even, Dr. Priestley says, excepting the President, but excepting Lord North, laughed outright, as if they were present at a play. Lord Campbell adds^=- " The tiabe that was unborn might rue The speaking of tfaat day," When the business was finished and the petition rejected, some one naturally condoled with Frankhn on the abuse to which he had been subjected. He replied, that it was a matter of perfect indifference to him that a venal lawyer was hired and en- couraged to abuse the petitioners and their agent, and that, if K 2 132 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. well fee'd, Wedderburn " would have been equally loud in his praise, or in the devil's." This was in January 1774. In September a general congress assembled at Boston, and drew up a Declaration of Eights, an address to the people of Great Britain, and other documents. Early in 1775, Lord Chatham in the Lords, and Mr. Burke in the Commons, pleaded in vain for conciliatory measures. In July the colonists, who had shown that they knew how to hold their own in arms, sent what they called an " olive branch " — a conciliatory petition. It was presented on the 1st of September by Eichard Penn, Governor of Pennsylvania, who was informed that "no answer would be given." Now rushed on the fated crash of events. In the spring of 1776 the British forces had been successful in Canada, but Boston had been evacuated. On the 4th of July the Declaration of Independence, drawn up by Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin, was signed by the representatives of the thirteen colonies, which were declared free and independent states. A few days later Lord Howe arrived with reinforcements for his brother, General Howe, and, endeavouring to open negotiations, addressed General Washington as "Esquire." The letter was returned unopened. The colonists no longer knew any " George Washington, Esquire." In November that year Franklin was sent to Paris as the representative of the United States. In May 1777, Chatham made another effort for peace, and he repeated tlie effort later in the year, but in vain. At length Lord North, who is said to have privately striven for peace for a con- siderable time, succeeded in convincing the King; ministerial proposals were made to the Parliament for conceding the right to tax the colonies. The Convention of Saratoga, October 1777, by which General Burgoyne and his army of from 5,000 to 6,000 men had surrendered, had been followed by the recogni- tion, February 1778, by France of the insurgent colonies. The treaty between the two countries was signed by Dr. Franklin, the man whom Wedderburn had denounced, and against whom he had actually filed a bill in equity as an addendum to the denunciation. It is a great historical lesson. It possessed something, too, of dramatic effect. People told that Dr. Franklin, VII.] CHATHAM'S LAST SPEECH. 133 ■when he signed the treaty, the last great guarantee of American independence, wore the very coat that he had worn when he was denounced by Wedderburn in January 1774. A period of four years had very materially altered the tone of the King of England and his ministers. On April the 7th, 1778, the Duke of Eichmond moved, in the House of Lords, an address to the King, praying his Majesty, in effect, to make peace with America even by the recognition of independence. To this view Lord Chatham, Lord Camden, Lord Temple, and others, were strongly opposed. Anything short of independence Lord Chatham would concede, but to see England, as he said, humiliated before the House of Bourbon, was more than he could endure. This was the burthen of Lord Chatham's last speech. " My Lords," he said, " I rejoice that the grave has not closed upon me, that I am still alive to lift up my voice against the dismemberment of this ancient and noble monarchy." During the Duke of Eichmond's reply, the great orator again attempted to rise, but fell back in the arms of his son, and was taken away from the House in a convulsive fit, the peers rising and following respectfully. Next day the Duke of Eichmond's motion was rejected. On the 11th of May Lord Chatham died, in the seventieth year of his age. He was buried in West- minster Abbey, with something more of ceremonial than Court or Parliament could provide. He had been altogether forty years in public life, and from the time when he was one of the " boy patriots " of Walpole's satire, he had been associated with almost every great event in the history of England, at least in relation to foreign powers and the rise and faU of parties. It has been said that his preparations for that last speech, even to his dress of black velvet, had been made with a view to effect. It is more likely that the preparations were made with a burn- ing ardour to prevent the House of Bourbon, the hatred of the old statesman's life, from triumphing over the English monarchy. This last speech of a man whose will had so often been law decided for the time the demands for peace with America. But those demands recurred again with irresistible force. In October 1781, Lord Cornwallis was compelled to surrender. 134 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. In February 1782, General Conway carried a motion informing the King that in the opinion of the House of Commons, those who advised him to continue the war Were the enemies of the country. In March, on the eve of a proposed vote of censure, Lord North resigned. The public knew then that the question of peace was determined. Lord Eockingham was once more called to the helm of affaii's, a clear indication of What those affairs in one respect were to signify. In referring to the breaking up of the Eockingham administration in 1766, Lord Macaulay says ■.-^" Sixteen years later, in a dark aud terrible day, he was again called upon to save the State, brought to the very brink of ruin by the same perfidy, and obstinacy. Which had em- barrassed and at length overthrown his first administration." England was now at war with I'rance, Spain, Holland, and America, and the Americans had a shrewd suspicion, mingled perhaps With a kindly feeling towards the mother country, that they were being used for the purposes of the ancient enemies of England. Moreover, the victory of Eodaey and Hood in the "West Indies, and the defence and relief of Gibraltar were indications that it was not impossible to have a turn of the tide of war. Erom various causes better feelings Were again beginning to take effect, when in July 1?82, the Rockiugham administration came to an end by the death of the Premier. In this administration there had been Lord Shelburne, Charles James Fox, General Con-«>^ay, the Duke of Eichmond, Mr. Burke, and Mr. Sheridan, with Thurlow as Lord Chancellor. Lord Shel- burne succeeded to the premiership with Mr. William Pitt, now twenty-three years of age, as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Fox, Burke, Sheridan, and Cavendish, resigned. On the 30th November, 1782, a secret treaty of peace with England was signed by Franklin and the American Commissioners in Paris. In January 1783, peace was made with France and Spain; and in Sep- tember 1783, with Holland. The year 1783 closed, therefore, upon England at peace With all the world. The war had been calamitous, though not ingloriousj so far as the courage and endurance of the nation were concerned, but the grandest of all the national heirlooms, the colonies planted by Englishmen, were vn.] THE COALITION MINISTRY. 135 England's no more. The national debt amounted to close upon 250,000,000/. ; the cost of human life had been immense ; of the sufferings and privations of the people no full tale can ever be told. Early in 1783, Lord Shelburne's Government was called to account in the House of Commons for the peace then concluded. On an adverse vote Lord Shelburne resigned. In April 1783, the Coalition Ministry was formed, with the Duke of Portland as Premier, Lord John Cavendish, Chancellor of the Exchequer ; Lord North, and Chsfrles James Fox, joint Secretaries of State ; Lord Loughborough (Mr. Wedderburn), Lord Chancellor; Mr. Burke, Paymaster of the Forces. This Ministry had the honour of introducing the Prince of "Wales (George IV.) to the House of Lords on his coming to age. In November of the same year, Mr. Fox brought forward his famous India BiU, proposing, as one portion of the measure, to appoint seven persons who would form a Council, with fuU power over Indian affairs. The King was alarmed for his prerogative, the proposal being that none of the seven persons appointed should be removable by the Crown without an address from Parliament. The Bill passed the Commons, but in the Lords, a paper, given by the King to Lord Temple, was handed about stating that his Majesty would count no one his friend who voted for the India Bill. The Lords were spirited enough, in spite of this, to record seventy-six votes in favour of the Bill, but the threat was sufficiently powerful to cause several proxies entrusted to ministers to be withdrawn and given against the Bill. In consequence of the King's unconstitutional interference there were ninety-five votes against the proposed measure, which was, of course, rejected. This was on the 17th December. At midnight on the 18th, Lord North and Mr. Fox, received a message from the King requesting them to give up their seals. On the 19th December, Mr. Pitt, then in his 25th year, was appointed first Lord of the TreEisury, an ofi&ce he held from that time tiU 1801, and then with a slight interval, till his death in 1806. To the incidents of this remarkable adminis- tration we must refer in other chapters. It may be observed however, that Pitt, at even this early period overtopped 136 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap, vii- his great rival in tact, as well as in that self-restraint which was the distinguishing difference between them to the end. Once in power, the son of Lord Chatham was not easily shaken in his position ; and it must be said of him also that he held his head from first to last with the loftiest in the land, courting no favour, and apparently fearing no frown. CHAPTER VIIT. FROM 1763 TO llm.SOCIAL AFFAIRS. Prosecutions for Libel — Junius, 1769— Printer of Junius Charged on an ex officio Information — Lord Mansfield's Direction to tlie Jury ; Challenged by Lord Camden, and Virtually Defeated — The City of London, ] 770 — New Era in Parliamentary Reporting — Arrest of Two Printers by Order of the House of Commons— Discharged by the City Magistrates — Wise Concession of the Commons — Home Tooke— Lord Brougham's Opinion of Tooke — Prosecuted July, 1777 — Attorney-General Thurlow — Acquaintance of Tooke and Thurlow in Later Years — The Trial as a Test of Public Feeling with respect to America — Quarrel of Wilkes and Tooke — DifBculty of Dealing with Junius — Lord Shelbume's Statement ; Improbability of its Asserted Historic Value — The Secret — Place of Junius in History — Effect of the Letters as English Classics — Burke's Economical Reform — Pitt's First and Last Efforts for Reform and Peace — Wilberforce — Sheridan — Pitt — The Elections — "Fox's Martyrs " — Character and Action of Pitt and Fox — Religious Tests, 1772 — Case of the Slave Somerset — The Thirty-nine Articles — Imprisonment for Debt — Canals — Captain James Cook — Captain Phipps — James Bruce — Charles the Martyr's Day — India, 1600 — First Chartered Company — Madras, 1639— Bombay, 1662— Calcutta, 1690— Arcot, 1751— Plassey, 1757— Clive— Connecting Links — Vote of the Commons, 1773 — Death of Clive, 1774 — Wedderburn — Clive and His Antagonists — Warren Hastings — Trial of, 1786- 1795— Mr. Law, Lord EUenborough— Lord George Gordon Riots, 1780— The Four Days — Special Commission under Lord Loughborough for Trial of the Rioters— Executions — Acquittal of Lord George Gordon — Popular View of the Acquittal— More Historical Mobs ; High Church — Erskine— His First Brief— In Parliament— Case of the Dean of St. Asaph— Law of Libel- Importance of the Legal Point Maintained— The House of Commons and Mr. Stockdale, Printer— Erskine's Opposition to His Political Friends— How these Questions were Viewed by Poor Men— A Political Error of Workmen- Natural Causes for It— Cottage Literature— Middle Class Tracts— Popular Contempt for Them— Legh Richmond— Value of True Literature— A New Epoch ; Robert Burns— "A Man's a Man for a' That "—Distinctive Positioa of Burns. In the foregoing chapter the two leading subjects before the reader have been the trial of John Wilkes and the War of 138 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. American Independence. We have seen Chatham for years overawing friends and foes ; Mr. George Grenville introducing measures which eventually lost us America ; Lord Eockingham endeavouring to retrace the false steps ; and finally the Uuke of Grafton and Lord North, by administering to the erroneous views of the King, completing the separation of England and those important colonies which became the United States of America. Let us look at another side of the picture. For a year before the final resignation of the Duke of Grafton, his administration had been attacked in the Letters of Junius with a pungent bitterness which threw even the satire of Swift into the shade. In June, 1770, Mr. Woodfall, publisher of the Public Advertiser, was prosecuted for a libel which consisted in his having printed, December 19th, 1769, the Address of Junius to the King. The prosecution, as in the case of "Wilkes, was on an ex officio in- formation. Lord Mansfield directed the jury that they had nothing to do with the intention of the writer, but simply with the question of publishing, and as to whether the blanks in the letter meant what the prosecution maintained they were in- tended to mean. The question of the truth or falsehood of the assumed libel was one with which they need not concern them- selves. The jury, disregarding the direction, found Mr. Woodfall guilty of publication only, which was a virtual acquittal. For printing and republication, however, other persons were pun- ished. The direction of Lord Mansfield was at once challenged by Lord Camden in the House of Lords. Lord Mansfield evaded the discussion by desiring the Lords to give him time to prepare a paper. When again called upon for his defence, he simply stated that he had left a paper with the Clerk of the House. Lord Camden replied by disputing the whole principle of the direction, and by propounding six questions, which he challenged Lord Mansfield to discuss. These also were evaded by Lord Mansfield, and the questions really never were met. The whole "case was bitterly dealt with by Junius in a logical argument, which admitted of no reply. The great point, however, had been gained, in the non-acceptance, even in law, of Lord Mansfield's direction to the jury. It may be interesting to VIII.] THE BROTHERS WOODF ALL : THE " CITY." 139 observe that Mr. Sampson Woodfall, the publisher of Junius, slightingly as he is often referred to by historians, was a highly respectable man, son of a well-known printer, and brother of another, Mr. William Woodfall, of considerable note as a pub- lisher, and-"— -for his great gift in reporting, as people were only allowed to report in those days — known as " Memory Woodfall." Both brothers were well educated, and were the friends of many distinguished men. In the same year, the City of London took some steps which were afterwards cited as an example in even more dangerous times. In March, Lord Mayor Beckford and the Common Council went to St. James's to present a petition and remon- strance to the King, demanding in particular a " full, free, and unmutilated parliament," and that Mr. Wilkes should be allowed to take the seat to which he had been elected. The King, it was thought, was less displeased than contemptuous. In May, the same year, the form of petitioning was repeated by the Lord Mayor and Council. The King this time was somewhat sharp in his remarks, and Lord Mayor Beckford demanded per- mission to reply to His Majesty, a permission which was inadvertently granted. The Lord Mayor then, in words unusual to royal ears, and perhaps more numerous than the occasion warranted, stated that whoever strove to alienate the feelings of the King from the people, was an enemy to both. The King, it is said, grew very red and angry, and left the room. On a subsequent occasion he found very gentle means of inform- ing the Lord Mayor that he was not again to come there making speeches. Another account given of this famous episode is that the Lord Mayor went in great state to the King ; but in his confusion in the royal presence talked utter nonsense, not a word of which he could afterwards remember, and that Home Tooke wrote for him and published in the morning journals the speech to which the Lord Mayor owes his fame. At any rate, however, if the reader is curious in such matters, he wiU find in the Guildhall ample proof that London credited its Lord Mayor in the year 1770 with having said what he is reported to have said, and honoured him for having performed a public duty. A 140 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. fine statue represents him, in an attitude at once firm and deferential, speaking the words, which are given below on the pedestal of the statue in letters of gold. Opposite to him, on the one hand, is a statue of Chatham ; on the other hand are statues of Nelson and Wellington, and confronting Chatham, and by the side of Mr. Beckford, is a statue of the younger Pitt, with the well-known long inscription which enumerates his virtues and high qualities. The group shows how the freedom of Englishmen and loyalty to the Crown may accord. The second case in which the city was concerned was still more important. In 1771, the daily papers began to follow the example of the monthlies and others, and report the proceed- ings of Parliament. A member of the House, who had been so reported, complained, and the House ordered two printers to attend at the Bar. The printers refused, and were arrested on the Speaker's warrant, and carried before Alderman Wilkes, who declared the arrest illegal, and discharged the prisoners. Two more were arrested and were similarly discharged. In their place the messenger of the House was arrested by the City for false imprisonment. This latter daring act was at the instance of Lord Mayor Crosby and Aldermen Oliver and Wilkes. The two first of the delinquents, being members of the House, were at once committed to the Tower, but not without a riot, in which Lord North's carriage was broken to pieces, and the Premier himself badly hurt. The case now appearing serious, a committee of the Commons was appointed to consider what should be done. The investigation was long and tedious ; the final recommendation was, that one of the printers should be taken into the custody of the Sergeant-at-arms, a conclusion so inadequate to the apparent magnitude of the offence, that the House burst into a laugh, and there the case ended. The two members remained in the Tower till the end of the session, and then walked out without any demur on the part of any one. The freedom of Parliamentary reporting had been secured. It has been said that the House of Commons in this particular showed its impotence in allowing its power to be defied. In reality it showed both its power and its good sense. If the VIII.] THE PRESS: HORNE TOOKE. 141 power had not been so real that nothing conld withstand it in a right cause, there would have been the utmost fastidiousness for the form of power. The laugh and the concession were not the marks of weakness, but of strength. Yerdicts against the Press were very common at this time. Men like Burke and Fox, as well as men like Lord Sandwich, were applicants for protection under the law of libel, and were generally successful. In fact neither Whigs nor Tories knew rightly then or for long afterwards what to make of the Press, or what position to take with respect to it ia the government of the nation. Among the men who were beginning, apart from political ruts, to grapple with political affairs, was Mr. Home Tooke, ■who was destined to prove a torment both to ministers and judges. Mr. Tooke's original name was Home. He was the son of a poulterer in Newmarket-street, Westminster, but had received a university education, and having been admitted to Holy Orders, had been settled at New Brentford in a quiet living, purchased for him by his father, and worth from 200^. to 300^. a-year. In 1773 he was consulted with respect to a law case by a man named Tooke, who, in gratitude for some vigorous help given to him, bequeathed to Mr. Home — some say, a name and a fortune, some say a name merely, the fortune having somehow slipped out of sight. In any case, Mr. Home became Mr. Home Tooke. Lord Brougham says of him : " He suffered, and suffered much for his principles. A bold and just denun- ciation of the attacks made upon our American brethren, which in our days would rank among the very mildest and tamest effusions of the periodical press, condemned him to a prison for twelve months, destined to be the most active of his life." The remarks extend to a greater length, but their point is in their reference to affairs which will come later in these pages. Mr. Home Tooke's offence was that on the receipt of news from the seat of war in America, he proposed a public subscription for "the widows and children of the men inhu- manly butchered by the King's troops at Lexington and Concord." For this an ex officio information was filed against him, and the charge was heard iu July, 1777, at the Guildhall, 142 POPULAR PROGEESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. before Lord Mansfield and a special jury. Attorney-General Thurlow prosecuted with unusual vindictiveuess, and even went so far as to suggest that the delinquent should be set in the pillory. Mr. Tooke was his own advocate, and Lord Camp- bell says, was not generally accounted so successful as he was at a later period in his legal encounters. He must, however, have greatly vexed the Attorney-General by the cool liberties he took with both the Bar and the Bench. He was fined 2001., and sentenced to be imprisonfid for twelve months. This was neither his first nor last meeting with Lord Mansfield. Lord Thurlow and he never met again till 1801, when a meeting was arranged. Lord Campbell says, by Lord Thurlow's desire, or with his acquiescence, at the house of Lady Oxford, at Ealing. The account of the meeting is from " the diary of a distinguished political character," who gives Lord Thurlow the palm of victory in the conversation that ensued, and even says that Tooke was scared by his legal competitor for the poor honour of talk, and drank deeply, but in vain, to keep up his courage. This has the look, at all events, of a distin- guished political person's nonsense, or of a little of Lord Campbell's allowable romance. Mr. Tooke was a far better scholar, a far better read man, and a better talker, unless history is~ altogether at fault, than Lord Thurlow, and his cool courage was remarkable. The most cnrious fact, however, is that the old antagonists some years later became intimate acquaintances, if not friends, and that Thurlow strongly defended Tooke's elec- tion for Old Sarum, whigh wa,s disputed and eventually over- ruled on the ground of his Holy Orders. As lately as this year (1876), another clergyman, Mr. Goring, a candidate for the representation of Shoreham, protested in strong and telling terms against the absurd act by which Mr, Tooke was unseated. Mr. Goring wrote ;— " I cannot put out of sight the Bishops in the House of Lords, and other reasons why persons whose circum- stances and calling otherwise are suitable, should not be debarred from sitting in a Legislature sinjply because they are in Orders, especially when, as in my own case, they have not gone beyond those of Deacon. Further, I consider the old Act, known as vin.] THURLOW AND TOOKE. 143 Home Tooke's Act, as little, if at all, short of tyranny. It was really directed against an individual and his political opinions ; and his clergy afforded only the opportunity of enforcing exclusion against him by ex post facto legislation. Previously, I believe, clergy had often sat unobserved and unobjected to, other circumstances favouring their doing so," The leal truth probably is, that although the Act in the first instance was directed simply against Mr. Tooke, by the despotically inclined part of Parliament, it became in time a settled conviction that clergymen have enough to do for the public good, and scope to do it, without entering the House of Commons. The absurdity, perhaps, is that on a Dissenting minister there is no such check, but then a Dissenting minister does not claim to have received the gifts of priesthood by Apostolical Succes- sion. When extraordinarily high claims are made there must be a penalty somewhere. In the decline of life there appears to have been a genial intercourse between the fierce old ex-Lord Chancellor and the imperturbable and public-spirited ex-parson of Brentford, a man to whom we owe more than some people are willing to allow. They visited each other for the interchange of views on passing events, and it is not too much to say that at a critical time in the life of the ex-parson he owed a great deal to the keen acumen of the ex-judge. At the house of Mr. Tooke, Lord Thurlow, according to his biographer, frequently met men, not merely like Sir Francis Burdett, but also like Mr. Hardy the shoemaker with whose trial for high treason we are somewhat concerned. Many years, however, had to pass before these relations prevailed. At present we are only at the year 1777, when Tooke was sent to Newgate for twelve months, and when Thurlow declared that he ought to have been set in the pillory. There is one circumstance in connection with this trial worth a passing notice, as bearing upon the general public feeling. That a man should have dared, in the midst of a terrible war, to use such words as those for which Mr. Home Tooke was charged, is in itseK proof that the popular feeling was not with the court and the ministers in their coercion of the colonists. 144 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. There have since been times when, to speak of the King's troops as having inhumanly butchered any one, would have been to risk lynch law. Even during the. Crimean war, when it was quite allowable to speak of the Emperor of Eussia as " Old Nick," it would have been dangerous to say a word in his favour. Nay, it was hazardous even to say that the army was perishing from mismanagement in the trenches before Sebastopol, and some penalties had to be paid by persons who dared the risk and won the honour of saving gallant lives. Eeleased from prison, Mr. Tooke applied for admission to the Bar, but was refused. He was a priest, they said, and must die so. He devoted him- self to political and other literature, and produced several works of real value, and among them. The Diversions of Purley, a philological work, for which even his opponents had high praise. Of his political principles it may safely be said that, although he may be termed in the strictest sense a philosophical Eadical, he was not in any way a practical one. His inter- course with persons whom he met in the political societies which he assisted to form was often characterised by biting satire, of which his associates felt the sting. A violent quarrel with Wilkes in 1771 brought him under the lash of Junius, and naturally Mr. Tooke, fighting against a concealed adver- sary, had the worst of the encounter. He was a redoubtable antagonist, however, in all cases ; a very Friar Tuck at political quarter-staff. It was much easier to deal with the open speeches and writings of the ex-parson of Brentford than with the covert and terrible attacks of Junius. We have noticed how the charge against Mr. Woodfall, the printer failed. Every one knows how completely the secret of Junius has been kept, and if a statement made in the Life of Lord Shelhurne is to be relied upon, among all the guesses as to authorship, not one has been correct. The writer, Lord Edward Fitzmaurice, says : — "Had his (Lord Shelburne's) life been prolonged the secret of Junius would now he known. Only a week before he died he was appealed to by Sir Richard Phillips on the subject, who communicated the result of the conversation to the Monthly Magazine. Sir Richard Phillips said to Lord vin.] JUNIUS. 145 Shelburne — then Lord Lansdowne — that many persons had ascribed those letters to him, and that the world at large conceived that at least he was not unacquainted with the author. Lord Lansdowne replied, 'No, no, I am not equal to Junius ; I could not be the author ; but the grounds of secrecy are now so far removed by death and changes of circumstances, that it is unneces- sary the author of Junius should much longer be unknown. The world are curious about him, and I could make a very interesting publication on the subject ; I knew Junius, and I knew all about the writing and production of those letters. But look,' said he, ' at my condition ; I don't think I can live a week — my legs, my strength, tell me so ; but the doctors, who always flatter sick men, assure me I am in no immediate danger. They order me into the country ancl I am going there. If I live over the summer, which, however, I don't expect, I promise you a very interesting pamphlet about Junius. I will put my name to it ; I will set that question at rest for ever.' He subsequently added : ' I'll tell you this for your guide generally — Junius has never yet been publicly named. None of the parties ever guessed at as Junius was the true Junius. Nobody has ever suspected him. I knew him ; and knew all about it, and I pledge myself, if these legs wiU permit me, to give you a pamphlet on the subject, as soon as I feel myself equal to the labour.' It appears from a letter written by my grandfather. Lord Lansdowne, in July, 1813, to the same periodical, that his father had not confided the secret to him or to any one else." The perplexing part of this statement is that Lord Shelburne's failing strength should have prevented him from speaking ten words, when he spoke more than ten, in giving the reason for not making the statement that would have set at rest for ever the authorship of Junius. If the secret had been one of mere idle curiosity, the case would have been different. But it is not that. Say what men even like Lord Macaulay and Lord Brougham might — and both of them made somewhat light of the long-preserved secret — it has an importance that would not be diminished, but increased by the secret being divulged. It was concluded at a very early period after the letters had appeared, and on unanswerable evidence, that the writer, who- ever he might be, was intimately acquainted with the official routine of several departments of State ; that there were certain subjects with which he was not acquainted, and upon which he had not the means of obtaining information, while there were other subjects on which he seemed to have accurate intelligence from day to day. All manner of men were fixed 146 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. upon as the writer, and one by one cast aside as not answering to some test which was deemed indispensable. It appears to the present writer, that if Lord Shelburne's secret had been divulged, it would have only proved to be a well-reasoned sup- position, and that when Junius said, '/ 1 am the sole depositary of my secret, and it shall die with me," he affirmed what he substantiated. The one reason for supposing that he was not a highly distinguished person is, that such men are not prone to stabbing in the dark. The one reason for supposing that he was a distinguished man, is the preservation of the secret. There were few men at that time whose reputation in any single case, would not, after death, have gained by his identification with the authorship of Junius. Chatham would have gained nothing, Burke would have gained nothing, and several like instances might be named. To a half known man, to be known as Junius would have been to secure lasting fame. The place of Junius in history cannot be decided on any literary rule, and probably will remain undecided— each student of history forming his own opinion — as long as English history endures. The dedication of the letters by Junius himself " To the English nation," contains these words: — "Wlien kings and ministers are forgotten, when the force and direction of personal satire is no longer understood, and when measures are only felt in their remotest consequences, this book will, I believe, be found to contain principles worthy to be trans- mitted to posterity." What is most of all worthy to be transmitted to posterity is, that in a time of corruption and imbecility in high places, a man arose with a pen which made that corruption shake — a pen more dreaded than an adverse vote in Parliament ; a man who unravelled the tangled skein of State policy with a cunning and irresistible hand. Mr. Forster has said : — " It was the startling manifestation of power and courage ; it was the sense that unscrupulous ministers had now an enemy as unscrupulous ; that here was knowledge of even the worst chicaneries of office which not the most sneering official could make light of ; that no minister in either House, no courtier at St. James's, no obsequious judge at Westminster, viii.] THE VALUE OF JUNIUS. 147 no supercilious secretary in any of the departments, could hereafter feel himself free from treachery and betrayal ; and -what hitherto had only been a vulgar, half articulate cry from the Brentford hustings, or at best a faint whisper imperfectly echoed from St. Stephen's, was now made the property and enjoyment of every section of the people — of the educated by its exquisite polish, of the vulgar by its relish of malice, of the great middle class by its animated plainness, vigorous shrewd- ness, and dogged perseverance." To estimate rigHtly the value of Junius, we must remember that the principle of trial by jury had at the time been rudely assailed; that even a man like Lord Mansfield, whose wariness was a proverb, had joined in the assault. This — and it was but one feature in a wide-spread corruption — would have justified Junius in striking hard and deeply. With Home Tooke ministers could very easily deal, for he fought them with one kind of weapons, while they fought with another which for the purpose were far more eflfective. The case was now altered ; they had to meet weapons more finely tempered than their own, and an antagonist who wore an invisible cloali. The letters cover a period from the middle of 1767 to that of 1772. We have seen that with the accession of George III. in 1760, the first and chief aim had been to find, not the best and ablest ministers, but those who would most readily accommodate themselves to the Eoyal wishes ; a position all the more danger- ous from the fact that the King's wishes did not, like those of Charles II., or subsequently those of George IV., tend to immorality. The King was a man of right aims ; he sought for no connivance with illicit pleasures, while he did seek for connivance with arbitrary power. In the most difficult times of his reign, when all national interests seemed on the eve of being wrecked, George III. had the sympathy of some of the most moral people in the nation. Under the shelter of this real morality and sincerity of purpose, the nation was on a fair way to ruin, when the venomed pen of Junius was first used. From that time, as Mr. Forster pointedly states, there was no depart- ment of State intrigue that did not feel insecure. If the author's L 2 148 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [ohap. name had been divulged, there is no doubt that his life, as he himself said, would not have been worth an hour's purchase. If there had been no legal means of reaching him, illegal means would have been found. Nor can we wonder, when we read his remarks on, for instance, the Duke of Grafton, on the peculations in this quarter, on the imbecility in that, on the mismanagement of affairs upon which individual fortune and position, as well as human life and the honour and safety of the nation, depended. It is idle to say, as some distinguished men of late years have maintained, that the Letters of Junius are of only secondary political import- ance, and that apart from the secret they would long ago have been consigned to oblivion. The truth is, that they stand almost alone amongst satirical and logical productions in the possession of characteristics which belong to enduring literature. They can be read as history. Nay, more ; the history of the time cannot be understood without them. Stripping from a host of public characters the fictitious qualities ascribed to them by flattery and adulation, Junius reduced the history of the time to fact. That the letters were frequently unjust and cruel cannot be disputed ; but the time required a scalping- knife, and a sharp scalping-knife was used by a hand that intended to cut to the bone. The style was so terse, so simple, so telling, and so little indicative of anger, even when it was most vituperative, that every letter published was like a fresh power in politics. It is not too much to say, therefore, that the "English nation" to which Junius made his "Dedication," will not readily suffer the letters to die. Lord Brougham, who condemned Junius, has also left sketches illustrative of his time ; but Lord Brougham's sketches will pass away as of merely ephemeral interest, while Junius will remain for very late times. Lord Macaulay, with all the truth of genius characterizing his writings generally, cannot by any means be supposed guiltless of unacknowledged bias and favouritism. Junius admitted that he had bias, both for and against persons in power. He admitted that his intention was to cut deeply in cases of public vice and weakness, and to do his best to uphold public virtue and VIII.] WILBERFOECE. 149 efficiency — the strength necessary to puhlic affairs. The letters, therefore, made a large and deep mark in political and social history. That they should have been written under a mask was a question for the author's own conscience, and one in which the less he is imitated in the future the better it will be for public morals. To dispute his decision in that respect, however, we ought to know more of the circumstances of the case than we are ever likely to know. We have seen also that in the years 1782 and 1783, peace was made with Jtmerica, Trance, Spain, and Holland ; that when the latter year ended one of our most trying war-times had closed. We have seen the Eockinghara administration fall, from the death of its chief, and the Shelburne Ministry under the odium of the peace with France and Spain. There are a few notable circumstances in connection with the former of these two ministries. Mr. Burke in office carried a bill for Economical Eeform, abolishing sinecures to the extent of about 72,000^. a year. Mr. Pitt, out of office, moving in his father's footsteps for a committee to inquire into the state of the parliamentary representation was defeated by twenty votes. Pitt also, in connection with his friend Mr. Wilberforce, took an active part in the efforts for peace. These motions are curious when viewed by the light of Pitt's subsequent position, and policy. Mr. Wilberforce, who came into prominence at this time, had previously been known as an active and useful member of the House of Commons. He was the son of a merchant in Hull, and sat for the borough for a short period till 1774, when he was returned for Yorkshire, which he represented till 1812. His labours, his charities, his sublime faith and conscientiousness, will not readily pass away. He was one of those men who by calmness and purity of life, give prestige and power in Parlia- ment to views which coarser men had held and advocated, and perhaps to some extent vulgarised. His motives were above dispute ; his sympathy with the English poor was akin to that of Legh Eichmond, and was quite as real. The religious societies of the Established Church looked to him as their representative in more than one way. The Quaker followed 150 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. him for very much more than the mere freedom of the slave, and for that followed him with that enthusiasm which was aU the deeper that it was so little like any other enthusiasm known to men. He was a connecting link between the Church and Dissent ; the one man who at that time was able to unite conflicting creeds on the broader basis of nationality and phil- anthropy. His power of sarcasm was very rarely shown ; but there was one occasion when a man ventured to speak of him as " the honourable and religious member " that his flow of satire amazed all who listened to it. Pitt afterwards said to Sir Samuel EomilLy— "It is the most striking thing I ever heard, but I look on it as the more singular proof of the virtue of Wilberforce, for who but he ever possessed such a power and never used it ? " This is not exactly a quotation, but it is very nearly one ; it is made from memory, and may not be in the exact words. It was to the honour of Wilberforce that, although no sting could rouse him with reference to himself personally, his satire was used when he thought that a stigma was cast upon religion. His belief in Pitt was one of the remarkable facts in his history, and has often been referred to as a curiosity, considering how much more nearly his views might have been supposed to coincide with those of Fox. The solution of the difficulty is in the difference between the lives of Pitt and Fox. Wilberforce knowing, as everybody knew, under what circumstances Fox prepared for the debates in which, when freedom was concerned, he had no rival, and how proper and decorous Pitt was in every way, had little doubt as to which chief his allegiance was owing. He was not by any means a great statesman ; he was a man of few ideas, but those ideas were directed to great aims. In several important instances, when the liberties of the people were in question in the law courts and elsewhere, Wilberforce was not by any means active on the popular side. He was termed lukewarm by men who were very ardent, while perhaps he was painfully endeavouring to arrive at a conviction which would satisfy his own mind, In affairs which required quick decision and prompt action Mr. Wilberforce was not a statesman. vm.] SHERIDAN: FOX'S MARTYRS. 151 Of Sheridan's character, also, much has been written, from very different points of view. He has been condemned by some as^ a mere playwright and actor ; the son of a player, shallow in thought, and only gifted in expression; always in debt, and cateless about being so. By others he has been eulo- gised as almost the greatest genius of the age. The truth, as usual, is between the two extremes. He was the son of a player, but of a player who had first been a lexicographer, and who had taken to' the stage when more serious studies had failed to procure tiim bread ; and he was the grandson of an eminent Irish divine. The great orator himself began life with an elopement and a secret marriage in 1773. In 1775 he began to write for bread, and The Rivals, St. Patrick's Day, Tim Duenna, The School for Scandal, and other light and charming productions, came fast from his pen. He entered Parliament by the interest of l^'ox. We left Pitt, at the end of the last chapter, entering upon his long term of office, and convincing the King, by action more than by words, that the premiership was once more in the hands of a man, like Walpole or North, who would not easily be removed by any foolish sentiment on his own part, or by any opposition on that of his opponents. In 1784 he proposed an India Bill, and was defeated. Altogether during the session, which ended on March the 24th, there had been no fewer than fourteen motions carried against him. Parliament was then dissolved. In the elections that followed, the young minister was everywhere victorious. Of the adherents of the coalition ministry no fewer than 160 were rejected, and went by the name of Fox's Martyrs. The King was overjoyed. The people were not sorry. Nothing is clearer in the history of England than the popular antipathy to coalitions, unless it is the love for indomitable pluck against great odds, ajid the capacity to give and take hard blows, such as were given and taken by the first Pitt and the first Fox, and again at this later period by their sons. Pitt and Fox, at this period, may be said to have differed less in principles than in pride, and the same may be said of their fathers before them. Lord Holland suffered 152" POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. his head to sink beneath pecuniary difficulty, and his son fol- lowed his example. Neither of the Pitts ever did that. Lord Chatham was at one time poor enough, and perhaps hardly knew whether he was poor or rich, but the poverty came from causes that did not affect his high spirit. Of his son it was said that his whole affairs were left in the hands of stewards and servants ; that he knew little and cared little of what was going on in his household. But nobody ever dared to dun Pitt as Fox was dunned daily. Nearly all that Charles Fox strove for has been gained. There is scarcely a record of a vote given by him against human rights or progress. He was the greatest opposition leader ever known; he was also a great creative statesman ; but he was lazy and inert in speech and in motion, and only when roused to some extraordinary effort was his voice heard in that irresistible strain of logic and denunciation which ne'ver were equalled in the House of Commons, or equalled on one or two occasions by John Bright alone. Of Pitt his friends have always said, that if his lot had been cast in peaceful times he would have been the greatest peace minister ever known. His independence could not be touched with impunity even by the King. Personally he scorned corruption, and eschewed borough-mongering, in the same spirit which made the Duke of Wellington long after- wards say, " I would not dirty my fingers " with the loath- some work. For Pitt, however, there were no peaceful times. He was not a gTeat war minister in the sense in which his father had been one. His coalitions, almost as fast as he made them, were wrecked by the genius of Buonaparte. His finance schemes were anything but successful. He trusted to repression in cases of popular tumult where Fox would have removed the evils which rendered the repression necessary. There is scarcely anything in legislation that can be said to bear the impress of Pitt's mind. Yet he stamped his mind upon his time so effectually that the impression may be seen to this day. Such were the two men upon whom the attention of civilized nations will always rest in connection with this period. VIII.] THE TIDE OF CIVILIZATION. 153 We enter now upon a new series of efforts for social and political reform. In 1772 a Bill passed the Commons for the relief of Protestant Dissenters, chiefly to enable them to teach in schools without subscribing to offensive tests, but it was rejected by the Lords. In the same year Lord Mansfield gave the famous decision of the twelve judges in the case of the negro Somerset. The decision was elicited by Mr. Granville Sharp and his brother. The negro had been brought to England with his master under circumstances common at the* time, and was led either at the instance of Mr. Sharp, or his own motion, to claim his freedom. He was seized, however, and retained in spite of a decision against the claim by the Lord Mayor of London. Mr. Sharp stood by the otherwise friendless man till it was declared by the highest authority that when a slave set foot on English ground, he was free. In the saTne year two hundred and fifty persons, including clergymen of the Established Church, petitioned Parliament to be relieved from the necessity of subscribing to the Thirty-nine Articles. A little earlier a barrister who had written against imprisonment for debt was expelled by his brother benchers from the Temple ; the Bridgewater Canal was opened about this time. James Cook returned from his first great voyage of discovery ; Captain Phipps from the Polar Seas ; and James Bruce from what for a long time to come were believed to be the sources of the Nile. It was also of more than merely ephemeral importance that the Lord Mayor of London in 1773 refused to attend church on King Charles the Martyr's day. Dr. Priestley received the Copley medal in the same year for a valuable work on the properties of air. In the same year Clive was censured by the House of Commons, and in the following year died in a dreadful way by his own hand. The above facts are notable enough for a chapter to themselves. One of them, the voyage of James Cook, is well worth more than a passing notice ; England has few historic facts more notable. Captain Cook was the son of a Yorkshire farm labourer, who had many children and small means. The famous son learned seamanship in a 154 POPULAR PBOGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. coasting collier vessel, and in due time, without influence, made his way to the high honour of commanding a scientific expedi- tion, and to the higher honour still of being our first and greatest peaceful sailor. He went among savage nations with a civilization to which they, had been altogether unused, and he taught them what they had rarely been tanght before by civilized men, that Christianity, when reduced to practical life, is worth infinitely more than that which merely is preached. A grandly modest, unselfish, firm, merciful man, able on all sides, capable in the old sense, there are few better lessons in English literature than those of the modest, sterling, manly life of James Cook. We cannot pass from this period without noticing that early in the reign of George III. James Watt, an intelligent young Scotchman of Greenock, began those wonderful improve- ments in steam-power which have given him so great a fame ; and that, about the same time, James Hargraves, an intelligent young Englishman of Blackburn, invented the spinning-jenny. The spinning-frame, the mule-jenny, the power-loom, and other ingenious work of Wyatt, Arkwright, Crompton, and Cartwright, followed. Within a period of about a quarter of a century all the laws and habits of English social life were slowly but surely revolutionized, with immense suffering to many, as the first result of what was to be for the benefit — the great and lasting good — of all. It is amusing now to find that about the same time (1774), in one of the most popular books of those years, the Essays of Lord Kaims, a solemn protest was made by that great philosopher against the further growth of large towns, (jne of the essays is entitled "A Great City considered in Physical, Moral, and Political Views," and there is no doubt that the manner in which the subject is treated reflects the opinion of a great part of the most intelligent people of the time. Queen Elizabeth, the learned writer says, made an error in 1602, after the example of several French kings, when she issued an edict against increasing the size of London. She ought merely to have restricted the number of inhabitants. James I., in 1624, and Charles I., in 1625 and again in 1630, issued edicts viii.] LARGE TOWNS IN 1774. 155 to the same effect, and of course deepened the error. The order was that no houses should be built in London on new founda- tions, — first, in the language of the edict of Elizabeth, because " such multitudes can hardly be governed to serve God and obey Her Majesty" without great expense, &c. ; secondly, because a larger London could not possibly be fed ; thirdly, because of disease, and so on ; to which reasons Lord Kaims adds — " The populace (of a town) are ductile and easily misled by ambitious and designing magistrates. Nor are there wanting critical times in which such magistrates acquiiing artificial influence may have power to disturb the public peace My plan wordd be to confine the inhabitants of London to 100,000, composed of the King and his household. Supreme Courts of Justice, Government Boards, prime nobility and gentry, with necessary shopkeepers, artists and other dependants." " Artists and other dependants ! " it wiU be observed. Here is feudalism, with a vengeance, in 1774. The rest of the inhabitants he would have distributed among nine other towns " properly situated, some for internal commerce, some for foreign;" and so he would have diffused " life and vigour into every corner of the island." Fifty years after Lord Kaims published these sage reflections, London and the suburbs had a population of nearly a mUlioo, comprising all manner of trades and professions, and fermenting with all manner of new and daring impulses. Lord Kaims, and the mass of the learned people who held his faith as to large towns, never seem to have reflected that the gi-eat enemy and the great bait to the predatory highlanders of Scotland was Glasgow ; and that the same rule existed with respect to the borderers — the moss-troopers and kindred robbers — and Carlisle, Penrith, and Berwick. Wherever large towns grew, there grew with settled habits a regard for property ; but there grew also, as by a law of nature, a perception of human rights, and a knowledge of what was involved in union and organization. Lord Kaims would have had a capital in England like Benares, composed of the palaces of chiefs, and the huts of dependents, " artists and others," with Inns of Court, great churches, beautiful parks, and an army ever ready for review. Alas, for 15G POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. the idea! Benares has its palaces stUl, its beauty and its poverty ; but the capital of India is on the low land on the Ilooghly. There Commerce sat down, and there the Eoyalty of India was compelled also to sit down. Lord Kaims overlooked the undoubted fact that Commerce is the most capricious of jQts when despotically wooed. Alexander was not at all wrong in his selection of the site of Alexandria as the grand commercial connecting link of an Empire in both East and West. He allowed for everything but the unaccountable caprices of Nature and of Commerce ; and though to this day Alexandria stands almost unapproached as a site for commercial enterprise, it is distanced by many a little town in England which has grown up to commercial greatness since the time of Lord Kaims. Machinery and the growth of towns at the time Lord Kaims wrote, were effecting that mighty revolution which he thought he perceived, only which did not transpire exactly in his way. It is necessary here, to the right understanding of many events, that the affairs with which we are dealing should in some slight way be connected with the circumstances of the rise and progress of British power in India; circumstances which, by this time, affected all politics and indeed aU social life. The first East India Company was formed in the reigu of Elizabeth, with the simple mercantile aim of employing vessels, or forming small settlements for trading purposes. The capital was only about 30,000^., which was deemed a mag- nificent sum for the purposes in view. Five vessels, in all, were sent out with general cargoes, iron, tin, &c. A struggle of nearly eighty years for renewal of charters, and against encroachments of unchartered traders, as well as against the rival companies of other nations, and worst of all, against, or rather in connection with, corruption at home, brought the Com- pany's affairs down to the time of the fourth charter in the reign of Charles II. Another charter was granted in 1683, in the same reign, to stop " interlopers " — a very notable act — and to enable the Company to proclaim martial law. A sixth charter, in the reign of James II., empowered the Company to make war VIII.] ENGLAND IN INDIA. 157 on princes, a step which seemed like the foreshadowing of Empire, as indeed it was. The exclusion of interlopers virtually- rendered all India a preserve of the Company; the right as to martial law and the war on princes gave the traders an almost regal position. These, and all subsequent charters, it should be observed, had to be paid for, bribed for, directly or indirectly. The consequent demoralization was at last felt to be an evil so great as to portend national ruin. The Factory at Madras was foimded in 1639 ; we acquired Bombay as a marriage dowryfrom Portugal with the wife of Charles II. in 1662. War was declared against the Moguls in 1685. In 1690 Job Charnock founded Calcutta, and made a name which, after the lapse of nearly two centuries, is as fresh to native India as that of Lord Northbrook or of Lord Mayo. From this time to 1772, the government of British India was of a purely mercantile character in name, though Charnock and others had had their dreams, and had given effect to them. We had beaten three brilliant and ambitious Frenchmen — Dupleix, Bussy, and Lally. Clive had captured Arcot; had recaptured Calcutta after the tragedy of the Black Hole, had won Plassey ; indeed had fought his way to empire. The Mahratta power had been broken. Dating from the first foundation of the mercantile com- panies, we had been in India more than 100 years, never really at peace, contending against France, Portugal and Holland, and a host of native powers ; now in abject despair, now in the flush of victory, now resting on the principle of factories, now talking of imperiail rule. Down to the time of Clive, however, in 1744, or rather to his capture of Arcot in 1751, the mer- cantile Company had offered no sign of anything like the possession of Empii'e. Twenty-three years after the conquest of Arcot, CUve died in the melancholy way to which reference has been made. For years and years he had been one of the great heroes of England, had ruled over immense territories, and over princes of great name; and all with the hand of a' master among men. He had given to the service of the country energy and genius of the highest order; the quick eye, the indomitable will, that decide not only great battles, but great 158 POPULAR PKOGRBSS IN ENGLAND. [chap. policies. He had pointed Englishmen to a vast, wealthy, and renowned empire. Arcot was won in the year in which Frederick Prince of Wales, father of George III., died, whUe Chatham was laying the foundations of a great fame. The year (1757) in which Calcutta was re- taken, Chandernagore captured, and Plassey fought, was that of Admiral Byng's execution, and of the formation of Chatham's ministry. In May, 1773, the House of Commons resolved that Lord Clive had possessed himself of 234,000^. by unlawful means, and though the resolution was accompanied by the remark that he had also done great services to his country, he never recovered the blow. He was defended by Mr. Wedderburn, Lord Lough- borough, who, in the following year, as the reader has already seen, made the memorable attack on Franklin. In the defence of Clive the acute lawyer appears to much gTeater advantage. The brief was an excellent one for the display of eloquence ; and in this case the advocate was credited with real earnest- ness of purpose. General Burgoyne, who had introduced to the House of Commons the charges against Clive, had really, as stated forcibly in the defence, referred to matters extending over a period of sixteen years, and doubtless Wedderburn's were the memorable words uttered by Clive himself: — "Before I sit down I have one request to make to the House ; that when they come to decide upon my honour, they will not forget their own." The prosecution originated beyond all question in the jealousies — a chronic complaint — of the East India Company. That Clive had committed great faults of the kind indicated was proved. But very soon it was placed beyond dispute, and remains in history for all time, that it was not for his faults, but becaiise he checked the huge faults of others, and put an end to a very nest of corruption, that the accusations were levelled against him. His fate was scarcely made a "great question" of the time; tlie whole proceedings were like a vestry dispute, the minister assenting indeed to the prosecution, but in such a way as to evince his opinion of its unimportance. And so, very nearly twenty years after the glorious day at Plassey, CUve died, and even then England made no sign of any profoimd conception VIII.] CLIVE AND HASTINGS. 159 that one of her mightiest sons had gone. Standing, some little time ago, on the spot where Olive's memorable resolution to fight his great battle of Plassey was taken — -fancying, as one easily may, the very mango-grove into which he retired for that almost awful hour of self-communion on the eve of a decision which would affect the destinies of the world, a decision, too, in the face of such odds as only races destiaed to empire ever challenge — watching afterwards the streams of wild life drifting, as in a current, to and from the ancient city of Moorshedabad — the present write*, at all events, found it very hard to think of the faults of Olive. He was very wrong in much, but he was no petty tyrant. He had no pleasure in torturing those with whom he came in contact as protector or as foe. His policy with respect to the treaty with Omichund was a false policy, the consequences of which are felt yet in India. But Olive was too proud to be essentially false, and too reckless to be capable of the petty meannesses laid to his charge. He simply represented a corrupt system, and he paid the penalty for more than his own sins, and for some splendid virtues. Ten years later Warren Hastings was impeached in the name of the House of Commons by Burke, Fox, and Sheridan, with certain general support from Pitt, and an arsenal of facts and arguments in the background in Sir Philip Francis. Years before, Francis and Hastings had quarrelled and fought a duel in India, and the former, badly wounded, had retired from the service. He had now an ample revenge. The date of the governor-generalship of Hastings is reckoned from 1772 to 1785. The charges against him were stated in 1786. The impeachment rested over him from that time till 1795, when he was acquitted — a decision which led to Burke's retire- ment from Parliament. These two trials have a double signifi- cance. Originating at first in tlie dislike of little men to men of undoubted genius, they nevertheless tended to convince the ser- vants of the East India Company in India that there was a reserve power in England if injustice were committed. The impeach- ment of Hastings was assuredly much more earnest and sincere in its character than the trial of Olive, and the impeachment 160 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. was in clean hands and honourable. It is impossible to avoid sympathy with two such men placed in such a position ; but we may reniember that English power in India had become so great a fact that the restraint of Parliament was a necessity, and that restraint could not have been better represented than by Burke and Fox. Many circumstances in connection with the great Company had, as already stated, tended to the demoral- ization of England, as well as the injury of India. The renewal of the charters was a constant source of extortion on the part of influential political men, behind whom were a number of families who held a vested interest in the Company; many families whose names may be found in relation to the same affairs to this day, in some cases representing principles of a right nature, in others representing principles not right nor wholesome. The great struggle in the trial was between the " Managers " of the Commons on the one hand, and Mr. Law (Lord Ellenborough), the principal counsel for the accused, on the other. The able lawyer, however, was a poor antagonist for men like Burke and Eox, who set mere quibbles and technicalities at defiance. In one case recorded, Mr. Law made some remark about the common character of the two sides. " Common character, " said Mr. Burke, " I can never suffer the dignity of the House of Commons to be implicated in the common character of the Bar. The learned counsel may take care of his own dignity — ours is in no danger except from his sympathy." When the proceed- ings were finished Mr. Law seemed to think that the time had come for the managers and the counsel to shake hands and be friends. Burke, who understood no such rule of life, turned, it is said, haughtily on his heel, and left the proffered hand untouched. He would have no record in history that he had stooped to any practice of a mere special pleader. Another marked feature of the time were the riots in connec- tion with the name and speeches of Lord George Gordon. In 1778 Sir George SaviUe, a man of liberal views, had procured the repeal of that severe law of William III., which punished Eoman Catholic priests as felons and traitors, caused the forfei- ture of estates by Eoman Catholic heirs educated abroad, and VIII.] THE LORD GEORGE GORDON RIOTS. 161 gave to a Protestant son or nearest relative a Catholic's property. The law had in most cases been inoperative ; but when it was repealed there arose a Protestant outcry such as had not been heard before since the reign of Queen Anne. On June 2nd, 1780, a mass meeting was held in St. George's Fields, London, and a petition, said to be signed or marked by 120,000 people, was adopted for presentation to the House of Commons by Lord George Gordon, brother to the Duke of that name. The House refused to receive the petition, supported as it was by a visible mob. Then the riols began. Members were insulted and abused. The lobby of the House was broken into. Lord George Gordon standing on the stairs of the gallery and inciting his followers to greater violence, and Lord North quietly sending for the Guards, who speedily arrived and cleared the lobbies. This was on Friday. On Sunday several Eoman Catholic chapels were destroyed. On Monday several more chapels, Sir G. Saville's house in Leicester Fields, and other buildings fared in the same way. On Tuesday Newgate was broken open, 300 prisoners released, and the prison left in ruin. Clerkenwell prison, the magistrates' houses, and other buildings were similarly wrecked. Then the cry arose, " For Lord Mansfield's," and in a short time the house of the Lord Chief Justice was utterly destroyed, with all his valuable books and manuscripts, the collection of many years. The Lord Chief Justice and his household barely escaped. On the 7th the shops were closed. London had the appearance of a captured city. The man most active in the city at this time in support of the law was Alderman Wilkes, who did stern service, while the Lord Mayor was utterly paralysed with fear or indecision. The troops were at last ordered into the streets, and before the morning of the 8th, 458 persons had been killed or wounded, exclusive of those who died from excitement and drink. In July a special commission sat under Lord Loughborough to try the rioters. The proceedings were short, sharp, and arbitrary. Twenty-one persons were executed. Mr. Burke, and long afterwards, Lord Brougham, strongly condemned what Lord Campbell calls Lord Loughborough's " opening harangue," as tending to create the excitement against which it was directed. R Jt 162 POPULAR PROGEBSS IN ENGLAND. [chap. Lord George Gordon escaped the commission, on the ground that he had done no treasonable act in the county of Surrey — ^nothing which could be construed into an overt act of treason. He was tried in February the following year before Lord Mansfield, was defended by Erskine and Mr. Kenyon, and in spite of a strong adverse summing up on the part of the judge, was acquitted. The question of whether a man should or should not suffer for constructive treason is one that may be left to the gentlemen of the law, so far as the case of Lord George Gordon is concerned ; but it is quite certain that his acquittal produced a straiige feeling in the country. He had been the chief cause of the death of nearly 500 persons during the riots, and of the execu- tion of twenty-one more after the riots ; and he escaped upon a pure technicality. It will be observed that our second, like our first great historical mobs, were incited by a religious cry ; in this case against Catholics, as in that against Dissenters. Whatever might be the popular view, however, of the acquittal of Lord George Gordon, there never was any difference among intelligent persons, educated or otherwise, as to the illustrious advocate to whom the acquittal was owing. Mr. Erskine, who had previously been a midshipman in the navy, and then an ensign and a lieutenant in the army, was a very young member of the Bar when the riots in connection with Lord George Gordon took place. His first brief is worthy of notice for even more than its relation to a great life ; it exhibits in a striking manner a form of abuse in the public service against which many an energetic effort had been directed, in vain. Mr. Erskine was called to the Bar in July, 1778, and the year was fast drawing to a close without any appearance of a brief for him. He had married, and people said "imprudently," when one day he chanced to be at a dinner-party where a conversation arose as to a cause then pending in connection with Captain Bailey, a veteran sailor who had been made lieutenant-governor of Greenwich Hospital, and had fallen into difficulty there. Mr. Erskine, who had good manners and a pleasing address, expressed a strong opinion as to the conduct in reference to this case of Lord Sandwich, then First Lord of the Admiralty. The facts were very simple, but vni-] ERSKINE'S FIRST BRIEF. 163 the Admiralty was very powerful. Captain Bailey, on his appoint- ment to the lieutenant-governorship, had found gross abuses arising from the benefaction of the hospital being made subser- vient to electioneering purposes. With the directness of a sailor, he petitioned, without effect, the governors, the Admiralty, and in particular the First Lord. Thereupon he boldly, though perhaps indiscreetly, for his own comfort, printed a statement containing certain accusations. He was immediately suspended, and some subordinate persons who were involved in the accusa- tion were instructed to proceed against him for libel. If the trial had come on a year earlier it is all but certain that Captain Bailey would have been helpless. Fortunately for his cause he was present at the dinner at which Erskine spoke so indignantly, and sat opposite to him at the table. Next day Erskine received a guinea retainer, but found on his brief, "With you Mr. Beaucroft, Mr. Peckham, Mr. Murphy, and Mr. Hargrave." At a consultation three of the counsel advised a compromise, the defendant paying his own costs, and of course apologising. The "junior," never yet heard in a court of law, said a few modest words against consenting to this, and Captain Bailey, hugging the young man in his arms, swore a huge oath to the same effect. On the 23rd November the case was heard before Lord Mansfield. It was quite dark before the senior counsel had read all the documents, and made the dry remarks that were thought neces- sary in the case. Next morning the Solicitor-General was about to reply, " when," Lord Campbell says, " there rose from the back row a young gentleman, whose name, as weU as whose face, was unknown to almost all present, and who in a collected, firm, but sweet, modest, and conciliating tone, began, ' Islj Lord, I am likewise of counsel for the author of this supposed libel.' " With the very first words attention was attracted, and Lord Mansfield, who knew the young advocate, was more than ordi- narily deferential. Hitherto there had been dry parrying; now there was enthusiasm :—" Who is my client? What was his duty ? What has he written ? To whom has he written ? And what motive induced him to write ? " rang through the court. To these questions, of course, Mr. Erskine gave his own replies. M 2 164 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [ouap. Once when Lord Mansfield, thinking he was treading on dangerous ground, interposed the reminder that Lord Sandwich was not before the court, Erskine replied, " No, but I will bring him before the court ... I will drag him to light who is the dark mover in this scene of iniquity." Lord Campbell pro- nounces it "the most wonderful forensic effort in our annals." Captain Bailey was honourably acquitted ; Erskine was raised at once to a foremost position at the Bar. Early in the following year he was advocate for Admiral Keppel, against charges made by Sir Hugh Palliser. The trial lasted thirteen days. Mr. Dunning and Mr. Lee were both for the defence, but they had recommended Erskine, from his knowledge of maritime affairs, and for other reasons which they were generous enough to state. Admiral Keppel was exculpated of all blame, and the impression produced by the charge and the defence was so great that London and Westminster were illuminated for two nights, and Sir Hugh Palliser's house was wrecked. Lord Keppel sent Erskine a present of 1,000?. In 1783 Mr. Erskine was returned to Parliament for Ports- mouth. There is a curious account of how Pitt prepared to meet him, and then threw away his pen and pa;per under the conviction, as Erskine's speech went on, that the House was merely listening to a special pleader where it had expected to find a great debater. It was one proof that success at the Bar does not imply success in the House of Commons ; but Erskine lived to prove that he would have been successful in the House of Commons too, if his pathway had been smoothed to that House as Pitt's had been, or if he had been compelled to fight his way to it by means of any other studies and habits than those which, broad as they are, have nearly always impaired a man's efficiency as a member of the House of Commons. In the same year Mr. Erskine was counsel in a case of the first importance, and of very curious interest, from a public point of view. Sir WiUiam Jones, whose loyalty was beyond dispute, and who stood intellectually foremost among the first men of the time, had written a tract entitled A Dialogue hetween a Gentleman and a Farmer, a plea in very mUd terms for Parliamentary viii.] CASE OF THE DEAN OF ST. ASAPH. 165 reform, and his brother-in-law, Dr. Shipley, Dean of St. Asaph, had recommended it to a Welsh Eeform Society, and caused it to be reprinted. "Thereupon," Lord Campbell says, "the Hon. Mr. Fitzmaurice, brother of the first Marquis of Lansdowne, preferred an indictment against the dean, at the great sessions for Denbighshire, for a seditious libel." The trial eventually came on at the summer assizes at Salop. The leading counsel for the prosecution expressed a belief privately that no English jury would find the tract a libel ; but he maintained, resting on Lord Mansfield's ruling, that the question of libel or no libel was not for the jury, but for the court, and that the only question for the jury was as to the publication, and whether the inuendoes were correctly rendered. We have in the course of these chapters seen this point argued in a great variety of ways. We have seen also that it is a point upon which de- pended the whole -principle of trial by jury. It would have been mere child's play to submit to twelve jurymen the question of whether the Dean of St. Asaph did or did not publish this tract, and whether the blanks did or did not mean what every- body knew they meant. The whole question was as to whether the tract was or was not a libel. Mr. Erskine has left it on record that from this point he was determined, on no considera- tion, to flinch. He said afterwards, referring to a motion for a rule to set the verdict aside : " I made the motion from no hope of success, but from a fixed resolution to expose to public contempt the doctrines fastened on the public as law by Lord Chief Justice Mansfield, and to excite, if possible, the attention of Parliament to so great an object of national freedom." Mr. Justice BuUer presided at the assizes at Salop, and concluded his summing-up by saying to the jury : — " Therefore I can only say that if you are satisfied that the defendant did publish this pamphlet, and are satisfied as to the truth of the inuendoes, you ought, in point of law, to find him guilty." The jury with- drew, and in about half an hour returned into court. When their names had been called over, the following ensued : — " Clerk. ' Gentlemen of the jury, do you find the defendant guilty or not guilty ? ' Foreman. ' Guilty of publishing only.' Ersline. ' You find him 166 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. guilty of publishing only ? ' A Juror. ' Guilty only of publishing.' JBuUer, J. ' I believe that is a verdict not quite correct. You must explain that one way or the other. The indictment has stated that G means "gentleman;" F "farmer;" tJie King, "the King of Great Britain." Juror. ' We have no doubt about that.' Buller, J. ' If you find him guilty of publishing, you must not say the word " only." ' Erskine. ' By that they mean to find there was no sedition,' Juror. ' We only find him guilty of publishing. We do not find anything else.' Ershine. ' I beg your Lord- ship's pardon, with great submission, I am sure I mean nothing that is irregular. I understand they say, " We only find him guilty of publishing."' Juror. ' Certainly, that is all we do find.' Buller, J. ' If you only attend to what is said, there is no question or doubt.' Ershine. ' Gentlemen, I desire to know whether you mean the word " only " to stand in your verdict ? ' Jurymen. ' Certainly.' Buller, J. ' Gentlemen, if you add the word " only " it will be negativing the innuendoes.' Ershine. ' I desire your Lordship sitting here as judge to record the verdict as given by the jury.' Buller, J. ' You say he is guilty of publishing the pamphlet, and that the meaning of the innuendoes is as stated in the indictment.' Jurof. ' Certainly.' Ershine. ' Is the word " only " to stand part of- the verdict ? ' Juror. ' Certainly.' Ershine. ' Then I insist it shall be recorded.' Buller, J. ' Then the verdict must be misunderstood; let me understand the jury.' Ershine. 'The jury do understand their verdict.' Buller, J., ' Sir, I will not be interrupted.' Ershine. ' I stand here as an advocate for a brother citizen, and I desire that the word "only" maybe recorded.' Buller, J. ' Sit down, sir ; remember your duty, or I shall be obliged to proceed in another manner.' Ershine. ' Your Lordship may proceed in what manner you think fit ; I know my duty as well as your Lordship knows yours. I shaU not alter my conduct.' " The jury again retired, and returned a verdict of " Guilty of publishing, but whether libel or not we do not find." In the following term Mr. Erskine moved the Court of QueenJs Bench for a new trial, and his speech was declared by Mr. Fox, who had merely read it, "to be the finest piece of reasoning in the English language." In the end judgment was arrested, in consequence of the prosecutors having been called upon to point out any part of the dialogue that they considered criminal, and of their inability to do so. In December, 1789, Mr. Erskine was counsel for the defence in the memorable prosecu- tion by the House of Commons .of Mr. Stockdale; one of the greatest mistakes ever made by the men who, above all others. VIII.] PROSECUTIONS FOR LIBEL; THE SLAVE TRADE. 167 had interested themselves to defend and protect the free expres- sion of opinion. During the trial of Warren Hastings Mr. Logan, a minister of the Church of Scotland, wrote a vigorous pamphlet for the defence, and in particular reflected on the conduct of the managers appointed by the Commons for the prosecution. The pamphlet was published in the ordinary course of business by Mr. Stockdale, a respectable.bookseUer in Piccadilly, and on the complaint of Fox and Burke, the House prosecuted Mr. Stockdale. The case was heard before Lord Kenyon. Mr. Erskine appeared for the defence, and made a speech of masterly ability, an admitted model of manly pleading. It possessed another quality of greater value stni ; it was in direct opposition to the advocate's political friends, and on a point upon which they had by this very action proved themselves exceedingly sensitive. Mr. Stockdale was triumphantly acquitted, and his acquittal, for which he was probably altogether indebted to Mr. Erskine, was the defeat of Fox, Burke, and Sheridan — men not like the friends of Wedderburn, and some others who might be named, to be used in fair weather and cast off in storm, but who represented the political principles of the brave advocate — principles, moreover, which he had no intention of com- promising, and which he never compromised. The principle that juries ought to "judge alike of the fact and the law" was soon after affirmed in Mr. Fox's Libel Bill. Passing over Mr. Erskine's conduct in the House of Commons, and at the Bar of the House, as well as the non-political cases in which he appeared, we shall see him again at a later period, standing, and again in certain cases against his interest, resolutely for constitutional principles, with the same high eloquence and the same irresistible logic. In 1788 Mr. Wilberforce presented to the House of Commons his motion against the slave trade. He was supported, history will always record with pleasure, by Fox, Pitt, and Burke. There were points on which these distinguished men were neither rivals nor opponents. At the end of the year the King's malady, as it was generally called, having increased, Fox proposed the Eegenoy as a "right of the Prince of 168 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. Wales ; one of the great mistakes of Fox as a politician. Pitt haughtily admitted the claim, but denied the "right" of the Prince of Wales. The country approved this position, which was long remembered against the Whigs. It may be worth while to ask how these questions were viewed by the poorer classes — the large masses of the people. One of the errors made at this time, as in earlier times, by workmen was the nominal, if not virtual, separation of them- selves from the great traditions of the nation, allowing a mere moiety of the people to call themselves England ; an error ever since repeated at intervals. It seemed at times as if the instinct of the people was not unlike that of the children of Israel, when they said, " What portion have we in David ? neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse : to your tents, Israel." There has again and again been a general tendency to inquire. What have we to do with the honour of the nation ? What is it to us that Charles II. was a pensioner of the King of France ; that Camden contended against Mansfield ; or even that Erskine spoke those glowing words which convinced juries and asserted human rights ? What are the great universities 1 — what the literature, which, we are told, is so great a glory to the nation ? — what that increase of trade which people say represents the national progress ? This is not even an extreme representation of the feeling that has often crept over the masses of workmen in view of incorrect and foolish expressions on the part of persons not workmen. We have seen in a former chapter how the general course of reasoning on the part of wealthier persons had been to the effect that if a poor man had food and clothing, however bare and poor, it was his duty to be content — a sentiment which really is the burthen of catechisms and homilies and sermons and tracts, the one lesson ever on the lips of the " great middle class." If, with this in view, the lines of classes were irremovable, workmen would be justified in rising — nay, it would be their duty to rise — with all the majesty of suffering and wrong, and sweep the upper and middle classes away. The lines of class, however, are not irremovable. There is no more reason why a workman should rema,in in that vm.] VIEWS AND POSITION OP WORKMEN. 169 state of life to which he has been called than that James Cook or George Stephenson should have remained in such a station. Nor — and this fact ought to teach the upper class a lesson which never really is taught — is there any security that the grandson of a Duke shall not be compelled to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, or perhaps to drivel in abject poverty and die in want, while men once poor are living in comfort or climbing to fortune. In these facts lie an inducement to the wealthy to help to better the condition of the nation as a nation, as the only means of securing the futi«re of their own children. In these facts lie also the inducement to the poor to consider the present unity, grandeur and well-being of the nation the safeguard even for individual advancement as well as for the social progress which no privilege or prescription can ever again effectually retard. The feeling referred to here, however, is not an unnatural one. All English literature proves that the cottage, apart from itself, hardly ever elicited even a vigorous song, as an expression of its views and needs. The poets, like the politicians, were attracted by refinement and education. They sang of beauty, of elegance, of intellect. Where the Diary of Pepys, or of Evelyn, deals at all with common folk, the references are of such a kind as to convince one that the diarist has no idea in his mind but of a vast and undistinguishable sea of life. Dr. Johnson, with all his great forbearance for his old pensioners, his manly treatment of his servant, and indeed of every poor person with whom he came in contact as an individual, has scarcely left a line evincing his sense of that larger sympathy which, when workmen began to read and inquire, they in many cases concluded, mistakenly, had never existed in England. The so-called middle class made greater errors in this respect than the so-called " upper ten." They met the new and craving demand for read- ing by inundating the land with a species of tract literature, the foolishness of which was its least fault, for there ran through it a baneful sectaiian spirit, a spirit altogether opposed to that of Christianity, and to that of nationality. When men began to read really high literature, they found a complete repository — a very mine — of wealth and enjoyment, a new world on which 170 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. was engraven without and within that it could be closed no more. They saw with what beauty culture and refinement could invest all created things; but they saw also that, as a rule, the beautiful poems, and essays, and dramas were addressed only to those who had been hedged apart by forms of education from the lowlier lot in life. The perception was only that of a half truth, but to that extent it was difficult to meet. When the palmer told his news, or the minstrel sang in olden times, the song and story alike were means of knitting together the cottage and the hall. The lesson was in the hands of the teacher ; the capacity to see and hear and comprehend was one that existed fresh from the Creator. The very education that will in the end make a nation of all classes for a time raised up between classes a partition wall. It might be quite true of many of the persons sent to college, that—" they gang in stirks and come out asses, plain truth to speak." But all the same had they the partition — often a stupid and sometimes a vulgar, but always a real, wall. Clergymen, even of the sort of Legh Eichmond, truly humble as well as devout men, were met by startling difficulties when they spoke to cottage people of the Christian grace of humility. " See what is wanted," they said ; " we are to be humble, submissive ; and therein lies what we are taught to believe is the Christian religion." A man like Mr. Eichmond might have pleaded — " Do you not see that I am asking you for no effort that I am not myself, on my own part, endeavouring to make day by day ? " The answer would certainly have been, " Yes, we see that in your case ; but you are only one, and we have so much of the fact of enforced humility, that we cannot endure the idea of voluntary humility being inculcated as a Christian grace." In fact it would have been much easier to teach this great lesson to the same men, wealthy, than to teach it to them poor. Looking back at this time and beyond it, we can see that every line of force or beauty, for truth and justice had its value, and that, too, to the poorest in the land. Eoger Ascham and Sir Thomas More, the translators of the Bible, and the writers of plays ; Shakespeare and Latimer, Spenser and Milton, Bacon and Marvell, George viii.J ROBERT BURNS. 171 Herbert and Ben Jonson, De Foe and Swift, all tended, so far as what they wrote was genuine, not merely to the improvement of manners, but to the purification of life, even in those who read not a line of what was written. Nevertheless there had not as yet any great poet arisen who, in addition to taking his themes from cottage life, and aiming first of all to give expression to the feelings of the poor, would be able, by intellect of the first order, to maintain, in the face of any rank, the dignity of poor men. There did, however, arise, just when the night seemed darkest, a poet for poor men ; a man who, in a sense higher than ever before had been attained, possessed the power to represent in song the feelings and wishes, the joys and sorrows, of those who laboured day by day for their bread. There arose a master alike in song and philosophy in Robert Burns. The production of the one song, " A Man's a Man for a' That," was an epoch in literature and in history. Hatred to oppression, to class assumption, to imbecility in high places ; an utter contempt for the supercilious ignorance that, time after time, had brought the nation to the very brink of ruin ; a clear perception of the character, ability, and stern manhood that were frequently found without the means of procuring the necessaries of life, created an entirely new species of literature. There had been heretofore plenty of patronage of poor people. Here was a man who spurned the patronage. There had been people to depict the cottage from the outside. Here was a man who gave it a voice from the inside, and a voice that would live for ever. It is not unusual to hear people say that Burns, with a classical education, might have become so and so. Well, he might have become a prime minister. If he had, he certainly would have escaped many of the blunders into which prime ministers with very pre- tentious names have fallen. The classical education, however, would have had not the slightest influence, one way or the other, on his power of original conception or production ; it would simply have been the ladder by which he might have scaled the partition wall of classes. The "Cotter's Saturday Night," the exquisite " Vision," the " Address to the Unco Guid " — worth a 172 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap, whole generation of treatises — the defiance to orthodoxy, and the upholding of individual manhood, stand alone, one need scarcely hesitate to say, in all literature. Then no poet ever sang more sweetly of true humility than Burns sang in " The Daisy," or priest preached with greater force of the quality and grace of mercy than Burns preached from the text of "The Wounded Hare," and " The Tim'rous Cow'rin' Mousie;" or teacher of any sort or name enshrined friendship in nohler words than those addressed to " Davie," or showed more clearly how bright and beautiful the love of cottage folk could be. It became fashionable to imitate the songs of Burns, and especially the fashion with bitter politicians for electioneering and like purposes. But nothing of this has the least relation to Burns or his work. That he has survived the often foolish speeches of nearly a hundred anniversaries is sufficient to prove that his fame will not readily pass away. He was, in one sense, to England what John Wesley was — a great preacher, with themes of incalculable importance and of everlasting duration, and he sang, as Wesley preached, in as dark and dismal a night as England ever knew. It was a time of rank despotism when he struck the key-note that was to assist materially to strike despotism to the ground. Centuries earlier a man had been more a man than when the great song of Burns was written. When the welfare of communities depended on able heads and stout limbs it would have been dangerous to dispute the right of the man who could '' do." The result might have been a defiance like that of Eobin Hood or Allan-a-Dale. Very different was it now that armies had become fixed institutions, and that large towirs were producing in their thousands of workers what "society" called mobs. It was time to make known once again the old world truth that " a man's a man for a' that," a truth that, once promulgated, as Burns promulgated if, was not easily set aside ; nay, that never was set aside any more. Byron's wild reckless defiance, poi:ited by genius, against all the order of English society ; Shelley's daring ridicule, at once of religion and what he deemed merely conventional morality, had a mighty influence on the time. Radicals of the most VIII.] "A MAN'S A MAN FOR A' THAT." 173 extreme order found a brother leveller in the proud aristocrat who charmed the saloons of London with the burning words of Childe Harold, and the mighty enmity to the principles and the society which the saloons represented. Sceptics at the joiner's bench and on the shoemaker's stall, and refined ladies in the most brilliant drawing-rooms bowed at the same time to the music of the gentle spirit that had conjured up the vision of Queen Mad ; that dared to deny the Great First Cause, but that couched the denial in such a magical form that all criticism was in the end overborne, till even saintly confessors acknow- ledged the weird spell. Byron and Shelley did a great deal to assist the general manhood of man. So was it with much of "Wordsworth's ; so was it with Coleridge's " He prayeth best who loveth best both man and bird and beast." So was it with at least some thoughts that flowed from Southey's facile pen. The song of Burns, however, differed from them all. It was the song from within the cottage ; the song of, not merely for, the cottager. It was the poor man asserting his own manhood, maintaining, with unapproached loftiness of language and of spirit, his own birthright of independence. It was a feature of that age to stand through all ages to come. CHAPTEE IX. FROM 1789 TO 1794; THE FJRENCH REVOLUTION AND ITS REACTION; BEIGN OF TERROR IN ENGLAND. 1789— Retrospection from 18] 5— The Revolution of 1789— The Feeling in England — News from France— The Third Estate — Englishmen to Whom the News Came — Pitt's Position — His Opponents and Supporters — Mr. Addington (Lord Sidmouth) Speaker of the House, 1789 — Resolution of the Tiers fitat, June 1789— The National Assembly — M. Bailly — Mirabeau — Can we Supply France with Bread ? — M. Neclcer — Declaration of Rights — Meeting of the English Revolution Society, November 1789 — Burke, Fox, Sheridan, and Pitt — Defeat of Fox on the Test and Corporation Acts — Burke's Meflections — Paine's Bights of Man — Vindiae GalUcce — Quarrel of Fox and Burke — Escape and Capture of the Royal Family — ^National Legislative Assembly — New French Parties — Fox's Libel Bill, 1792 — Lord Camden's Last Service to Freedom — Anti-Revolutionary Riots — Dr. Priestley — English Societies-; "Friends of the People"; The Revolution Society; The Corresponding Society ; The Society for Constitutional Information — Mr. (Earl) Grey Begins his Struggle for Parliamentary Reform — Violently Opposed by Pitt — Remarkable Petition for Reform — Royal Proclamation Against Seditious Assemblies — New Principles of Repression — Tory Prin- ciples — Death of Lord North — The September Massacres — 1793 —The Brunswick Manifesto —National Convention — Englishmen Enrolled as French Citizens — Information against Paine — Alien Act — M. Chauvelin — Lord Grenville — Sentence on Louis XVL — Speech of Paine — Execution of the King — French Ambassador Ordered from England — National Conven- tion ; Declares War — Cobbett in America, for " Church and King ;." Denouncing Paine, Priestley, and Franklin in Peter Pm-cupine — First Prose- cution of the Riglits of Man — Dismissal of Lord Chancellor Thnrlow — Great Seal in Commission — Thurlow "» Patriot" — Loughborough Lord Chancellor — Sir John Scott (Lord Eldon) Attorney-General — Beginning of the Reign of Terror in England — Attempts to deter Erskine from defending Paine — Failure of the Attempts — Sir John Scott against Paine — Death of Lord Mansfield — Last Great Eifort of Fox to Preserve Peace^ Traitorous Conspiracy Bill, March 3793—France on the Frontier — Valmy and Jemappes— An English Army Sent to Holland, February 1793— Girondists and Jacobins— Robespierre— The Queen Executed — Girondists Executed — Madame Roland — Executions of Anacharsis Cloots, Danton, Camille CHAP. IX.] THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 175 Desmouliiis — Madame Elizabeth and Others — Dr. Guillotine — Fall of Eobespien'e — New Constitution — The Directory — Barras and Napoleon Buonaparte — End of the National Convention, October 27 — Victories of JeiTis and Howe, 1794 — Mad Edict of the National Convention — Prosecu- tion for Sedition — Punishment for a Squib — Case of John Frost the Attorney —Evidence of a Government Spy — Action against the Morning Chronicle ; First Prosecution under Fox's Libel Act — Another Action on the Information of a Spy — Case of a " Loyal Yeoman " — Seditious Sermons — ^Sentences for Selling the Rights of Man. If we could pass over another chasm of years, and look backward from the end of the Great War — the year 1815 — ^to the year 1789, we should see, as we could not by following the course of events from year to year, what vast changes were wrought in that period. We should find that what had come to be called " The Great War " had ended with the imprisonment of the most redoubtable enemy England ever had ; a man more fertile of resources than Louis XIV. and Luxembourg together ; of warlike genius unsur- pnssed; of statesmanship and administrative capacity of the highest order ; implacable in hate, false and unscrupulous as to the means by which that hate was gratified, and whose dislike to England in particular was a mania. On all Europe the name and character of Napoleon had rested like a nightmare or a spell, but to England his hatred was intense. We should find that the feeling of peace was new to all but the elders of that generation of Englishmen, and partly new even to them, for they had all but outlived, if they ever really had known, what it was to have no press-gangs, no ballotings for militia, no dread of the invasion of their homes. To the generation that had grown up to manhood in 1815, the habits and laws of the Great War were the habits and laws of common life ; the only life they had ever known. Looking back now to 1789, we see the nation face to face with a new problem. Hitherto all the reminiscences had been as to English struggles for freedom.- — Wat Tyler, Eobin Hood, John Wickliffe, Latimer, Cromwell, Milton, Pym, De Foe; the Puritans, the Catholics, the Jacobites ; the colonists in America. It had hardly entered the national mind that France, beyond its philo- sophical writers, had any ideas of the liberty of the people as against the prerogative of llie crown. In no country had 176 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. despotism been carried out with so thorough, so refined, so all- pervading a purpose. That the French court should from time to time disturb Europe was to be expected ; but that the nation should rise was an event quite beyond the range of ordinary calculation — of all calculation, save that of a very few persons, among whom, strange to record, was Oliver Goldsmith, not in any sense a politician. We see Pitt, little more than thirty years of age, standing at the head of affairs in England, and watching the clouds rising above the horizon, the portents of the coming storm. We see Fox and Burke at first welcoming together the new-born spirit of liberty, to which English poets began to address grand odes, and philosophers warm congratu- lations. We see courtiers utterly bewildered at the phenomena, and exchanging whispers as to the necessity of watching closely lest the flames burst out also on this side of the Dover Channel. We see also the " divine right " people talking of the reign of Satan, and the Dissenters dreaming of the millennium,- Let us suppose that, instead of the tidings of 1789 coming to Rtt, Fox, and Burke, they had been conveyed to Walpole, Marlborough, or even to Chatham, and we shall form some conception of what they portended ; tidings, that is, that the common people of France had at last begun to talk of human rights. Think of how Swift would have sharpened his arrows of satire, how Bolingbroke would have sneered, how Addison and Steele would have balanced their beautiful sentences, how exquisitely they would have referred, as Frenchmen did refer, with endless reiteration, to Plutarch, and to the great deeds of Greece and Eome. First we have news of the meeting — as one of the Estates — (May 1789) of the Tiers iLtat — the third estate of France — for the first time for 125 years. There had been " Parliaments," and Notables meeting by " authority," to which they had not always been obedient. Now there was a free election, with tremendous results, following each other with such rapidity as almost to take away English breath, and soon to outstrip newspaper records. Observe in what way, and to whom, the news from France arrived in England ; — to Fox, the inheritor and greatest exponent ix.J REPRESENTATIVE ENGLISHMEN IN 1789. 177 of Whig principles ; to Pitt, the inheritor of executive ability — political principles and party undefined ; to Burke, who hated oppression with the hatred of a scholar as well as a patriot ; to Dr. Priestley, conning ancient philosophies and histories ; to men like Dr. Price, smarting under penal laws against the expression of opinion ; to George Canning, reading at Lincoln's Inn ; to the boy Samuel Taylor Coleridge, dreaming at Cambridge ; to the boy Southey at Westminster School ; to Wordsworth, a student of two years' standing at the university ; to Arthur WeUesley, two years or so in tlie army ; to Horatio Nelson, a post-captain of twelve years ; to O'Connell, a student at St. Oraer's College ; to Wilberforce, dreaming of the freedom of the slave ; to Erskine, with his generous enthusiasm already engaged in the cause of the wronged ; to Francis Burdett, a young man of eighteen, talking eloquently on all subjects, but not knowing in what course of life his future efforts will run ; to Samuel Eomilly, a barrister, with family reminiscences of the Edict of Nantes days, and still possessing a warm feeling for beautiful France ; to John Howard, who has been the greater part of twenty years working for the relief of suffering, and who is now fast drawing towards the end ; to James Mackintosh, leaving the career of ambition that he may devote himself, without money or price, to interests which will ever be connected with his name ; to Gibbon, whose Decline and Fall has been completed ten years; to Horace Walpole, busied with elegant literature and with a defence of his father's life ; to the masses of the people contending with high prices of food, with small wages at best, with short work, entail- ing suffering grievous to be borne ; to the members of the " Ee- volution Society," formed in the previous year to give effect to the principles of 1688, with Earl Stanhope for president, the Duke of Portland and Mr. Sheridan among the earlier speakers, and Dr. Price (the " Political Divine " of Burke's subsequent furious attack), to preach the first sermon on "Love of Country," and so connect the England of 1688 with the France of 1789 ; to Mr. Walter, of the Times, imprisoned for a libel on three royal dukes — York, Gloucester, and Cumberland — whose sincerity in the rejoicing for the King's recovery the Times had been R N 178 POPULAE PEOGKESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. hardy enough to doubt, and then again for a libel on the Duke of Clarence, with penalties not by any means light. And lastly, to a free encroaching Press which carried its lessons, good and bad, into every part of the land. Pitt's position at this time recLuired nerve, and cannot be properly treated without a consideration for very broad issues. He was confronted by an entirely new fact in human history ; a fact, it is true, of which he could not at the time see the magnitude, but one which a very few months suflBced to prove that, entrusted as he was with the safety of England, he must meet in a firm and resolute way, on some prin- ciples either of friendship or enmity, or of an armed or unarmed neutrality. Against him were arrayed Lord North, with his long experience and his prestige of twelve years of office ; Fox with his unrivalled debating powers ; Sheridan and Erskine with eloquence, wit, and an enthusiasm often contagious ; Burke, the foremost orator of his time, and, perhaps it may be added, a great part of the whole body of Englishmen out of Parliament. Of supporters he had very few of a Mgh order, apart from the lawyers, Thurlow, Kenyon, and others. His chief supporter was Dundas, afterwards Lord Melville, a man of ability, but not of the order of men who inspired public confidence. The support of Wilberforce was not by any means to be relied upon, from the fact that he only spoke when he understood his subject, rarely from the simple wish to support " a side," and his vote, of course, might be counterbalanced by the most stupid person in the House. The gentlemen of the Bar could always be relied upon, but the unfortunate circumstances in connection with them was that their speeches, however good, had not a tithe of the weight that a worse speech would have had from another kind of person. There was Mr. Addington, afterwards Lord Sidmouth, who late in the year 1789 was made Speaker of the House of Commons, and who proved especially useful to Pitt at this time. Mr. Addington was the son of a London physician who had attended Lord Chatham in his last illness, and in this way young Addington had made the acquaintance of Lord Chatham's subsequently all-powerful son, and had entered Parliament by means of that influence. IX.] ECHOES OF THE REVOLUTIONARY STORM. 179 Close upon tlie news of the meeting of the Third Estate, elected by constituents aflame with enthusiasm, came the refusal of the members of that Estate to allow themselves to be shut up in a separate chamber while the clergy and nobles debated elsewhere. Next, that (June 17th) the members of the Third Estate, on the bold suggestion of the Abb6 Sieyes, had declared themselves the National Assembly. Next, before the end of a month, that nearly the whole of the privileged members had been absorbed by the dreadful Third Estate, the clergy going first, headed by the archbishop. Next, that the King had tried a royal session, and having done what was thought proper, had ordered a separation of the members, the deputies of the Commons to go in one direction, the nobles and the clergy in another. Then, the deputies sitting still, the Master of Ceremonies had said to President Bailly, " Sir, you know the orders of tlie King ? " — calm and courteous M. Bailly replying, " The people of France in their collective capacity, have no orders to receive;" and a lion-headed, and, as it proved, lion-hearted deputy, named M. Mirabeau, adding fiercely, " Go, tell your master that we are here by the power of the people, and that nothing shall expel us but the bayonet." Think how aU this intelligence would sound on British ears. Say, for instance, on those of the bishops ; of the Scotch Assembly ; of the respectable Quakers in the North of England ; of the Methodists, concerned with the eternal future of men ; of the lawyers and politicians seeking for pre- cedents and places; of -wondering people of aU kinds — in the Court, the clubs, the rectories, the manses, the workshops ! While these facts were simmering in the public mind, a deputa- tion of cornfactors asked Mr. Pitt, dubiously, if they could properly supply France with 20,000 sacks of flour which had been ordered. The " order " was only about a week's supply for London; but Mr. Pitt, shaking his head, said, "No." We may judge what this portended. Then came the dismissal of M. Necker, the great finance minister, from whom at first so much was expected, and whose genius would be perpetuated in a brilliant daughter, who would rank with the first women of any time. Then :— capture of the Bastile ; recall of M. Necker ; X 2 180 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. La Fayette, who had assisted "Washington to free America, appointed to command the National Guards ; clergy and nobles made to pay taxes the same as other people; courtiers — Count d'Artois, Prince of Cond^, Marshal Broglio, and others, in full flight to Coblentz — a mass of events crowded into the space of a fortnight's news. Then : Declaration of Eights ; all men affirmed to be born equal; Sovereignty to centre in the nation, none higher on earth ; all frenchmen eligible for public office; liberty to consist in the free expression of opinion, so long as other men are not injured ; the right to enjoy property, freedom from oppression, eligibility for place in the government of the country. No such crowd of events ever before had been known since time began. In November the English Eevolution Society, with Earl Stanhope in the chair, voted a congratulatory address to the National Assembly, other English societies following. Correspondence also was opened with the Eevo- lutionary leaders, addresses were sent to them from all parts of England. Within six months, all that remained of old France had been swept away. In January, 1790, the English Parliament was opened with- out any mention whatever, in the King's speech, of French affairs. Immediately afterwards Mr. Burke proposed that the peace establishment should be reduced. " France," he said, our great bugbear, was, in a political sense, "expunged from the map of Europe ; " and there was no danger anywhere, which showed that Burke was not quite so clear -sighted as his admirers believed. Carefully, however, he pronounced the Declaration of Eights a mad declaration, and the French Eevolution altogether unworthy of comparison with the English Eevolution of 1688. Mr. Fox replied, respectfully but firmly, on behalf of France, and Sheridan followed in stronger terms, less regardful perhaps of Burke's friendship or sarcasm. Pitt contented himself with complimenting Burke on his con- stitutional principles. There the discussion ended for the time ; but from this date Burke was separated, not merely from Fox, but from two generations of EngUsh Liberals and left with the Tories, and what soon became known as the "old" Whigs, IX.] BUKKE, PAINE, AND MACKINTOSH. 181 Lord Fitzwilliam, Lord Altliorp, and others, as distinguished from the school represented by Fox and Grey. There came a time when Earl Grey too was spoken of as an Old Whig, a representative of old and effete principles ; but that time was yet far in the future. An important feature at this time was a motion by Mr. Fox for the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. He was defeated by 200 against 20 votes — a pretty conclusive proof of the spirit of the House of Commons. The pressgang was again put in force with vigour ; everything betokened a disposition on the part of the Ministry to let the affairs of the nation, so far as France was concerned, drift into war. Late in the year, Burke's Reflections on the French Revolution appeared, and were replied to by the first part of Paine's Rights of Man, which soon outstripped Burke, so far as circulation and effect were concerned. The great orator had the praise of polished society, but Paine entered every workshop, and the Vindicce Oallicce of Sir James Mackintosh effectually disposed of Burke's Reflections, so far as philosophical opinion was concerned. Early in 1791 Mirabeau died. In May, in a debate on the Canada Government Bill, proposed by Pitt, Burke and Fox had that famous quarrel which separated Burke from both liis friend and the Whig party in a final separation. This, it should be observed, was before the execu- tion of the French King had given point to the bitter criticism of Burke — criticism which then began to have meaning and force. From this time Fox seems to stand alone, and in a grand sense, very different from the isolation of Walpole, with something of the semblance of a great rock in a storm. June brought fresh and more startling news. The French King and Queen, attempting to escape, had been captured at Varennes, and carried back to Paris with gross insult, the reports of which were needlessly exaggerated in England, and of course were appalling. The Jacobin Club had been formed, and the exiled princes and nobles had appealed to Europe for help, not without the concurrence of the royal family, and had received a reply of fatal import from Austria and Prussia. That was the signal for all the wild passions of revolutionary France 1.82 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. to be let loose. They threaten us with war, Danton said in effect a little later, let them observe that we shall " throw them as our gage of battle the head of a king." In September the National Assembly passed away, after adopting a new constitution, and celebrating it in a f&U at which the poor king was compelled to preside. The National Legislative Assembly met in October, and was soon divided into distinct parties. There were men, like Barnave and Damas of the club of the Feuillants, favourable to moderate reform ; the party of the Girondists, democrats, led by Eoland, Condoroetj Brissot, and Vergniaud; the Jacobins and Cordeliers represented by Danton, Marat, Camille Desmoulins, St. Just, and Eobespierre, The first act of the New Assembly was to abolish royalty and proclaim a republic. The next step was to declare war against Austria. This was in April, 1792. The cry was at once raised, " To the Frontier ! " In the same year Mr. Eox, in opposition to a powerful party, carried his famous Libel BUI, which overthrew Lord Mansfield's doctrine that a jury in case of libel was to merely judge of the fact, and not of the law. The Bill was opposed in the House of Lords by Lords Thurlow, Kenyon, and Bathurst, and was supported by Lord Camden in a fine speech, which is generally counted his last great service to freedom. In the course of the debate the Lord Chancellor (Thurlow) said he hoped the noble Lord would see that it was indispensable to justice that if the Court was dissatisfied a new trial might be ordered. Lord Camden : " What ! after a verdict of acquittal ? " Lord Thurlow : " Yes." Lord Camden : " No, 1 thank you " He never spoke again in Parliament. On the second anniversary of the French Eevolution several anti-revolutionary riots broke out in England, incited, there cannot be a doubt, by persons from whom better things might have been expected. In Birmingham Dr. Priestley's house, among others, was completely wrecked, to the cry of " Church and King!" the magistrates altogether inactive, although the riots continued for four days. These facts were afterwards brought before the House of Commons by Mr. Whitbread, tx.] ENGLISH REFOKM SOCIETIES. 183 Lut without any result beyond exposing the conduct complained of. Dr. Priestley, however, recovered by law 2,500/. as com- pensation for the loss of his property, including his fine library. Another gentleman recovered 5,390/. Meanwhile addresses were being rapidly transmitted to France from English Societies, some of which began to call themselves '' affili- ated," with reference to France, while others, English reform societies in the simple and strict sense, confined themselves to a caiitious and moderate approval of French freedom. The famous Socie^' of " Friends of the People " was started in May, 1792, by Mr. Grey (afterwards Earl Grey), Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Whitbread, Mr. Erskine, and others — a purely English reform association. "We have seen somewhat of its proceedings. The " Eevolution Society " was of a kindred, and perhaps even less pronounced character, having reference not to the Pievolution of 1789, but to that of 1688. It was an English reform society pure and simple, with a Whig basis. The " Corresponding Society " and the " Society for Constitu- tional Information," although subsequently used for objects more extreme than at first intended, were at the offset of a character which a moderate Whig could support. In April (1792) Mr. Grey began that long struggle for parliamentary reform which in after years brought such great honour to his name. He was from the first violently opposed by Pitt, but he gave firm notice which indicated that no defeat, nor any number of defeats, would deter him from pursuing the course which he had marked out as a public duty. If it is remembered that this was in 1792, and that the Eeform Bill was not carried till 1832, the nature of Earl Grey's long and persistent fight will be in some measure seen. The subject of parliamentary reform was from this time committed to Mr. Grey by Mr. Fox and others of those M^ho acted with them, few of whom lived to witness the real bitterness of the battle which ended with a great success. Mr. Grey's motion was brought forward in a very forcible way in the following year, and supported by a vast number of petitions, and among them by one of extraordinary length and ability from the "Society of the Friends of the People," 184 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap- so complete and masterly an analysis of the parliamentary system, that it became almost the text and manifesto of the future struggle. The motion, which was merely for inquiry, was unceremoniously rejected. In the month in which the Society of the " Friends of the People " was formed, a royal proclamation was issued for suppressing seditious correspondence with foreign nations. This was the beginning of a system of repression of which England was destined to have a long experience. It is not by any means easy, at this time, to determine how far Pitt was to blame for the peculiar administrative action which set in with this proclamation, and which resulted in cutting off all political intercourse between England and France. We have seen that the position in which he stood was new and imtried, and it does not require any very profound knowledge of human nature to convince one that, however good some of the principles of the French Eevolution might be in themselves — and some of them were of the nature of principles which every subse- quent year has only deepened and strengthened — it would not have conduced to the good of England to accept the initiative of a nation which in the end reduced to vassalage every nation that accepted or succumbed to the revolutionary principles. Probably the first English administrative action against the French Eevolution was the offepring of selfishness and fear on the part of persons in high position. The contagion of that fear, however, soon spread to larger numbers, and it was seen that principles in the abstract and in action are very different things, and that in laying down correct theories allowance must be made for the application of those theories by human beings. What it is chiefly necessary to note here, is that in this year the policy of the English Government became in the strict sense, Tory, as we have known Toryism now for the greater part of a century. It must have occurred to every intelligent reader of history, that the lines of distinction be- tween the Whig and Tory parties have often been very finely drawn, and at times indefinable. In reality the Tory principles, as we now see tbem are the older ajid more enduring. The IX.] WHIG AND TORY : THE SEPTEMBER MASSACRES. 185 Whigs were a mere political accident, the development of which depended upon circumstances. The Tories were not by any means an accident, but rested on well-defined principles, which no time ever alters. It was no mere party-action that was now setting in, but action resulting from the inner part and thing signified in the principle of Toryism. If a time of danger arose at the present day it is very likely that Lord Derby would be quite as little inclined to fall back upon severe laws as Lord Granville would, and very much less likely to do so than Lord Stmtford de Eedcliffe or the present Lord Fitz- "Wniiam. Possibly, indeed, Lord Derby, in such a case, might find that he was not a Tory at all. In peaceful times, with no great interests in question, it is impossible to apply the same test to public men that was applied from 1792, and especially from 1794, to a considerably later period than the end of the French War. But the thing Toryism never changes. It is certain that however necessary the action begun by Pitt at this time might seem, the whole strength of the country was needed to oppose it in much, and to over- turn it at the right time. At the end of this year Lord North died, an event which may serve to remind us that we are passing away from the principles and issues of the American War of Independence into those of the French Eevolution. The French declaration of war against Austria led to a series of military disappointments for the young Eepublic, and to several reverses, such as might have been expected. The " September massacres " followed — three days of slaughter without any precedent in modern history. Danton, Eobes- pierre, and Marat were now the central figures looked to from England. The (Tirondists, who had had their hour, began to tremble for their safety. The King, tried and condemned, was executed on the 21st January, 1793, owing his fate somewhat to the insolent manifesto of the Duke of Brunswick, with his insane threats to the whole French nation. Any insult, he said, offered to the King or the Eoyal family, v/ould be terribly avenged. When his words were read and talked of, as Frenchmen do talk when excited, the last chanCe of life for tlie 186 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [ch^ip. poor King and for a vast number of innocent persons who crowded the prisons was gone. They also caused the immediate abolition of Eoyalty. The National Convention (elected September, 1792) took the curious step of inviting suggestions from foreigners as to the formation of a republic. It also enrolled amongst French citizens Home Tooke, Wilberforce, Priestley, Mackintosh, Paine, and others. Dr. Priestley and Mr. Paine were also elected members of the Convention. It was becoming painfully evident, however, that this kind of intercourse between England and France could not long survive the September massacres and the trial of the King, although from first to last and throughout the whole of the war, there were Englishmen of great distinction who upheld the principle that the affairs of France were altogether a question for Frenchmen. Their work was not light. Burke had said that Paine's Rights of Man deserved no other reply than a criminal prosecution, and a few days before the close of the year 1792 an ex-officio information was filed against Paine. A little earlier in the month Parliament was opened by a Eoyal Speech of very serious purport. Immediately afterwards an Alien Act passed the House of Lords, and early in the following year was carried in the Commons, but not without a severe struggle on the part of Fox and his supporters. It was during this debate that Burke enacted the famous " dagger scene " ; one of the follies of a man who evidently was working himself to a frenzy as fierce as that of the Septemberists. M. Chauvelin, the French Ambassador, thought it now full time to ask an explanation as to the intentions of England. He received, for reply, from Lord Granville, that if France wished to remain at peace she must renounce her schemes of aggrandisement — something almost tantamount to a declaration of war. The year 1793 opened badly for peace. On the 19th of January sentence of death was passed on Louis XVI. by 336 against 319 votes recorded for perpetual imprisonment. There were a few doctrinaire votes, representing special theories. Paine, who had taken his seat in the Convention, spoke boldly for perpetual banishment, and received that famous fierce IX.] OOBBETT :" PETER PORCUPINE." 187 interruption of Marat. " Qualcer ! " the butcher screamed. Very- soon Paine was thrown into prison, and owed his escape to the fact that the English Government was engaged in prosecuting him for his adherence to France, and that he was both an American citizen and ^had been associated with English societies which were supposed still to be friendly to France. But for that the career of Thomas Paine had been cut short. On the 24th M. Chauvelin was ordered to leave England. On February 21st the National Convention declared war against England and Holland. At this time Willia,j|i Cobbett was in America, and a littie later began to publish his Peter Porcupine. He was busy even now denouncing the Ptevolutionists with all his might. And what a might it was ! Of all the supporters of Church and King, of all the enemies of "Tom Paine " and his Eights of Man, Cobbett was the fiercest and the most uncompromising ; and his racy English, after Paine's escape from France, would, if the English Govern- ment had known how to use it, have been a tenfold better reply to the Rights of Man than anything Burke could have written, with all his eloquence and genius. A volume of Peter Porcupine, with the imprint, "Philadelphia: published by William Cobbett, opposite Christ Church, 1796," came into the possession of the writer while these pages were being written ; a volume which might be read with real enjoyment to this day, when it can no longer sting. The denunciation of Paine, of Priestley (who was in America in 1796), of Home Tooke, and of all like people, is amazing when it is considered what manner of teacher Mr, .Cobbett was destined to become. Paine is " Mad Tom," never better, often worse. " Inhuman wretches," says Tom, " they .are leagued together to rob man of his rights, and, with them, of his existence. Eeader, while you live, suspect those tender- liearted fellows who shudder at the name of gallows. When you hear a man loud against the severity of the laws, set him down as a rogue." And again, " The English clergy, too, and their tithes, have been considerable objects of Thomas's outcry. . , . . What would the hypocrite have said had he been able to slip within the walls of a church 1 Like Dr. Priestley, Tom looks upon tithes as oppressive, merely because he is not a rector." 188 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. In like forcible language Cobbett, in number after number of his little sheet, denounces the Age of Reason as a blasphemous and immoral production, praises Dr. Watson's reply to it as that admirable Apology for the Bible, expresses the strongest possible opinion that the world has lost immensely by Tom's escape from prison, ridicules Dr. Franklin as an arrant humbug, and gene- rally proves himself an English Tory of the deepest dye. These facts may be interesting to the reader, because when we next meet Cobbett we shall find very different sentiments — expressed, however, in the same incomparable English. Worst of all, there came a day when he landed in Liverpool with a box containing Tom Paine's bones. The transformation was then complete. A second part of Paine's Eights of Man had now appeared, and as it was much fiercer than the first part, the Government no longer hesitated to take Burke's advice to prosecute the writer in his absence. On the 15th June Lord Thurlow was dismissed from the Lord Chancellorship. He had striven hard to please Pitt by an out-and-out advocacy of severe measures, but having been detected by the inexorable minister in certain acts of treachery, which he had risked in reliance on the friend,- ship of the King, his fate was sealed. ]^o friendship could save him ; the Great Seal was almost ignominiously taken away. From 1V78 he had been a power in the House of Lords. ISTow, he must step down in something not unlike shame. The Great Seal was put in Commission. Lord Thurlow, his friend Lord Campbell says, now began to be a patriot, and to associate with Home Tooke and others, as the reader has already seen. It is not even certain that he did not help the opponents of the King to defeat the King's friends. In January 1793, Mr. Wedderburn was made Lord Chancellor, and in February Sir John Scott, who afterwards became Lord Eldon, was made Attorney- General Lord Kenyon was appointed Lord Chief Justice. ISTo better men could have been selected for the reign of terror which immediately began. Loughborough, Eldon, and Kenyon ! In using the term reign of terror no histrionic idea is intended. It is the phrase soberly and advisedly adopted IX.] HIGH COURAGE OF ERSKINE. 189 by Lord Campbell and others, and it applies to the state of affairs at this time in England as correctly as the same term applies to a state of affairs, of course much crueller and more murder- ous, but hardly more relentless, in France. As the great fire in London was the opportunity for Sir Christopher Wren to build up a great reputation as an architect, so was the reign of terror the opportunity for Erskine to build up a reputation as the loftiest of English advocates. He was at this time Attorney- General to the Prince of Wales, and one of the first objects of the prosecution w^s to deter him from defending Paine, or perhaps any other person charged by the Government with libel. Paine was in Paris when the ex-officio information against him was issued. A retainer was sent to Erskine, and the brave advocate not only accepted it, but determined, little sympathy as he could have with some of Paine's views, to do his duty to his client. Some of his friends were appalled, and endeavouied to deter him from so hazardous a step. The Prince of Wales sent a message to the same effect, and an effort by " Lord Lough- borough, who ought to have known better, but who thought that at last the Great -Seal was within his grasp," is described by Lord Campbell, from whom the above two lines are quoted. Erskine, many years after, gave the following account of their interview : — " In walking home one dark November evening, across Hamp- stead Heath, I met Loughborough coming in- an opposite direc- tion, apparently with the intention of meeting me. He wns also on foot. * Erskine,' he said, ' I was seeking you, for I have something important to communicate to you.' There was an unusual solemnity in his manner, and a deep hollowness in his voice. We were alone. The place was solitary. The dusk was gathering around us and not a voice — not a footstep — was within hearing. I felt as Hubert felt when John half opened, half sup- pressed the purpose of his soul, in that awful conference which Shakespeare has so finely imagined. After a portentous pause, he began: 'Erskine, you must not take Paine's brief ' 'But I have been retained, and I wiU take it, by God,' was my reply. " Messages to the same effect were brought to him from the Prince of Wales ; but he was inexorable. On the day of the 190 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. trial Erskine to his consternation was met at the Guildhall by the Attorney-General producing a letter written by Paine acknowledging the authorship of the book, and using' very opprobrious terms with respect to the King and the Prince of "Wales. Still the great advocate went on to the end. The jury returned a verdict of guilty, and Mr. Erskine was immediately dismissed from the Attorney-Generalship to the Prince of Wales. Lord Kenyon, a warm friend of Erskine, was the judge; but a judge who had resolved to throw himself without reserve into the prosecutions for blasphemy and libel, and whose directions to juries during the reign of terror are among the most extreme and despotic of modern times. In afterwards defending Home Tooke, Erskine said: — "Gentlemen, Mr. Home Tooke had an additional and a generous motive for appearing to be the supporter of Mr. Paine — the Constitution was wounded through his sides. I blush, as a Briton, to recollect that a conspiracy was formed among the highest orders to deprive this man of a British trial. This is the clue to Mr. Tooke's conduct, and to which, if there should be no other witnesses, I will step forward to be examined. I assert that there was a conspiracy to shut out Mv. Paine from the privilege of being defended, he was to be deprived of counsel, and I, who now speak to you, was threatened with the loss of ofBce if I appeared as his advocate. I was told in plain terms that I must not defend Mr. Paine. I did defend him, and I did lose my office." The new Attorney-General, Sir John Scott, was a man, in many respects, after Lord Loughborough's own heart, though his career had been in many respects highly honour- able. He was born in 1751, the son of a Northumberland coal- fitter, and the brother of that William Scott afterwards known and celebrated as Lord Stowell. The two young men had made their way by dint of hard study from Northumberland to London, and by steady and resolute application, and their own almost unaided merit, had trampled over immense difficulties and arrived at a distinguished position at the bar. Sir John Scott was noted even at this time for his attachment to the Church — a craze, perhaps, rather than a principle — for his carelessness of IX.] FOX'S LAST GREAT EFFORT FOR PEACE. 191 the forms and etiquette of society, for his dogged obstinacy, and for the Newcastle " burr," which he never lost. In appearance he is feaid to have been lithe and graceful, and his face bright and intellectual. In the year in which Sir John Scott was appointed to the Attorney-Generalship Lord Mansfield died. On the 18th of February Fox, supported by his political friends, made a last effort to prevent war. He moved : 1. That England is not justified in going to war with France on account of her internal affairs. 2. That the complaints against France might have been obviated by further negotiation. 3. That ministers never had distinctly stated the terms on which they would preserve a system of neutrality. 4. That the rights of independent nations and the tranquillity of Europe had been supinely neglected by ministers in regard to Poland. 5. That it is the duty of England not to form any engagement which may be an obstacle to a separate peace with France, or which may imply that England is acting in concert with other Powers for the unjusti- fiable object of dictating a form of government to France. The resolutions were defeated by 270 against 44 votes. But to Fox remained the lasting victory. His speech was everywhere acknowledged to be one of the grandest ever known. The princij)les he enunciated will assuredly stand the test of any time. In March the Traitorous Conspiracy Bill was introduced and carried, with, however, the usual protest on the part of the Opposition. Meanwhile France had not been idle. The very day (Septem- ber 22nd, 1792) on which royalty was abolished, the raw troops of the Eepublic had gained the battle of Valmy and stopped the march of the Prussians on Paris. In November Dumouriez defeated the Austrians at Jemappes, Louis Philippe fighting with him as a soldier in the ranks. On the 1st of February, 1793, when the Eepublic declared war against England and Holland, France had not a single ally left in Europe. Great things vv^ere now to be done by the son of Lord Chatham. An English army, under the Duke of York, was sent to Holland, to join the Austrians under the Prince of Coburg. A great council of the allies was held at Antwerp. There were the 192 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. Duke of York, the Prince of Coburg, Lord Auckland, and the ministers of Austria and Spain, and indeed the representatives, directly or indirectly, of all Europe. Who could doubt that, with such an array, a bad day was beginning for France ? Worst of all, everything was going to wreck within. The Girondists and the Jacobins were carrying on a war to the knife. By the 2nd of June, that internal business had ended in a very fearful way. Eobespierre and the Mountain were supreme. The Eeign of Terror began in June. In July Marat was killed by Charlotte Corday. On October the 16th the Queen was put to death; on the 31st twenty-one of the Girondists were executed. It is very important at this stage to notice dates. On the 6th of November the Duke of Orleans, on the 8th Madame Roland and others, on the 11th M. Bailly, President of the Assembly in 1789, were executed. Poland and Coudorcet committed suicide in prison. The Re- publican forces were now poured into Royalist La Vendee, M'here fearful barbarities ensued. In March, Anacharsis Cloots and eighteen others of the worst of the wild club of the Cor- deliers — ^the men who abolished Christianity — were put to death. In April, Dantou and Camille Desmoulins were executed ; and in May Madame Elizabeth, sister of the late King — a sweet and noble lady, thirty years of age, against whom even calumny never had breathed a whisper — was sent to death, with twenty- one others, of whom she knew not even the names. Malesherbes, the bold advocate of the King, also died by the guillotine. It is curious too to note that Dr. Guillotine, the inventox or restorer of the fatal instrument of death, died in the spring of the same fatal year, when the lilies and the primroses were budding and the grass " springing up its greenest " over the dark deeds of men. In July Robespierre, St. Just, and their fellows died on the scaffold. The Revolution may be said to have come to an end so far as its scaffold work was concerned. Two months later is usually given as the date of the completion of the tragedy of 1789, but the work was done now. The final blow is marked in the French Revolutionary Calendar as the Revolution of the 9th and 10th Thermidor —that is July, 1794. A new constitution IX.] FRATERNITY: AND— " NO QUARTER," 193 was framed in August. The plan was to invest the executive power in five Directors, nominated by a legislature composed of two bodies, one of 250 members, called the "Ancients," all of whom must be above forty years of age, and the other the " Five Hundred," the Directors holding power in rotation, and also retiring in rotation, and a fresh director being elected every year. This was called the Eevolution of the 13th Vend^miaire. The populace resisted, and were joined by the National Guard. Barras, with Napoleon Buonaparte, who had done notable things at Toulon, headed the regular troops and fired upon the populace, slaughtered a great number, and put the rest to flight. From that day the affairs of France changed. Fiery spirits, with tendencies to revolution, were hurried away to the frontiers and elsewhere, under orders which were not to be resisted. On the 27th of October the National Convention came to an end, having sat a few days more than the legal term of its existence, three years. The whole of the dreadful events therefore which are associated with the French Revolution of 1789 were com- prised within a period of less than six years — six very terrible years, hardly comparable to any other six years in the history of mankind. It is noteworthy also that the Convention, which began its existence with compliments to philosophical foreigners, signalized its latter days by an edict only worthy of madmen. The English fleet, about the middle of the year 1794, had begun that series of victories which continued to the end of the war. Sir John Jervis had been successful in the West Indies, and Lord Howe in the Bay of Biscay ; victories which England had been unreasonable enough to celebrate by illuminations and other tokens of rejoicing, and the King had gone to Spithead to thank the fleet. The Convention thereupon decreed that no quarter should be given to English or Hanoverian troops— an edict which might have been made by Pitt himself, so exactly did it fit into the exigency of his policy at the time. With these events before us a better conception wiU be formed of the legal proceedings of the time in England. Two pris- oners confined for debt in the Fleet Prison ventured, at the end of 1792, to put upon the doors of the prison an advertisement — 194 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. " This House to Let. Peaceable possession will be given on or before the 1st January, 1793, being the commencement of the first year of liberty in Great Britain." This squib was evidently only directed against imprisonment for debt, but the men were brought before Lord Kenyon charged with sedition, and sen- tenced to the pillory, and more. An attorney named John Frost had been indiscreet enough, whilst slightly intoxicated, to make some remarks about the French Eevolution and the monarchical form of government. For this he was charged before Lord Kenypn on the evidence of a spy. The words alleged against him were : " I am for equality ; I see no reason why one man should be greater than another ; I would have no king, and the constitution of the country is a bad one." For this Mr. Frost was struck from the roU of attorneys, set in the pillory, and imprisoned for six months — absolutely ruined for life. He was ably defended by Erskine. There was much to show that the words were a mere idle expression, representing no purpose whatever ; yet this was Lord Kenyon's sentence. In December an information was filed against Mr. Perry and Mr. Grey, pro- prietors of the Morning Chronicle, for a libel, which consisted in their having published an address of a society formed in Derby for the purpose of amending the Parliamentary representation. Mr. Erskine again defended. The jury returned a verdict of " Guilty of publishing only," which Lord Kenyon refused to receive. They therefore, to the judge's great disgust, returned a verdict of " Not GuHty." Another case was that of Mr. Walker, a Manchester merchant, and several other persons, who were tried at the Lancashire Assizes, charged, on the evidence of a Government spy, with conspiracy, and with having pur- chased arms for the purpose of an outbreak. The charge seemed at first a very serious one, and Mr. Walker being well known as an advocate for reform, had little mercy to expect if found guilty. The prisoners were prosecuted by Mr. Law, afterwards Lord Ellenborough, at this time Attorney- General for the County Palatine. Mr. Erskine defended, and in his hands, and under an admirable cross-examination, the redoubtable plot was shown to have not an atom of foundation, beyond the fact that Mr. IX.] THE REIGN OF TERROR IN ENGLAND. 195 Walker had purchased some firearms or the purpose of firing a feu-de-joie for the King's recovery. The spy, in this case, was committed for trial. Mr. Justice Heath, who tried the case, advised Mr. Walker to keep better company in future. Mr. Walker replied that he never had kept bad company till he fell into that of the spy. Mr. Justice Heath. " You have been honourably acquitted, sir, and the witness against you is com- mitted for perjury." Another case was that of a man who is described as a loyal yeoman of Kent, and who was simply charged at quarter sessions with having, while intoxicated, and being rudely insulted by a constable, "in the King's name," saying, " Damn the King and you ! " For this be was sent to prison for twelve months. Again there was abundant evidence to show that the man attached no meaning to his words beyond a saucy retort to an ofi'ensive constable, and Lord Chancellor Loughborough was appealed to for a pardon. He replied, that to save the country from revolution all legal tribunals must be supported. The man was left to his fate. Lord Campbell takes it as evidence of the violence of the times that " a mild man like Lord Loughborough '' should have resorted to such extreme measures ; after which he goes on, with characteristic logic, to show that Lord Loughborough, having found the course popular, "boldly advanced in it, and soon nothing less would satisfy him than having the heads of Home Tooke and the leading reformers stuck on Temple Bar." Very mild indeed. These are but a few specimens of prosecutions extending over all England. Mr. Winterbottom, a Dissenting minister, was tried at the Devon Assizes for preaching two seditious sermons, — very mild sermons it was shown — and sentenced to two years' imprisonment, with heavy fines. The sentences for selling Paine's Bights of Man are too numerous to record, and many of them were very severe. In fact all over the country there were Government' spies, and informers, and sentences, on charges of sedition, for the most trivial offences. We shall see this more markedly in another chapter. The action of the Government was assuredly fast succeeding in driving people into secret societies and into defensive conspiracy. When it 2 196 POPULAE PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [cHAr, is wondered that England for so long a period should have done so little in arms, while threatened with invasion by France, it must be remembered that the G-overnment had created an amount of disaffection which rendered even the embodiment of the militia a hazardous proceeding. It can scarcely be creditable to the statesmanship of Pitt that he should have made no attempt all this time, nor indeed during his term of office, to remove the causes of discontent. He made no effort to convince the people that if repressive laws were in force it was from necessity, not from choice. If this spirit had died with him, it might have been viewed simply as a phenomenon of history, but it lived long beyond his time. His authority, even in peaceful times, was quoted for similar legislation, as the authority of the "pilot that weathered the storm." He did weather the storm ; though his opponents were not ready to allow this at the time. They even went so far as to say that "the storm was not weathered till the pilot was thrown overboard." One other notable legal case must not be passed over, although it is not a Government prosecution. In the Westminster Election, in which Mr. Fox was a candidate, Mr. Home Tooke was his bitter opponent, and after the election Mr. Tooke pre- sented a petition against Fox's return. The case was heard, the petition pronounced frivolous, and Tooke was cast in costs, close upon 200^., which he refused to pay. An action was brought, and was heard before Lord Kenyon. Mr. Erskine appeared for the plaintiff Mr. Fox, and endeavoured to prevent any discussion on the merits of the case by merely producing the statute under which the action was brought, and the amount of costs which were sought to be recovered. Lord Kenyon, at the conclusion of Erskine's few remarks, said in a sharp and contemptuous tone (for he had been told that a scene was to be enacted), " Is there any defence ? " Lord Campbell gives the following : — " Eorne Tooke (taking a pinch of snuff, and looking round tlie court for a minute or two). ' There are three efficient parties engaged in this trial — you, gentlemen of the jury, Mr. Pox, and myself ; and I make no doubt that IX.] HOENE TOOKE ON HIS DEFENCE. 197 we shall bring it to a satisfactory conclusion. As for the judge and the crier, they are here to preserve order ; we pay them handsomely for their attend- ance, and, in their proper sphere, they are of some use, but they are hired as assistants only ; they are not, and never were intended to be, the controllers of our conduct. Gentlemen, I tell you there is a defence, and a very good defence, to this action, and it will be your duty to give effect to it.' He then began a long narrative of the late Westminster election, and without any interruption had come to what he called the financial part of it, stating that the Lords of the Treasury were expected to pay 2001. apiece, and those in higher situations more, according to their salaries. At last Lord Kenyon burst out : ' Mr.. Home Tooke, I cannot sit in this place to hear great names calumniated and vilified — persons who are not in this case — persons who are absent, and cannot defend themselves.- A court of justice is not a place for calumny ; it can answer no purpose ; you must see the impropriety of it, and it does not become the feelings of an honourable man.' H. T. (again taking snuff). ' Sir, if you please, we will settle this question now, in the outset, that I may not be liable to any more interruptions.' Chwf Justice. ' Lord Lovat brought forward offensively the names of persons of great respectability, and he was stopped by the House of Lords. The Chancellor informed him that it was indecent to do so, and that a man of his station ought to refrain from such things. You are in the wrong path, Mr. Home Tooke.' H. T. 'I am persuaded that I shall be able very easily and very shortly to satisfy you that I am not in the wrong path, and it is more desirable that I should do so now, because it is the path which I most certainly mean to pursue, and will not be diverted from. You know (at least you ought to know), and I acknowledge that if, under the pretence of a defence in this cause, I shaU wantonly and maliciously say or do any word or thing which would be punishable by the laws, if said or done by me wantonly and maliciously anywhere else I shall be equally liable to prose- cution and punishment by the same laws, and in the same manner, for what I say here. But, sir (taking another pinch of snuff, and lowering his voice, so as effectually to fix the attention of the audience), you have made use of some words which I am willing to believe you used in a manner different from their usual acceptation. You spoke of calumniating and vUifying. Those words, sir, usually include the notion of falsehood. Now, I presume you, sir, did not mean them to be so understood. I am sure that you did not mean to tell the jury that what I said was false. By calumny you only meant something like criminatory— something injurious to the character of the person spoken of— something that he would not like to hear, whether true or false.' 0. J. ' Certainly, Mr. Home Tooke ; certainly.' H. T. (with an affectation of good nature.) ' Well, I thought so ; and you see, I was not desirous to take advantage of the words to impute to you any wrong meaning or intention, because had you really intended falsehood in the word calumny, yoiir Lordship would have grossly calumniated me. I have spoken nothing 198 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. but the trutli, as I believe you know, and which I am able and wUling to prove. In one thing I go farther than you do, and am stricter than you are. I think it hard that any persons, whether in a cause or out of a cause, should at any time unnecessarily hear what is unpleasant to them, though true. This rule I mean to observe. At my peril I shall proceed, and I expect to meet with no further interruption from your Lordship.' Thus he ridiculed the prevailing notion of the independence of the judges : ' When anything peculiarly oppressive is nowadays to be done we have always a clatter made about the judicial independence with which we are now blessed. My own belief is that the judges are now much more dependent on the Crown, and much less dependent on the people, than in former times ; and, generally speaking, they were certainly more independent in their conduct. They then sat on the Bench, knowing that they might be turned down again to plead as common advocates at the Bar ; and, indeed, it was no uncommon thing in those days to see a counsel at the Bar, browbeaten and bullied by a Chief Justice on the Bench, who in a short time after was to change places with the counsel, and to receive in his own person the same treatment as the other in his turn. Character and reputation were then of consequence to the judges, for if they were not well esteemed by the public, they might be reduced to absolute destitution ; whereas, if they were sure of being well employed on returning to the Bar, dismissal from their poorly-paid offices was no loss or discredit, and they might set thfe Crown at defiance. Now they are completely and for ever independent of the people, and from the Crown they have everything to hope for themselves and their families. Till the corrupt reign of James II., no common law judge was ennobled. Chief Justices Coke and Hale, infinitely greater lawyers and abler men than any of their successors in our time, lived and died commoners. Who was the first judicial peerl The infamous Judge JeflFreys. But in his campaign in the West, and on other occasions, he had done something to deserve and to illustrate the peerage. Nowadays the most brilliant apprenticeship to the trade of a peer is to carry a blue bag in Westminster HaU. This suddenly leads to riches, and the lawyer, suddenly rich, is made a baron ; whereas, the fact of some particular individual of suspicious character being all of a sudden flush of money, who was never known to have any before, often in the good old times led to the detection of the thief.' He then, to show how badly justice was administered, told a long story of a prosecution which he had instituted against some rioters at the Westminster election, being de- feated by the single circumstance of his counsel having entered the court a few minutes after nine in the morning, the Chief Justice having ordered them all to be acquitted for want of prosecution. Mr. Garrow here inter- posed, and by stating the true facts of the case, showed that Mr. Tooke. his counsel, attorney, and witnesses had all been guilty of gross negligence, and that the Chief Justice had shown upon that occasion great patience and indulgence. H. T. ' There can be no doubt at all but that your Lordship IX.] PUBLIC SPIRIT OF HORNE TOOKE. 199 will always find some one in your own court willing and ready to get up and recommend himself to your favour by a speech in your defence. I should have been surprised if it had not been the case now ; but I must rather thank Mr. Garrow, for he has given me time to breathe a whUe.' C. J.'l want no defence ; no defence. What has been said against me rather excites my compassion than my anger. I do not carry about me any recollection of the trial alluded to, or any of its circumstances.' H. T. 'I cannot say I carry about me anything ia consequence of it. I carry about me something less, by all the money which it took out of my pocket. Although Mr. Garrow has jumped up to contradict me, the affair happened exactly as I stated it. I heard ^m with much pleasure, for, as I said, I wanted to breathe.' " Mr. Fox was victorious, but Mr. Home Tooke did something in all this, not to bring just laws into contempt — he was incapable of that — ^but to show people that there is nothing after all very terrible in confronting a judge when a defendant is not arraigned for a crime, but for a principle or an opinion, or when he repre- sents a claim which does not involve moral delinquency. It should not be forgotten that no one, even in those times of political bitterness, ever accused Mr. Home Tooke of dealing with public questions in the spirit of an adventurer. Not only did he not grow the richer by his political action, but he grew much poorer; With his great talents, and his undoubted learning, it would be difficult to say what he might not have become in position and iu purse-power. Froni first to last he evinced a defiant manhood, and paid for it the penalty of real sacrifice, not always apparent in the political action of the men of more peaceful times. CHAPTEE X. FROM 1194— STATE TRIALS— TBE SPY SYSTEM.— SCOTLAND AND IRELAND. 1794 — Ireland — Mr. Grattan — Scotland — Sentences on Mr. Muir, Mr. Palmer, Mr. Skirving, Mr. Margaret, and Mr. Gerald — Spies and Packed Juries — Unsuccesafol Appeal to tlie House of Commons— Trial of Hardy, Home Tooke, and Others for High Treason — Case of Mr. Hardy — Erskine and Vicary Gibbs — Lord Redesdale Solicitor-General — Hardy Not Guilty — Ap« pearance of Mr. Tooke — Absurdity of the Charge — Tooke's Pleading — Wit and Humour — Immediate ABquittal — A Whig Prosecution — Acquittal of Warren Hastings — Retirement of Burke— Withdrawal of Whigs from Parlia- ment — Mutiny of the Fleets — General Privation of the Country — Poland, 1797 — Retreat of the Duke of York — Napoleon — French Conquests in Italy, and Victories on the Rhine — Spain, Geuoa, and Naples — Attempt of Hoche to Invade Ireland — Retirement of Washington — Battles of Cape St. Vincent, Camperdown, and Teneriffe — Napoleon in Egypt — Battle of the Pyramids, 1798 — Battle of the Nile, August 1 — Sidney Smith — Nelson — Russia — Consular Constitution, 1799 — Seringapatam — Wellesley^Sir Ralph Abercrombie — Battle of Alexandria — Death of Abercrombie — Military Value of India — Napoleon's Proposals for Peace, 1799 — Lord Grenville's Reply — Marengo, June 1800— French Prisoners in England — Ireland, Wise Rule of Lord Fitzwilliam — His Policy Disowned by the English Government — Reeall of Lord Fitzwilliam — Gratton — Marriage of the Prince of Wales— Lord Camden, Lord-Lieutenant — First Lord Castlereagh and Marquis of London- derry — Arthur O'Connor, McNevin, Oliver Bond, and Robert Bmmett — Oaths of Secrecy — Wolfe Tone — The United Irishmen — Ai'rests — Reynolds, the Spy — Lord Edward Fitzgerald — Lord Moira's Motion for Mercy — General Rising, May 1798 — Capture and Suicide of Wolfe Tone, October — Napper Tandy — 1799 — Union of England and Ireland — ISribery of Irish Members — Honourable Conduct of Lord Fitzwilliam — Act of Union, January 1801 — Lord Castlereagh — Pitt's Promise to the Catholics — First Parliament of Great Britain and Ireland, 1801— George III. — The Addington Ministry — Peace of Amiens, March 1802 — National Debt — Renewal of War, May 1803— Pitt Again in Office — Lord Melville, Canning, and Huskisson — Napoleon, Emperor— Pitt's Third Coalition, 1805— Death of Pitt— Eng- land's Tardy Operations — First Census — "All the Talents" — Abolition of the Slave Trade — Fall of the Ministry— The Portland Ministry— A Third CHAP. X.] SPIES AND INFORMERS. 201 Political Party — Seizure of the Danish Fleet — Orders in Council — Embarka- tion of the Portuguese Eoyal Family — Sir Arthur Wellesley in Portugal, 1808 — Walcheren Expedition^ — Duel Between Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Canning — The Perceval Ministry — The Liverpool Government — Rev. Gilbert Wakefield, — Mr. Cuthill — Benjamin Flowers — Action against the ExamineT, 1811 — Not Guilty — ^Another Action for Libel on the Prince Kegent, 1812 — Guilty— End of the First Year. We have now arrived at a year which will always be noted as the era of a modern system of spies and informers — the year 1794 ; the beginning of that government by treachery and terror which 'continued for a quarter of a century, with consequences upon which even the strongest admirers of Pitt can scarcely look without almost unmitigated regret. In Scotland and Ireland the proceedings of the law of&cers had far outstripped the more tardy operations of the Law Courts in London. The sentences also were harsher. In Ireland a great man had arisen in Mr. Grattan, and, as early as 1778, had taken such a stand against Lord North's Government as to compel the reconsideration, and eventually the withdrawal, of a commercial policy which pressed unfairly on Ireland. Mr. Grattan was called to the Irish Bar in 1772, and was speedily noted for his burning eloquence and his ardent patriotism. The Government hated him because they could not buy him, and because he overtopped them all in the stature of manhood and ability, and of that lofty purity which was beyond the reach of anything that a Government could bestow. In 1780 he elicited from the Irish Parliament a Declaration of Irish Eights, and a vote that " the King's Most Excellent Majesty and the Lords and Commons of Ireland are the only power competent to make laws to bind Ireland." His generous countrymen at this time offered him, as a means of usefulness to his country, a sum of 100,000^.; but he desired that the gift should be made one half, which he accepted. A man of singularly pure life, of sincerity in every word and deed, of an overmastering devotion to his country and his principles, Grattan might in this crisis of history have been of incalulable value to the true union of England and Ireland — might if England had had ministers who saw beyond repression and 202 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. the policy now represented by "Scotland Yard," the true principles on which nations are governed. There was a sad and dismal year in store for Henry Grattan, but that year was distant when he made his great speech and elicited his great vote in 1780. Under the spell of his eloquence, however, Ireland far distanced Great Britain in the abolition of religious tests. In Scotland, in May, 1794 — the Habeas Corpus Act then siispended — Mt Thomas Muir, a barrister, and Mr. Palmer, a Unitarian minister of Dundee, were by Scotch law found guilty of sedition. The gravest charge against the former was that he had lent a copy of the Bights of Man to some one who had begged it from him to read. For this Mr. Muir was sentenced to fburteerl years' transportation. Mr. Palmer was charged with publishing a.seditious address — that is, an address for reform — and was sentenced for seven years. Mr. Skirving, Mr, Margaret, and Mr. Gerald were charged with belonging to a society for obtaining annual parliaments and a wide suffrage. They were sentenced to fourteen years' transportation, and im- mediately sent to Botany Bay. They appear to have been three respectable and respected workmen, at least as honourable in conduct and pure in aim as the men who condeinned them. They were certainly men of character and integrity, and of ability which had brought them to the front of affairs. They were found guilty under an old Scotch statute of sowing discord between the King and the people, convicted on the evidence of witnesses who were in the main spies and informers, and by juries that were undoubtedly packed. The juries were selected from a political association called the " Life-Fortune Men " of Gold- smith's Hall, and were at the absolute command of the Government. That the system was a wicked one no one will now deny. Mr. Skirving and Mr. Gerald both died at Botany Bay in 1796, within three days of each other. Their sufferings must have been dreadful. It must be borne in mind also that the time was one of depression of trade ; that the masses of the people were suffering great privation, of which Parliament neither knew nor attempted to know anything. Immediately X.] JUDICIAL SENTENCES IN SCOTLAND. 203 after the trial Mr. Muir and Mr. Palmer were put on board a revenue cutter at Leith, and taken to Woolwich, where they were heavily ironed and put to work on the river hanks. Here were two men as well educated as Mr. Pitt himself, and presumedly as good subjects, if not of the Crown, at least of the country and the laws. Their case was brought before the House of Commons, but in vain. Some of the ablest men of the time pleaded for them in season and oiit of season, but the Govern- ment was inexorable. A motion to assimilate the law of Scotland to that of England was also rejected. "Why these cases specially were pleaded, while those of the other three men were forgotten, it is difiicult to explain; but even the better part of the House of Commons were not yet prepared to see that a workman may feel as keenly as a barrister or a preacher, and that his family tnay as easily be made to suffer. Parliament was in no humour to think of Mr. Muir and Mr. Palmer working in irons. It was the beginning of the attempt of little men, actuated only by the spirit of self-pre- servation, and property-preservation, to worm out every atom of public spirit from the natioli. The same stupidity that had rejected the " olive branch " from America, that had passed by the eloquence of Grattan and the pen of Cobbett, in the spirit of the stables and the servants' hall; rejected the petition for these men. Then, as we have seen, toinisters began to talk, in the King's speech, and in speeches of their own, of seditious assemblies and societies, and with the Habeas Corpus suspended the whole case was in their own hands. No, not exactly in their own hands. Fox was there, with his withering exposure and his masterly debating power, to make certain that the House of Commons knew what manner of votes it was entering on its records, when it again suspended the Habeas Corpus Act. Burke and Windham supported Pitt. Fox was beaten in aU but argument. It is not quite pleasant to remember that a Uttle latter than this, Mr. Burke was pensioned so largely, that he and his representatives after him, according to Mr. W. J, Fox, had received from that time, till 1846, when the 204 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. calculation was made, a total amount of about 185,000^. The estimate is given in one of Mr. Fox's fine papers in the People's Journal for the year named. Burke had now the double support of the Althorp section of the Whigs, and of aU the Tories ; the latter were enthusiastic in his favour. It is to his glory that, amid it all, his sincerity never has been questioned by anyone whose name represents more than an evanescent feature or principle of the period. In May, 1794, Mr. Home Tooke, the Eev. Jeremiah Joyce, private secretary to Lord Stanhope ; Mr. Stone, a coal merchant ; Mr. Bonney, an attorney ; Mr. Thomas Hardy, a shoemaker and secretary to the " Corresponding Society ; " Mr. Daniel Adams, secretary to the " Constitutional Society;" John Thelwall, political lecturer, and others, twelve in all, were apprehended and arraigned at the Old Bailey for high treason. On the 2nd October, Lord Chief Justice Eyre charged the grand jury in terms, which would, if accepted as law, have been fatal to all the accused persons, and indeed to everyone who proposed any changes whatever in the constitu- tion of the land. Within forty-eight hours of the delivery of the charge, a letter entitled Cursory Strictures on the Charge of Lord Chief Justice Eyre, &c., appeared in the Morning Chronicle, and then in a pamphlet, which was everywhere reprinted and read. Prior to that publication, the author of Public Characters, says the general impression was that, however melancholy the fact might be, the accused were guilty and would be convicted. " Mr. Godwin," it is added, " saw the fallacy and danger of the reasoning, and having employed a friend to write from his dictation, within forty-eight hours pro- duced his Cursory Strictures. The publisher of the pamphlet was ordered to withdraw it immediately, and threatened with prosecution if he sold another copy. He stopped the sale, which was taken up by another publisher. The impression meanwhile had been made, and the charge of the Lord Chief Justice was disposed of, and its " subtle mischief exhibited with all its natural undisguised deformity and coarseness." The public mind was prepared to welcome an acquittal, and to execrate the principles upon which the prosecution rested. It X.] HIGH TREASON. 205 is curious to observe a note ia Howell's State Trials, published in 1818, ascribing the Strictures "on sufficient authority," to Mr. Felix Vaughan, counsel for one of the accused, while the author of Public Characters, published in 1799, gives the full account from whence the above is abridged. The same fact, the writer is informed, is still more fully brought out in the recently published Life of Godwin. The Strictures with their force and vigour, as from the pen of Junius, were the work of William Godwin, and they were worthy of the author of Political Justice. The case of Hardy was taken first. Erskine was assigned as counsel. Sir John Scott represented the Crown, and spoke for nine hours in opening the case ; a close and argumentative speech which may still be read with interest. Let us perfectly understand that if these men had been found guilty several of them had died on the scaffold. We are so used in this time to reprieves and petitions for reprieves that we have no conception of the nature of adminis- tration in 1794. The trial began on the 28th of October, and at midnight, we are told, little progress had been made. Mr. Erskine had with him Mr. Vicary Gibbs, an able lawyer, and, although by no means inclined, but indeed altogether and in after times characteristically disinclined to the principles of Mr. Hardy, honest enough to do his duty in such a manner as to reflect honour on the Bar. Erskine never before had been put to so severe a test of watchfulness. The Court opened at eight o'clock in the morning, and sat tiU midnight or later. Lord Campbell says — "Erskine's attention was never for a moment relaxed, and he was ever on the watch for an opportunity of exciting the sympathy of the jury by interlocutory speeches, particularly in arguing questions of evidence." Lord Chief Justice Eyre presided. It had been, the same author teUs us, at first intended to charge the prisoners in the Court of King's Bench ; but a suspicion had arisen that Lord Kenyon was a little untrustworthy — as to temper it may be presumed — and Chief Justice Eyre was relied upon as " a quiet and safe judge," who would not in any way outrage public opinion or commit the ministry ; an error, as we have seen. During the trial, and while 206 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. a witness was under cross-examination, " and (the quotation is from Lord Campbell), equivocating so as to revolt the jury, the Chief Justice, interposing, took him out of counsel's hands, and, in a coaxing manner, repeated the question to him : — Erskine. 'I am entitled to the benefit of this gentleman's deportment if your Lordship will just indulge me for one moment.' Lord Chief Justice Eyre. ' Give him fair play.' Erskine. ' He has certainly had fair play. I wish we had as fair play ; but that is not addressed to the Court.' Attorney- General. ' Whom do you mean ? ' Erskine. ' I say the prisoner has a right to fair play.' Oarrow. ' But you declared that it was not said to the Court.' Erskine. ' I am not to be called to order by the Bar ! ' Being exceedingly afraid that an impression might be made upon the minds of the jury, which he might not be able to remove, by an infamous paper pretending to be a play- bill, to announce an entertaining farce called La Guillotine, or George's Head in a Basket, before it was read he said, most irregularly, but with an air that in him alone excuse.d the irregularity, ' The paper was fabricated by the spies who sup- port the prosecution.' Attorney-General. ' You shall not say that tni you prove it.' Erskine. ' I shall prove it.' A witness, who pretended to relate from notes he said he had taken of the proceedings of a reform society, having been asked for a date, and having answered that he thought it was about such a time, Erskine exclaimed, ' K'one of your thinking when you have the paper in your hands ! ' Witness. ' I have not a memorandum of the date.' Erskine. ' What date have you taken, good Mr. Spy ? ' Witness. ' I do not think on such an occasion being a spy is any disgrace.' G. J. Eyre. ' These observations are more proper when you come to address the jury.' " Erskine began his address to the jury at two o'clock in the afternoon of Saturday, and spoke for seven hours, and for the last ten minutes of his speech had to lean upon the table for support. " He could only whisper to the jury ; but so intense was the stillness, that his faint accents were heard in the remotest part of the court." The author of State Trials wrote : — " I have been indulged by Mr. Kogers, author of the Pleasures of Memory X.] NOT GUILTY. 207 with Home Tooke's copy of Hardy's trial, and found in Mr. Tooke's handwriting, at the end of the argument, ' This speech will live for ever.' " Mr. Vicary Gibbs followed. Then Lord Redesdale, who at the time was Solicitor-General, replied on behalf of the Crown. The verdict was " Not guilty," causing great demonstrations of rejoiping among the opponents of Mr. Pitt, and not a little yexation to his supporters. " When Erskine concluded," the editor of his speeches tells us " an irresistible acclamation pervaded the court, and to an immense distance round. The street* were seemingly filled with the whole of the inhabitants of London, and the passages were so thronged that it was impossible for the judges to get to their carriages." It was indeed a real victory. A few days earlier (October 15th), Eobert "Watt had been drawn on a hurdle to the place of execution in Edinburgh, and there while half hanged had been subjected to the revolting cruelties which at that time dis- tinguished the carrying out of an execution for high treason. Hardy's name appears, in the proceedings of the court, appended to several of the documents which had convicted Skirving. There is no doubt indeed that Muir, Palmer, and the other men referred to above, were convicted because they were beyond the wholesome influence of the intellectual life of London, and that Hardy escaped because that influence — the influence of the large town so terrible to Lord Kaims — was on his side. After an interval of some days, the case of Home Tooke was taken. It had been the custom. Lord Campbell says, that when several persons were arraigned for high treason, and one was acquitted, that the other cases should not be proceeded with ; and he adds, " I am wholly at a loss to account for the infatuated obstinacy which was now exhibited " in arraigning Mr. Home Tooke on exactly the same charge, and on the same evidence. Mr. Tooke, at the time of his arrest, was living at Wimbledon, and was in that familiar intercourse with Lord Thurlow to which reference has been made. The charge, which might very easily have cost him his life, originated, it is supposed, in his incorrigible love of fun — incorrigible, certainly, for he was now a weak and broken man, very different from the man who in 208 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. 1788, in the case of the Westminster election, had teased Lord Kenyon so unmercifully. One of the Government spies had been directed to attach himself to Mr. Tooke, who speedily detected the attachment, and, Mr. Stephens says, " pretending to admit the spy into his entire confidence, completed the delusion by actually rendering the person who wished to cir- cumvent him, in his turn, a dupe." He began to drop hints as to the numbers of people who were to rise at his bidding — ay, at the stamp of his foot ; and after pledging the spy to secrecy, he related in an awful whisper that a considerable portion of the Cruards had been gained over, and that the moment he gave the signal — the magical stamp on the ground — legiqns ■vfould rise to overthrow the constitution. All this was immediately carried to the ministers, and Tooke was committed to the Tower as a member of a seditious society. There is some- thing pleasant to this day in the daring hoax. Mr. Tooke is said to have entered the court with the assumed air of a man "weighted down by his oppressors." When called upon to plead he shook his head, and said, " I would be tried by God and my country. But" There he ended. It was sufficiently clear that the old humorist did not expect a trial by either the one authority or the other. An application was made that he should be allowed to sit, on account of his infirmities, and he was told that the indulgence should be granted. He replied, " I cannot help saying, my Lord, that if I were a judge, the word indulgence should never issue from my lips. My Lord, you have no indulgence to show ; you are bound to be just, and to be just is to do that which is ordered." Lord Campbell says that " Once at the table with the counsel, he was the most facetious and light-hearted of mortals, and seemed to have as much enjoyment in the proceedings as a young advocate who has unexpectedly got a brief in a winning cause, by which he expects to make his fortune." Erskine was again counsel for the defence, and no one in the court seemed to more thoroughly enjoy the banter of the man who was being tried for his life. The charges were frivolous, but far more weighty than those on which Muir and Palmer had been condemned. When certain X.] TEIALS FOR HIGH TREASON. 209 passages were read from pamphlets abusing the King, and so on, Mr. Tooke offered to prove that he himself had been abused in all manner of prints and even on earthenware vessels ; but what of that ? A witness attested that a treasonable song had been sung at a certain meeting. Mr. Tooke gravely pro- posed that the song should be sung in court, so that the jury might have an opportunity of judging of its purport and tendency. Objecting to a certain statement which had no reference to himself, the Chief Justice reminded him that it was necessary to go from link to link of a chain of evidence. Tooke. " I beg your pardon, my Lord, but is not a chain composed of links ? and may I not disjoin each link ? and do I not thereby destroy the chain ? " Chief Justice. " I rather think not, tUl the links are put together and form the chain." Tooke. " Nay, my Lord, with great submission to your Lordship, I rather think I may, because it is my business to prevent the forming of that chain." To prove him to be a Eepublican, Lord Campbell says evidence was given that a society of which he was a member had approved some proceedings of the National Assembly. " Egad," he said, " it is lucky we did not say there were some good things in the Koran, or we should have been charged with being Mohammedans." He gave evidence that at public meet- ings his sentiments had often been received with disapproval. Then he nodded to the jury, and said, " My object, gentlemen, is to show that after I had deposed our Lord the King, I was likely to have very troublesome subjects, for I was constantly received with hisses." To one witness, who is termed by Lord Campbell, " the solemn and empty Beaufoy who pretended hardly to know him in court," he said, " Now, witness, upon your oath, was it not the very day that you complained so bitterly to me you could not sleep, because, notwithstanding all your services to Pitt, and all the money you had spent in his cause, he had refused to return your bow ? " The question was a pure fabrication, but it had the intended effect. The last witticism recorded by Lord Campbell is, that the Attorney- General, in repelling some insinuation made upon his manner P 210 POPULAE PKOGRBSS IN ENGLAND. [chap. of conducting the prosecutions, said, " he could endure anything but an attack on his good name ; it was the small patrimony he had to leave to his children, and with G-od's help he would leave it unimpaired." After this he burst into tears, in which the Solicitor-General joined him. Tooke said, "in a stage whisper, ' Uo you know what Sir John Mitford is crying about ? He is tliinking of the destitute condition of Sir John Scott's children, and the small patrimony they are likely to divide among them.' " It was impossible to convict a man like this. Erskine replied ; and with reference to certain allegations against Mr. Tooke, that he had wished for the success of France, he predicted that a time would come when a man might again lawfully wish for the triumph even of French armies. "In the meantime,'' he said, " I will assert the freedom of an Englishman ; I will maintain the dignity of a man ; I wiU vindicate and glory in the principles which raised this country to her pre-eminence among the nations of the earth." The jury had required some hours to consider their verdict in the case of Mr. Hardy. In the case of Mr. Home Tooke the verdict of acquittal followed almost immediately on the judge's summing up, and the verdict was received with delight by the public. This trial, by the inimitable power of scorn and derision wielded by the aged defendant — a man, it may be worth re- stating of profound scholarship and marked ability — was a severe blow to a Government which knew no other means of preserving order than criminal prosecutions. Among the witnesses called by Mr. Tooke was Mr. Pitt himself, who was made to acknowledge that he had been present at one of the meetings of the society now under the ban of the law, and had listened without a word of disapproval to sentiments similar to those for which this prosecution was instituted. His excuse would naturally be that the times were different, and perhaps the plea would not be unreasonable ; but this fact was little seen in the popular rejoicing for the ministerial defeat. Lord Brougham says of Mr. Tooke : — " His exertions to procure parliamentary X.] TRIALS OP TOOKE AND THELWALL. 211 reform and good government in the country, accompanied with no conspiracy, and marked by no kind of personal or party violence, subjected his house to be ransacked by police of&cers and his repositories to be broken open, his private correspondence to be exposed, his daughters to be alarmed and insulted, his person, now bent down with grievous infirmities, to be hurried away in the night, to undergo an inquisitorial examination before a secret council, to be flung into prison, and only released after months of confinement, and after putting his life in jeopardy by a trial for high treasOn. These are sufferings which fair-weather politicians know nothing of; but they are sufferings which make men dear to the people, which are deeply engraved on the public mind." And again : — " All that the Mansfields and the Bullers could ever effect was to occasion a repetition, with aggravating variations, of the offensive passages ; all that Attorney-Generals could obtain was some new laughter from the audience at their expense He was ever ready to stand on the firm ground of right, and to press the claims of men to their legal privileges. He brought many important constitutional questions to a fair issue ; he was the patron, the supporter, the fellow- labourer of all who dared to resist arbitrary power, and would make a- stand for the rights of man and the principles of the constitution." Mr. Tooke died in 1812. It may be said of him that his usefulness in life far exceeded his fame, but also that his fame will increase as the years go on. At the end of this trial Mr. John Thelwall was charged, and was also acquitted. Here the Government was wise enough to stay proceedings. It is recorded that Thelwall, who was very impatient of legal forms, diiring the trial handed a bit of paper over to Mr. Erskine with the words, " I'll be hanged if I don't plead my own cause." Erskine wrote back, " You'll be hanged if you do." Thelwall let well alone. A few days later Erskine wrote to a friend, " I am busy flying my boy's kite How mucli happier .... if the King's ministers were emploj^ed in a course so much more innocent than theirs, and so perfectly suitable to their capacities." From whence it may be inferred that Mr. Erskine had much the same opinion with respect to p 2 212 POPULAR PEOGEESS IN ENGLAND. [chap, certain prominent persons that Canning had of some others at a later period, when he wrote — " Happy the nation's fate, I ween, As Briton's sons can tell, Whose rulers very little mean, Nor mean that little well." After the trials a mass-meeting was held on Copenhagen Fields, near Chalk Farm, and violent addresses were delivered by ThelwaU, Gale Jones — another political lecturer— and others. On the 29th of October, 1795, the King was shot at on his way to open Parliament. Bills were almost immediately presented to both Houses for the protection of the King's person, and for preventing seditious assemblies. The Bills were opposed as unnecessary by many of the Whigs in Parliament, and on more extreme grounds by mass-meetings outside ; but they were, of course, carried. A little later the Whigs were foolish enough to enter upon a prosecution for libel of Mr. Eeeves, chairman of a " Society against Eepublicans and Levellers." Mr. Eeeves had written a pamphlet, everywhere admitted to be foolish to puerility, stating among other absurdities that the Govern- ment of England being a monarchy, the Houses of Parliament are a mere accident, which might be lopped off by tlie King if necessary. The case was tried before Lord Kenyon. The House of Commons, by Mr. Erskine, prosecuted. The jury returned a verdict of not guilty ; a real humiliation to Erskine, for in this case he represented, not his cherished freedom, but repression. The lesson was an important one. The King, the ministers, and now the House of Commons, and especially the Whigs in it, had been defeated by the soberer sense of a Common Jury. Here was a Tory protected against Whigs by the same power that protected Whigs against Tories. It may be interesting to notice that Mr. Eeeves was the person most prominent in 1800, in the reception of WUliam Cobbett on that gentleman's return to England after his Tory campaign as " Peter Porcupine " in America. Mr. Eeeves laid down the law very' prettily indeed to Cobbett. " In this country," he said, " you must kiss or kick, and you must choose your course." Cobbett chose to do X.] WILLIAM COBBETr : MUTINY OF THE FLEET. 213 both. He took his place as a rank Tory, and began the Porcupine Gazette. There cannot be a doubt that for this he received public money. At the peace of Amiens, to which he was opposed, he refused to illuminate, and had his windows broken. Next day he revenged himself by publishing no paper. The public met this by a refusal to buy the paper when it did appear. Soon after the Gazette came to an end. Cobbett then began business as a bookseller, under the sign of the Bible and Crown. We shall subsequently see William Hone, before becoming a Eadical, appealing, as a Tory, to the same indomitable Mr. Eeeves. In this year Warren Hastings was acquitted; and Burke, who had foreseen this end of his great efforts, had accepted the Chiltern Hundreds and retired from Parliament in disgust. He died in 1797. John Wilkes died the same year, and all their feuds were quietly covered up for ever. About the same period Sir Eichard Arkwright died, as also did Mr. Wedgwood — two very notable men in view of the material progress of the nation. In 1797, Fox, Grey, Sheridan, and several other noted men of the young Whigs, withdrew for a time from Parliament, deeming all opposition to Pitt and the war futile ; a not unnatural, but a mistaken step. In the beginning of the same year ministers and the nation were brought face to face with the mutiny of the fleets at Spithead and the Nore ; a fact altogether unprecedented in our history. For three months the nation was uncertain whether, in its possibly great need, a blow would be struck in its defence by the men on whom it had relied above all others for the national safety. The grounds for the mutiny were in the un- doubted and long-continued gross ill-treatment of the men, and perhaps most of all in the hated press-gang. The most stringent means had been taken to prevent seditious or inflammatory writings from reaching the fleet, and there cannot be a doubt that the discontent was in a great measure spontaneous, and arose from real grievances. The short work, uncertain prices of provisions — the quartern loaf varying at times in one year from Is. lO^c?. to IQld., the actual case in 1800 — will give some idea of the privation of the time. 214 POPULAR PROaRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. In the year 1797, Kosciusko was permitted to retire to America after his last struggle for the independence of his country; and Poland, by the third Partition Treaty (1795) between Kussia, Prussia and Austria, had been feloniously blotted from the map of Europe. England made no sign of disapproval any more than she had a little earlier (1794), when, on tlie capture of Warsaw, Suwarrow put about 20,000 people to the sword. Mr. Pitt had a profound conception that he was not his brother's keeper as against despotism, though he might be so as against freedom. In 1798 King Stanislaus died, and one of tlie most heroic of nations was no more. The effect of this huge crime on English public opinion was very great. It intensified the zeal of every man in whom the love of freedom was stronger than the admiration for the successes — " brilliant successes" so called — -of despotism. It was just such an event as England needed to steady her in fast approaching years when despotic robbers and murderers were "the good and faithful allies " of the English crown. The national life of a brave and generous people, who had saved Europe from the Turks, was past. There were people in England who understood what had been involved in the deeds of that terrible day when John Sobieski and his army alone stood between the Turks and Vienna, and what v^as meant by that outburst of the gratitude of all Austrians, setting even the sacredness of the cathedral at naught when, as part of the solemn thanksgiving for the great deliverance, the priest, standing at the altar, read, as his thrice- solemn text : — " There was a man sent from God whose name was John." The great lesson was re-told, pointed with the story of the partition decreed and executed in the year 1795, and the story was sent out among the people of England in the very midst of Pitt's Eeign of Terror. The downfall of Poland assisted in the salvation of England. Meanwhile the tide of victory had begun to set in for France. Early in 1795 the Duke of York and the British army that he commanded — the army that was to obey the behests of the august council we have noticed — had been compelled to retreat and re-embark for England. Prussia and Holland, by treaties X.] IRISH AFP AXES : RETIREMENT OF WASHINGTON. 215 made at Basle, had virtually placed themselves under the pro- tection of France. Spain and several minor states followed the example. France was no longer alone in Europe. Napoleon, who had risen to note at Toulon in 1793, and assisted to put an end to the Eevolution in 1795, was married to Josephine Beau- harnais on the 9th of March, 1796. On the 27th of the same month he was at Mce, at the head of an invincible army. The battle of the Bridge of Lodi was fought in May 1796 ; and Areola in the same year. The battles of Montenotte, MeUesimo, and Mondovi, the passage of the Po, the entry to Milan, to Verona, and to other great cities, the battle of Castiglione, and, in fact the complete subjection of Italy, were the work of this year. On the Ehine the French were also successful. In October Spain declared war against England ; Genoa excluded English commerce from Genoese ports, and Naples made peace with France. In December General Hoche, with a fleet of 25,000 men, left France for Ireland ; but the fleet was dispersed in a storm, and the admiral, arriving at Bantry Bay, had so little love for the aspect of affairs that he refused to disembark his men. An attempt — perhaps an earnest attempt — was now made on the part of England to secure peace ; but in a short time Lord Malmesbury, to whom the negotiation was entrusted, was ordered to leave Paris. France had tasted glory and blood. In the same year Washington unostentatiously retired from public life, and in the following year died. There is ample evidence in the journals of the time that the simple and beautiful, brief ceremony of the retirement of the " father of his country," was compared in England with other ceremonies nearer home, and by no means to the advantage of the latter. It was the retirement, not of a foreigner, but of an Englishman, who had defied and defeated despotism. The Spanish declaration of war against England was followed by the defeat of the Spaniards, in February 1797, by Sir John Jervis, at Cape St. Vincent; a victory which was grandly celebrated. In October, the same year. Admiral Duncan defeated the Dutch at Camperdown. A little earlier in the same year, Nelson had made his unsuccess- ful but heroic attack on Santa Cruz in the Island of Teneriffe, 216 POPULAR PKOGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. where he lost an arm. In July 1798, Napoleon won the battle of the Pyramids in Egypt. On the 1st of August Nelson won the Battle of the Nile. In the year 1799 Napoleon left Egypt for France, running the gauntlet of the British fleet, now all- powerful in the Mediterranean. In this short time — little more than a year in Egypt — ^he had, after his manner, done wonders of war. By the celerity of his movements he had paralysed all enemies, save that one stubborn personage. Sir Sydney Smith, who checked his progress at Acre, and Nelson, who longed for nothing more than to meet him on sea. The expedition, so far as grandeur of conception was concerned, may rank with Hannibal's great march from Spain to Italy, and with Scipio's expedition to Carthage. Granted certain conditions, chief of which was an open sea, and France might possess an Eastern Empire ; might have under her command fierce Eastern races, to be directed at some chosen time against India. The blood of Napoleon might well course more quickly in his veins as he was being borne over the blue waters of the Mediter- ranean, in sight of the changeless bleak rocks, or the ever- lastingly recurring verdure of the storied lands of antiquity. Nelson alone stood in the way, with his eager, impetuous genius, his splendid seamanship, and his unconquerable will, and when Napoleon returned, as by stealth to France, his dream of a French capital at Cairo, and a French Liverpool at Alexandria was gone. The course of Eussia was peculiar; at one time presenting the appearance of an active policy towards France, against wliich Suwarrow was ready to make war to the knife, then inclining to France and her great soldier ; then halt- ing between two courses, and waiting, on the historic principle of Eob Eoy, for the " booty " whichever side won ; a policy which Mr. Pitt found very unreliable and disheartening. The Empress Catherine died in 1796, and was succeeded by her son Paul, upon whom Napoleon had cast the glamour of his genius. The return of Napoleon to France was signalised by the over- throw of the Directory and the eventual establishment of what became known as the Consular Constitution; Napoleon first X.] ENGLAND IN EGYPT : A FORCE FROM INDIA. 217 consul for ten years, with second and third consuls for five years. During the same period, England had marked an epoch in her history in India by the capture of Seringapatam. This landmark action, resulting in the death of Tippoo Saib, was fought early in May 1799. The British flag waved over Seringapatam after a month's siege. The future Duke of Wellington was now a colonel assisting his brother, the Governor- General of India, with cool and sagacious counsel, and prompt action when action was required. Two months later Sir Ealph AbercTomby was seflt out, under the command of the Duke of York, with 15,000 British and 17,000 Eussians for the recovery of Holland ; an attempt that was defeated in spite of the genius of Abercromby, by the admitted incapacity of the Duke. In December 1800, Abercromby embarked for Egypt, and on the 8th of March, 1801, landed in Aboukir Bay. 'On the 21st the battle of Alexandria was fought; a valuable battle for England, for it showed that under fair conditions the old stamina of Englishmen was still an overmatch for the enthusiasm of France. The death of Abercromby only deepened the lesson. One of the most remarkable facts in connection with this ex- pedition, and indeed of the whole war, was the landing of an Anglo-Indian army on the shores of the Eed Sea, and its rapid march across the desert under General Baird. The force an'ived too late to be of any material use to General Hutchinson, who succeeded Abercromby, but it solved a great problem in the military affairs of England and India. What was done once can be done again, and it is scarcely likely that in case of war in Europe, India would be suffered to become a source of weak- ness to the British arms. Scarcely is it likely indeed that India would not pour forth its warlike population, utilised in case of real peril with revolutionary vigour, and led by splendid officers. With war in the distance we talk of what Eussia might or might not do. In war we should be likely, to remember that what England did she can do again. It is noteworthy that Napoleon almost immediately upon his accession to power at the end of 1799 made an attempt, ostensible at all events, to effect a treaty of peace between France and England, and received from Lord 218 POPULAE PEOGRBSS IN ENGLAND, [chap. Grenville in January of the following year a direct refusal to open negotiations. In June 1800, Napoleon won the hattle of Marengo. At this time there were close upon 26,000 French prisoners in England, of whom a very curious story, which hids fair to be lost, might be told. Their skiU in handicraft, in penmanship, and in artistic productions of various kinds pro- vided them with many of the luxuries of life not by any means obtainable by English prisoners in France. The history of Ireland in these years is one of the most painful chapters in the whole history of the British Isles. In December, 1794, Lord FitzwiUiam, nephew of the Marquis of Eockingham, and, as already stated, a thorough believer in Burke's views of the French Eevolution — that is, an " Old " Whig — had been appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and so conciliatory were his measures, policy, and deportment, that a Catholic Emancipation BiH had actually been prepared, and complete freedom of religious opinion was supposed to have been secured. It is to the glory of Ireland that these steps were taken. She has the distinction of having made a clear advance upon Great Britain in religious freedom, and to have made the advance generously and honourably. There were, however, among the opponents of emancipation the Lord Chancellor Fitzgibbon — Grattan's old enemy — Mr. Beresford, Commissioner of the Treasury, and the law officers of the Crown, who took the tone of their policy from the persons in power in London. Lord FitzwiUiam felt that with these officers it would be impossible for him to work. He demanded their removal. Pitt remonstrated. The Duke of Portland expressed a doubt whether Catholic emancipation would be sound policy. The King, of course, sup- ported both. In February, 1795, Lord FitzwiUiam was recalled. When he left Dublin the shops and the ships in the bay went into mourning. Grattan, who a month before had been in the highest spirits, in view of the termination of his great struggle for the well-being of his country, was now in deep despair. In April Lord FitzwilHam, in his place in Parliament, challenged the ministry to discuss the subject of his recall — to teU him wherein he had offended or failed to carry out the instructions with X.] IRELAND ; LORD CASTLERE AG H. 219 which he left England. A vigorous debate followed^ and Lord Grenville was compelled to take refuge in " reasons of State " for silence. Other rulers of Ireland had, he said, been removed ■without a question being raised. Why should an exception be made in the case of Lord Fitzwilliam ? The subject was brought before the House of Commons with a like result. Much more important events to members of Parliament and their wives and daughters had occurred about this time, and the House found it quite impossible to concentrate attention on the affairs of Ireland. The Princ» of Wales, afterwards George IV., had just then been auspiciously married to the Princess Caroline of Brunswick, and there had been such rejoicings as a loyal, and contented, and altogether prosperous, people knew how to make. There came a later day when the Princess Caroline was pushed back rudely from the doors of Westminster Abbey, on the occasion of the coronation of her lord. Lord Camden was now made Lord-lieutenant ; a rule that will always be referred to with shame. Soon afterwards Grattan moved for an inquiry into the recall of Lord Fitzwilliam, but was defeated, as also was his Catholic Emancipation Bill, by the very same men who, a short time before, had voted for the Bill with acclamation. Among these members there was one man, member for County Down, known at this time as the Hon. Mr. Stewart, known afterwards as Lord Castlereagh. He was distinguished by his extreme professions of patriotism. He had even presided at public dinners where the toast of "Our Sovereign Lord the People" had be^n drunk. He had supported Grattan for reform and for emancipation. He had denounced the Government in terms which had gained him unbounded popular applause. Now he became wliat may be called a " changed man." What subtle charm Lord Camden employed is not clearly discernible ; but certain it is, that to the Eight Hon. Robert Stewart old things passed away and all things became new. In October the same year Mr. Stewart's father became Lord Castlereagh, and a year later was made Marquis of Lon- donderry. In 1798 Mr. Stewart — Lord Castlereagh, on his father's elevation to the marquisate — became Lord Camden's 220 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [ciiAr. private secretary, and before long succeeded in making for himself a name hated beyond almost all other names in Ireland. At this time the society of the " United Irishmen," began to be looked to as the sole refuge of the country from oppression. Mr. Arthur O'Connor, heir-presumptive to Lord LonguevHle, and a warm and brilliant supporter of Grattan ; Dr. McNevin, Chairman of a Catholic Committee ; Mr. Oliver Bond, a wealthy merchant of Dublin ; and Mr. Emmett, a young barrister — des- tined to be executed at a later period, and to leave a name embalmed for ever in Miss Curran's beautiful ballad, Eohert Aroon, and in the national memory — became banded together, with many others, to break the spell that rested on their country. Oaths of secrecy were administered; a correspond- ence was opened with the French Eepublicans ; Mr. Theobald Wolfe Tone was put in direct communication with the French Directorate, which promised help in men and arms. It is curious to observe that the Irish of this time were specially careful to stipulate with the French Eepublic for not fewer than 5,000, nor more than 10,000 men, not being altogether easy as to a French occupation of their country ; and tliat the French Directors, in disregard of the stipulation, determined to send from 50,000 to 60,000 men, in three different detachments, from France, Spain, and Holland. We have seen how General Hoche and his fleet were defeated by the storm, and retreated from Bantry Bay in December, 1796 ; and that in February, the following year Sir John Jervis interposed with the action off Cape St. Vincent, and that there was no more chance of invading Ireland. The idea was revived, however, a year later, and Arthur O'Connor and several others were sent on a secret embassy to England, where a large number of small bodies of " United Englishmen " had been formed. From the day the young Irishman crossed the Irish Sea his course was closely watched, and at last he was arrested with O'Coigley, a priest, and some others at Margate, on the eve of an embarkation for France. A few days later the " Directory " of the rebellion were arrested at the house of Oliver Bond, on the information of a person named Eeynolds, a Catholic X.] THE IRISH REBELLION: WOLFE TONE. 221 gentleman so-called, and a Government spy. We shall have a great deal more to do with this man, who lived to drink the cup of infamy to the very dregs. The persons apprehended at Margate were put on their trial, but with the exception of O'Coigley, who was executed, the prosecutions failed. O'Connor, and Binns, a member of the London Corresponding Society, were subsequently arrested on a new charge ; and other members of the same society were captured at the same time in a house in Newcastle Street, London. Lord Edward Fitzgerald also was arrested, after a steut resistance, in Dublin, and was sent wounded to prison, where he died. His wife, daughter of the Duke of Orleans, was ordered to leave England. Two bar- risters, the brothers John and Henry Sheares, with some others, were executed. Early in the year 1798 Lord Moira moved an address to the Lord-Lieutenant, beseeching him to use con- ciliatory measures with the rebels, and drawing attention to the cruelties inflicted for the purpose of extorting confessions ; cruelties of which Lord Castlereagh was destined to hear more in later years. The motion was rejected. The 23rd May had been appointed for a general rising, and about that time the rebellion broke out in various parts of Ireland, with dreadful cruelties on both sides. On June 21st the rebels were defeated by General Lake on Vinegar Hill, near Enniscartliy. Their power was entirely broken. On the 12th October Sir John Warren fell in with a French line-of-battle ship, La Hoche, and eight frigates, conveying troops to Ireland. He captured the man-of-war, on board of which he found the redoubtable Wolfe Tone, who was tried by court-martial, and sentenced to death. Mr. Curran, more in the spirit of a gentleman than of a mere advocate, stepped in promptly, and moved for arrest of the execution. He had obtained a writ of Habeas Corpus, when his labours were brought abruptly to a close by the suicide of Mr. Tone, one of the very remarkable men whom Ireland produced in these distressing years, and who under other circumstances might have been famous. The rebellion was now considered at an end. The loss of life has been differently estimated at from 30,000 to 50,000 — a wide margin certainly, 222 POPULAR PROGEESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. but indicative at; least of the sad state of Ireland. Napper Tandy and several others were arrested at Hamburgh, but the minister of England claiming them on the one hand, and the minister of France on the other, the application for their extradition was allowed to fall through. On the 22nd January, 1799, the royal speech recommended the legislative union of Great Britain and Ireland. It was well known also that the measure was fully prepared. Wolfe Tone had then been dead about two months. To Castlereagh is ascribed, and with good reason, the work done in Dublin at this time. Lord Cornwallis had succeeded Lord Camden in 1798, but the man principally concerned in the proceedings narrated above remained Secretary, and virtual Governor of Ireland. It has been said, and by Lord Brougham among others, that Lord Castlereagh neither inflicted cruelties nor bribed with his own hand ; a plea which in reality amounts to very little. It would be very strange indeed, if a virtual minister of state, a secretary of high position, inflicted torture or offered bribes in person. A sheriff objects to be made an executioner. But none the less is it a fact, that bribes, under the name of compensation, were given " to men who would accept office on the terms of carrying the union." Sir John Barrington, in his Historic Memoirs, says that the price set down for a nobleman who had the power of returning a member to Parliament was 15,000^., and that the sum was doubled or trebled according to the number of members he returned. Every member who had bought a seat in the Irish Parliament had the purchase- money returned. Of course that was not bribery on Lord Castlereagh's part. Even if he gave cheques he did not give money. The following, among other sums, however were paid : — " To Lord Shannon for his patronage in the Commons, 45,000/. ; to Lord Clanmorris, 23,i>00/. and a peerage ; to the Marquis of Ely, 45,000/. ; to Lord Belvidere, with a sum in advance, 15,000/.; to Sir Hercules Langrish, 15,000/." In all a million and a half, raised by taxation in Ireland, were paid in bribes for the legislative union of Great Britain and Ireland. It is pleasant to state that Lord Fitzwilliam, who had a great pecuniary stake in Ireland, refused to accept X.] LORD FITZWILLIAM; THE ACT OF UNION. 223 a penny. He had suffered gi'eatly in the rebellion. He was no revolutionist, but almost a monomaniac against revolutions, and especially against that of France. He was wedded to the traditions of the Marquis of Rockingham, and had inherited that nobleman's regard for Burke, and for Burke's policy ; but he was brave in Irish affairs. It is well worthy of note therefore that when the claimants for compensation presented themselves, a Dublin banker, a member of Parliament, stated that Lord Fitzwilliam had no claim. A nobler lord-lieutenancy there had never been, in splendour of hospitality, in dignity of deport- ment, in a statesmanlike regard for the well-being of the people. All this came well out at the end. The Act of Union was passed in the English Parliament in May, 1800, and in the Irish Parliament in June. It received the Eoyal Assent on the 2nd July, and came into operation on the 1st January, 1801. The title of King of Prance was at the same time disused. Of Lord Castlereagh, the hero of the infamous proceedings by which the Act was carried, it is said that he was cold and passionless, and that whatever he did was done of political pur- pose and calculated design. That is, that he was not actuated by personal vindictiveness ; a plea that has been urged on behalf of bad statesmen in all times. No intelligent Englishman in these days recurs to the dark deeds of the Irish Eebellion without deep mournfulness, though many Englishmen are at a loss to comprehend what good purpose Irishmen imagine can result from sldlfuUy and persistently per- petuating old feuds ; and many Englishmen wonder that Irishmen cannot, with the quick wit and perception of their race, make some allowance for a nation, striking out, as England was at that time, against an enemy before whose genius the AA'hole continent of Europe had fallen. Not a word has been said here in defence of the atrocities that are popularly represented, in some cases rightly, in some wrongly, by the name of Castlereagh, and rightly in sufficient cases to justify the rule. Let them remain for ever stamped with the infamy that belongs to them. It should be remembered, however, that Englishmen and Scotchmen suffered quite as severely wherever the hand of the law could be 224 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. brought to bear on them, and still more so where military power coiild be used for the repression of disorder. In Ireland, from the fact of the Channel intervening, there was a possibility of such a concentration of armed force in deiiance of authority as neither England nor Scotland had known anything of for half a century. Scotland was wise enough to forget, as all but history, what followed CuUoden. Ireland never even attempts to forget what followed Vinegar Hill. The means taken to secure the union of England and Ireland were means so base that history blushes to record them ; but, after aU, union by bribery and cajolery was believed in England after the acts were done, and could not be undone, to be preferable to union by conquest, which must have been the result if Ireland had become identified with the projects of Wolfe Tone. Or, at least, an Irish Republic united to the French Eepublic could only have ended either in the entire subjugation of England or in war to the knife between England and Ireland. Looking to these facts, and to the attitude taken up by Irishmen, the question in the minds and often on the lips of Englishmen is — " Can't you let bygones be bygones ? Can't you let the dead bury its dead ? " It is certain that there is nothing of a political nature Englishmen dread so much as another rebellion in Ireland. If this is an avowal over which Irishmen feel justified in making merry, as some made merry over Mr. Gladstone's reference to the Fenians in relation to the disestablishment of the Irish Church, why the merriment must be accepted as a penalty for past misdeeds — the misdeeds of generations gone. The assertion is at all events a sober and solemn fact. Is it not high time that intelligent Irishmen should make an effort in the direction of seeing whether Ireland cannot find justice and fairplay in the United Parlia- ment ? We have now reached a very important part of Mr. Pitt's career. He had distinctly promised, as the price of the Union, that Catholics should be placed on a fair footing in the state ; that Grattan's great Bill should be virtually incorporated with the law of the United Kingdom. All at once, he found that on this point thQ King would not yield. It was becoming X.] RETIREMENT OF PITT. 225 important also to make peace with France, and as tlie name of Pitt had been identified in France, not merely with an open warlike policy, but with secret intrigues of which he was in- capable, and which indeed were absurd, it appeared necessary for him to retire. The first Parliament of Great Britain and Ireland met in January 1801. Mr. Addington was re-elected Speaker. Public affairs were peculiar, from the fact that the King's insanity was now placed beyond doubt, and that his determination not to concede the Catholic claims was one of the most rooted features of the malady. Amid it all the position of the King himself was one upon which no generous mind can look without pity. That he was a man pure in life never has been doubted, even by those who have most bitterly con- demned the errors of his policy. His coronation oath was ever before him ; the obligation which he supposed rested upon him to protect 'the Protestant religion by the exclusion of Catholics from civil rights. Educated in the bad society of his father's " opposition " court, and with a mind incapable of recondite reasoning, there is something simply melancholy in the bigotry of George III. It was a bigotry, too, shared in another way by the large mass of intelligent men who dreaded " Popery and arbitrary power." It was not that he was unmerciful that he objected to Pitt's promise of Catholic emancipation. Personally he would have been as generous to the Catholic as to the Protestant ; but a higher power than that of kings had decreed that there should fall upon his miud that deep shadow which obscured all private virtues. It would be ungenerous to forget the individual goodness, it would be criminal to forget and ignore the public faults of a life vi^hich merely did not err against conscientiousness, but which more than once nearly ruined England. Of Pitt, at this time, it is difficult to think with approval, or even patience ; but when the whole subject is considered it is almost as difficult unhesitatingly to condemn. It has been alleged against him, that since he resigned on the score of the King's absolute refusal to concede the Catholic claims, he was bound not to return to office until those claims were conceded. E Q 226 POPULAR PROGEESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. To this assertion there is the reply that the services of a statesman belong to his country, and that if he could not obtain all he wished, there was no reason why he should altogether refuse to give those services which he perhaps of all men living was best able to give to the Crown at that particular time. But that Catholic emancipation was promised as the price of the union there is no doubt whatever, and that the promise was not kept must always stand to the discredit of Mr. Pitt and his government. On the 14th of March, 1801, the King's health had become sufficiently restored to enable him to accept the resignation of his favourite statesman. Mr. Addington became Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer. Among the ministry were the Duke of Portland, Lord Castlereagh, Earl St. Vincent, and Lord Hawkesbury, with Lord Eldon as Lord Chancellor, Sir Edward Law, Attorney- General, and Mr. Spencer Perceval, Solicitor-General. Mr. Addington took office on the 13th of July. Proposals for peace were almost immediately made to France, and hostilities sus- pended, though the Peace of Amiens was not signed till March 1802. The national debt at this time was 520,000,000?. An unreal and insincere truce on both sides was followed by a fierce determination, also on both sides, to prosecute war to the utmost extremity. Napoleon's disposition towards England was shown by his immediate apprehension of all Englishmen —ten thousand it was computed — in France at the time the peace terminated. These persons, travellers, tourists, and what not, were kept prisoners till the power of ISTapoleon came to an end in 1814. Looking to this one fact alone — and it is one of a large number of kindred facts — it is not difficult to see what the fate of England would have been if Napoleon could have dictated terms of peace in London ; a fact which goes far to modify one's view of proceedings at home that never can be justified. The war had become one of life or death to England. War was again declared in May 1803, after a peace of little more than a year. In February the following year Mr. Pitt was again called to the head of affairs. The Duke of Portland, Lord Castlereagh, Lord Eldon, and others retained X.] AUSTEELITZ: DEATH OP PITT. 227 office, with Lord Melville (formerly Mr. Dundas), Mr. Canning, and Mr. Huskisson. In the same month in which war was declared Napoleon was crowned Emperor of France. In 1805 Sir Arthur Wellesley left Madras for England. In the same year Mr. Addington was made Viscount Sidmouth, and Lord Melville charged with peculation, was eventually compelled to resign ; a serious blow to Pitt's ministry. In the same year Mr. Pitt formed his Third Coalition against Trance. The treaty was signed at St. Petersburg in April. The coalition ^as broken, as with a crash, on the 3rd of December at Austerlitz. Pitt, it is said, never looked up again. The " look of Austerlitz " rested upon his face from this time to the end, now clearly approaching. He died on the 23rd of January, 1806, and died in something like despair of the future of England as regarded France. The previous year had closed with the great victory of Trafalgar, and with numerous victories in India ; but nothing compensated for the reverse of Austerlitz, and for the fact that an army was assembled at Boulogne for the invasion of England. Ordinary people might, as. Southey says, feel as secure from invasion after Trafalgar as if no flat- bottomed boats had been in existence ; but a statesman could not so narrow the great issue. It is impossible to overlook these facts in dealing with State Trials which in themselves were in many cases ludicrously trivial. Napoleon's treatment of Prussia, and indeed of every country of which he was the con- queror, excused in the eyes of many the harsh measures of the time. The Whigs had ceased to contend against the war mania. At the time of Pitt's death there seemed to be but one policy in England. That policy was for determined war. The man who could wage successful war would be placed high among Englishmen. Sir Archibald Alison, among others, expressed, and thought that posterity would express, amazement that England, with so large a force under arms, should not have begun active operations against France at an earlier period ; but it cannot be forgotten that the rapidity of Napoleon's move- ments and the discontent in England account for much of the slowness and supineness of the English Government as to Q 2 228 POPULAR PEOGEBSS IN ENGLAND. [chap. A^arlike proceedings on the Continent ; and that the allies had proved themselves untrustworthy. There was scarcely time to adopt a definite plan of operations before Napoleon, by some great battle, had put an end to the coalitions against him, and before new treaties with Prance had abrogated treaties against her on which the ink was barely dry. When Pitt first met the French Eevolution he was full of life and spirit, defiant of his political opponents and of foreign foes. "When he died England had been ten years in a state of siege at home, and abroad there had setin for her the deep darkness that comes before the dawn. The nation was on the eve of victories that were once more to prove her power in a struggle with France ; but that was hidden from all knowledge. At the beginning of 1806 all that could be seen was a series of disasters which seemed almost unlimited, and an incessant drain on the national resource for subsidies to- foreign powers, altogether forming what seemed like a blight on English effort on the Continent. In India, where individuality had been left free, a great empire had been built, or, if not built, at least the foundations so securely laid that the future became almost a matter of cal- culation. From Arcot only a little more than fifty years, from Tlassey not quite fifty years, to Assaye, great historical events had followed each other with marvellous rapidity, proving that the national courage remained. In America the individuality and force of the English character had built .up a new_ nation- ality. At home, too, in spite of all difficulties, the population had everywhere increased, and the large towns in particular had developed so rapidly, that in many cases they had doubled their population in a brief period. The first census was in 1801, and from that time there were exact means for estimating pro- gress or decay. The popular feeling with respect to Pitt's policy may be judged from the fact, that when the question of a statue to him was proposed in the Common Council of London, the proposal was only carried by seventy-seven against seventy-one votes. When he was described in Parliament as an " excellent statesman," his opponents not unreasonably objected to the term, while many of them very unreasonably demurred even to X.] "ALL THE TALENTS": THE SLAVE TRADE. 229 burying him in the Abbey. The error was seen when, later in the year, Fox needed the same defence and the same fair representation of motives, when he too was unable to speak for himself. On the death of Mr. Pitt his government fell to pieces, in spite of energetic efforts to reconstruct it, and at the end of January, 1806, the ministry of "All the Talents" was formed : — Lord Grenville, Premier ; Mr. Erskine, Lord Chancellor ; Lord Henry Petty, afterwards Marquis of Lansdowne, Chancellor of Exchequer ; Lord Holland (third lord, and nephew of Mr. Fox), Privy Seal; Earl Fitawilliam, President of the Council; Mr. Fox, Foreign Secretary ; Mr. Grey, First Lord of the Admiralty ; Mr. Sheridan, Treasurer of the Navy; Sir Samuel Eomilly, Solicitor-General ; Lord Sidmouth, Lord Privy Seal ; Lord Ellenborough, Chief Justice, and included in the ministry as Lord Sidmouth's friend. Mr. Curran was made Master of the Eolls in Ireland. One of the first acts of the new ministry was to give an earnest and vigorous support to the motion of Mr. Wilberforce for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. The measure was not carried till early in the following year, but the prompt effort may serve to mark the difference between the two ministries. There was no longer any hesitation as to the bad trade. In a speech on the subject Sir Samuel Eomilly stated that in the ten years immediately preceding that time, 360,000 Africans had been sold into slavery or had perished on the sea. Lord Grenville, it may be useful to remember, was the son of Mr. George Grenville, whose relationship to Lord Chatham we have seen. He was favourable to Catholic emancipation, which Lord Sidmouth opposed. The latter therefore stood higher in the favour of the King and the Court with results of great State importance. The ministry was necessarily reconstructed on the death of Fox. Mr. Grey, afterwards Lord Howick and then Earl Grey, became Foreign Secretary. A strong and sincere attempt had been made by Fox to bring the war to an end, hnt the negotiations, not now by any means sincere on the part of Napoleon, were altogether broken off when Fox died. The French Emperor . then fell upon Prussia and Eussia with 230 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. those sledge-hammer blows which resulted in the peace of Tilsit, secured the famous Confederation of the Ehine, and gaive point to the Berlin decree against English commerce. The ministry of "All the Talents" was not destined to a long life. An attempt to enable Catholics to serve in the army was opposed by the King. In 1807 the ministry came to an end, and were succeeded by the Duke of Portland, Prime Minister, Mr. Perceval, Chancellor of Exchequer, and Mr. Canning, Foreign Secretary. Lord Eldon retained the Great Seal; Sir Arthur Wellesley, was Secretary for Ireland, under the Lord- Lieutenancy of the Duke of Richmond. It is noteworthy that Lord Gren- ville and Lord Howick both agreed not to press the Catholic claim upon the King, provided they might be permitted to leave a record in vindication of their character, and again entreat his Majesty to consider the subject at some more favourable time. The King was inexorable. E"ot only did he refuse to consider the subject at that time, but he would have an under- taking that it never should again be mentioned to him. There were ministers ready to obey him even in that, but these ministers would not do so. The condition of Ireland was again assuming an alarming aspect, and the Chief Secretary, a. little later, demanded and obtained larger powers for repression. In the House of Commons the Government had been weak from the first, and Canning, acting on the example of Pitt at a memorable period, threatened the House with an immediate dissolution if certain measures of the Government were opposed. A little later the threat was carried into effect, and the Parlia- ment dissolved, having existed only four months and fifteen days. The elections that followed were among the most bitter ever known, but ministers were found to have an immense majority. Sir Francis Burdett and Lord Cochrane, however, were both re-elected by an Independent Party, which they may be said to have formed; a party that would henceforth remain in English politics altogether unconnected with either Whig or Tory, and representing a popular feeling which for the last generation had been slowly forcing its way into life. Sir X.] THETHIEDPAETY: SEIZUKE OP THE DANISH FLEET. 231 Francis Burdett, as far back as 1799, had called attention in Parliament, in a very forcible speech, but with little practical result, to the state of the Coldbath prison, then crowded with prisoners. His influence was more felt out of Parliament than in it, and had a very decisive effect at several critical times in future years. The remarkable succession of French victories led the English Government, at the end of 1807, to take a step which for a long time was the subject of very severe animad- version, and which cannot be justified even on the score of self-preservation. Napoleon's Berlin decree of the previous year had been passed for the simple and avowed purpose of excluding English commerce from the Continent, and it was believed by ministers, and on reasonable grounds, that the Danish fleet would be seized by Napoleon and directed against England. In August 1807 an English force, commanded by Lord Cathcart and Sir Arthur Wellesley, with Admiral Gambler in command of the fleet, was sent to Denmark to demand the surrender of the Danish fleet, which the English ministry promised should be held in trust and given back at the end of the war. The Danes naturally refused, and the fleet was taken by force. Sixteen ships of the line, fifteen frigates, and twenty-five gunboats, with several other vessels then on the stocks, and immense naval and military stores, were brought to England. In all there were about 20,000 tons of war material. It was a stroke of policy worthy of the initiative of Napoleon himself; but he nevertheless made the most of it as the basis of an indignant protest. He replied by an imperial ukase, ordering the seizure of all British ships and property. This step, and the Berlin decrees, led to the famous Orders in Council declaring France and all countries under her control in a state of blockade. The orders were passed at the end of 1807. They were replied to by more stringent decrees on the part of Napoleon; in both cases to the serious injury of peaceful nations, and especially of America, though the power to inflict the greatest injury was with England, as mistress of the sea. In October 1807, a French army crossed the Bidassoa, with 232 POPULAE PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. orders to capture Lisbon, Napoleon in his usual haughty way- declaring the House of Braganza to be at an end. He was met in a manner for which history affords no parallel. Junot found no difficulty in entering Lisbon, but before he arrived there he saw the Portuguese fleet, with British assistance, embarking for Brazil, with the Prince Eegent, the Eoyal family, and 15,000 of the principal inhabitants of Lisbon. The seat of government had been formally transferred from Europe to America. This seemed the signal for England to take up a more resolute position. On the 12th July, 1808, Sir Arthur WeUesley embarked for Por- tugal. On the 21st August he defeated the French at Vimiera, but was immediately afterwards superseded in his command. The Convention of Cintra followed ; Generals Dalrymple, Burrard, and WeUesley were recalled, and Sir John Moore was entrusted with the high command. Early in 1809 the Retreat of Corunna, glorious but futile, came to an end. Sir Arthur Wel- lesley was again sent to Portugal. The advance on Oporto, the passage of the Douro, the battle of Talavera, followed in rapid succession ; brilliant passages in arms, but more than neutralised by Napoleon's great victories at Wagram and elsewhere, and by the disastrous failure of the Walcheren Expedition, which left England in May, certain, it was said, to destroy the Dutch fleets and dockyards, and ended in December with an utter collapse. It was the famous occasion when " the Earl of Chatham, with his sword drawn, ^tood waiting for Sir Eichard Strachan," and when " Sir Eichard, burning to be at 'em, stood waiting for the Earl of Chatham." This disaster led to a violent personal dispute, and to the famous duel between Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Canning. Eventually also it caused the break-up of the ministry. The Duke of Portland resigned, and died in the following year. Mr. Perceval now became Premier, with the Marquis of WeUesley, Secretary for Foreign Affairs ; Lord Liverpool, Secretary for War, and the Colonies ; and Lord Palmerston, Secretary for War. It is not the object here to tell of the war in Spain, or of the French disasters in Eussia. In both cases the power of Napoleon was fast coming to an end, and England began to find a breathiug time for other X.] THE LIVERPOOL GOVERNMENT. 233 interests than those of war. In February 1811, the Prince of Wales was made Regent. In the beginning of 1812 Napoleon made his advance into Kussia. In June the same year the Americans declared war against England. The Perceval Ministry had come to an end by the murder of the Premier a couple of months earlier, and the ministry of Lord Liverpool was formed, with Mr. Vansittart Chancellor of Exchequer, Lord Bathurst, Secretary of War ; Lord Sidmouth, Secretary for the Home Department; Lord Castlereagh, Secretary for Foreign Affairs. Alterations^were subsequently made in the ministry from time to time, but the name and the general identity remained, with eighteen years of absolute Tory rule. The total collapse of Napoleon's power in 1815 brought a new state of affairs to England. During the years of war there had been submission to arbitrary measures, even on the part of men who altogether disapproved arbitrary power. The obstinacy of the King also had interposed an almost insuperable barrier to any concessions involving freedom of opinion, and the resistance that would naturally have been offered to him in a time of peace was rendered futile by the imminence of the danger which the genius of Napoleon had created. In 1815 the state of affairs was altogether different from anything that had been known in England from the Eestoration of Charles II. During the quarter of a century that had elapsed from 1789 to the end of the Great War, a series of constitutional struggles had been carried on, under great disadvantages it is true, but with un- alterable persistence. When the war ended, the efforts began to be concentrated in a manner which rendered opposition to them dangerous and in the end all but impossible unless the constitution itself was to fall. This we shall see in a succeeding chapter. It may be well here, however, to recur to one or two more prosecutions, which may be taken as representative of a large number. Few charges ever were more vexatious and foolish than those brought against the Eev. Gilbert Wakefield, very near the end of the century. Mr. Wakefield was an accom- plished scholar, who had been highly distinguished at Cambridge, 234 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap, "where he had obtained the degree of B.A., twenty years before this trial. The charge against him was the publication of a pamphlet, A Beply to Some Parts of the Bishop of Llandaff's Address. The reply was alleged to have a Eepublican tendency. In reality it was a purely theological work. Mr. Wakefield had become a Unitarian and a controversialist, and was expounding his views, which only incidentally touched on politics. He was prosecuted by Sir John Scott, then Attorney- General, and defended by Mr. Erskine, before Lord Kenyon, with the result of a sentence to two years' imprisonment, which was rigorously carried out. During the term of imprisonment 5,000Z. were subscribed for Mr. Wakefield, but he lived a very short time afterwards to enjoy it. Mr. CuthUl, a respectable bookseller, had previously been convicted because his shopman had accidentally, and without Mr. Cuthill's knowledge, sold a few copies of the same pamphlet ; but public opinion was so strong against a violent direction of Lord Kenyon, that the penalty was reduced to a small fine. Benjamin Flower, for an alleged libel on the House of Lords, published in a Cambridge newspaper, was brought up to London, and ordered to pay a fine of 100^. and to be committed to prison for six months. The case was a public scandal, from the fact that the defendant never was even put on his defence. He obtained a writ of Habeas Corpus, but without success. Lord Kenyon ruled that commit- ment by either House of Parliament is not subject to revision by a law court. These will perhaps be taken as additional evidence that even in England it is possible for governments unchecked by the people to become as tyrannical as the governments most noted for - despotism in other lands. A reference to Mr. Flower of so curious and instructive a character occurs in Grant's History of the Newspaper Press, that it cannot have too wide a circulation. " Mr. Flower," the author says, " was a Unitarian in his theological views, and extreme in his Liberalism, as were almost all the Unitarians of the latter part of the last century. It is worthy of being mentioned parenthetically that Mr. Flower was the father of . the Miss Flower, afterwards Mrs. T. F. Adams, author of the much X.] PROSECUTION OP THE "EXAMINER." 235 admired hymn, though there is not an atom of Gospel in it, beginning with the lines, 'Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee.' " The reader may be interested in the daughter for the father's sake, and in the father for the daughter's. It contains " not an atom of Gospel " ijie then editor of the Morning Advertiser wrote of the beautiful hymn that we owe to Miss Flower's pen. In the beginning of 1811 the Examiner newspaper was charged before Lord EUenborough, on an ex-officio information of Attorney-Generat Sir Vicary Gibbs, with the dire offence of attacking a brutal case of military flogging. The sentence was one of 1,000 laahes, which had been perforce reduced to 750 by the absolute insensibility of the soldier. The Examiner, after picturing the horrible scene, and commenting on the comparative mildness of French law, had concluded : — " In short Buonaparte's soldiers cannot form any notion of the most heartrending of all exhibitions on this side hell — an English military flogging." Sir Vicary Gibbs held that anything cal- culated to cause the soldiers to compare their lot unfavourably fnifh that of the soldiers of France was wicked, and calculated to destroy discipline and impair courage. E'o better proof could well be given of the demoralization of this wretched war time. John and Leigh Hunt were defended by Mr. Brougham, and found not guilty. They had a real triumph for the moment, but they ■were journalists, and could easily be entrapped. At the end of the following year they were caught in a libel on the Prince Eegent, and in spite of another eloquent defence by Brougham, were sentenced to be imprisoned for two years in different prisons, and to pay a fine of 500Z. each. The gist of the offence was that in reprinting a court account of a ceremonial in which the Prince Eegent had figured, the brothers — or one of them, Leigh Hunt probably — ^having found the Prince referred to as " an Adonis," had added, " of fifty," and so had sought to bring the loftiest person in the land into disrepute. The Prince had very much worse than this to endure before he died. There is a curious article in the Examiner of February 6th, 1814, signed 23G POPULAR PROGEESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. Leigh Hunt, headed "Expiration of the first year's imprison- ment/' and beginning: — "My brother and myself entered our respective places of confinement on the 3rd of February, 1813, so that we have now passed the first half of our imprisonment, and have arrived at what is called the top of the hill." Some severe remarks follow, and coming from gentle, amiable Leigh Hunt, have all the greater weight. " Has our imprisonment," he says, " made the Prince Eegent more beloved ? Did it add to his good impression on the public mind during the business of the Princess his wife ? Has it not tended to suggest advantage- ous comparisons between men who can bear the liberty of the press and men who cannot ? . . . . Let the last year with all its great events answer these questions : — Let the records of the courts, and the speeches in Parliament answer them ; let the road between Pall i\Iall and the House of Lords muster up a voice and answer them." Then after sundry references to the Queen and to other topics, Mr. Hunt concludes : — " Our adversaries were in the wrong, ourselves were in the right; and these two magic words include all that could be said upon the subject, were we to extend our observations to twenty numbers." Eather defiant talk in the face of Lord EUenborough and his royal master. When the year again turned the brothers repeated their admonition, and left their adversaries in no enviable position. These were the beginning of a new series of prose- cutions and persecutions of independent journalism. It seems as if, all through our history, from the time that printing became a power, it has been necessary for some persons to suffer, at some period not very far from some like period, that stupidity in power might be reminded of what a free press really means. The Hunts were proud and honourable journalists, worthy of the place they won in a great history, and in this and much besides their services to the nation were invaluable. We have several good pictures of Leigh Hunt in prison, where he was visited by Byron and Moore, among others, and where he talked the sternest republicanism in the gentlest and most genial way. He had books, pictures, a trellised flower-garden, X.] THE PRINCE REGENT. 237 cage birds, and a piano. Friends were permitted to visit and dine with him, and he wrote articles for his newspaper. Upon the whole he could scarcely be said to have had a hard time. StUl it was imprisonment, and vexatious privation. Moreover it was public wrong. Of Lord Ellenborough, who has now come into note, we shall not again lose sight till very nearly the end of these pages. It may be well to notice that one of the most distinct features in all popular demonstrations at this time for freedom, or against*power and authority, is Eoyal George, first as Prince Eegent and then as King It was useless for adulation to call him "that august personage," "that most august personage," " the first gentleman in Europe." The popular feeling fixed upon him with unerring certainty for scorn and derision, and, in some cases, for absolute hatred. The picture ought to be useful for later times. Denman and BrSugham did much to intensify the feeling in defence of the Queen, but it needed no such help. Fox, and the party that associated with him, were not guiltless for the death in life of the poor pitiable prince. The Church was not guiltless. No one spoke to him anything like truth devoid of adulation, save those whom he was taught to call his enemies. He grew up to believe that persons who did not flatter him were his foes, deserving of nothing but condign punishment. His power was immense. He could make the fortune of a bootmaker by sending to his shop for a pair of boots. He could by a smile send a whole family from London to the country rich in happi- ness, and would laugh at them as they went. By a well-timed compliment, meaning nothing, he had power to make a man, even like Wellington, to feel bigger in his own eyes, and immensely bigger in those of the large mass of .other people. We shall see the Prince Eegent more fully afterwards, but this reference may be useful at this stage of history, when all the machinery of the law is being put in force by men like Sir Vicary Gibbs to protect a character the sole defence of which in history will be its early and late abandonment to the flattery 238 POPULAR PEOGEESS IN ENGLAND.- [chap. and self-seeking arts of men who in many cases managed on their own part to leave a fairer fame. Of each year of the war with France we have dismal records which throw light on the condition of the poor. Near to the end of 1811 the Luddite Eiots against machinery broke out in Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, and .Derbyshire, and were put down with rigour ; fourteen persons executed at a time at York, and like scenes elsewhere. The secret of the name of Captain Ludd, as the basis of the conspiracy, appears to have been well kept, simply because the name was altogether a myth, used as a symbol merely. In that sense, and without a bodUy presence, it was sufficiently powerful to set all the north of England aflame. These incidents, it should be remembered, were transpiring while "Wellington was winning glories in the Peninsula, covering with fame those old flags yet to be seen in many of our parish churches, and while Napoleon was retreating from Eussia — congratulations everywhere among the wealthy ; bread riots among the poor ; illuminations generally. The war spirit as we have seen had grown till it had become as effective against France as the spirit of a united nation might have been. The question was at last one of France or England. All else was forgotten. When, however, it is said that the nation was well governed and guided from 1790 to 1815, a great question is raised. That the nation had immense vital and recuperative power there is no doubt. It had extended its arms to the ends of the earth ; had planted its language, laws, literature, and manhood in far distant lands, and had seen nations spring there- from. At home it had made commerce to increase and flourish — education to take roots that would never again be shaken. It had bunt large towns, and fostered the growth of a large intelligence, and of manufactures which even then converted whole districts into huge workshops, not to be equalled in any other land. Looking to all this — to these immense resources — is it possible to say that the ministry of Mr. Pitt and the ministry of Lord Liverpool were in the true sense great? With a network of lord-lieutenancies, commissions of the peace, militia, yeomanry. X.] PRIVATION AND DISCONTENT. 239 and other organizations, why was nothing really attempted to induce loyalty to the nation ? With such forces at command, why were ministers compelled to entail war burthens without being able to strike effectively in war ? They dared not to trust the nation. That was the whole secret. And they dared not to trust because they had shown no power, and in truth no wish, to remove the evils of which the nation, articulately in some cases, dumbly in others, complained. CHAPTER XI. AT TEE JEND OF THE GREAT WAR. Popular Views as to "War and Peace — Public Morals — Agricultural Labourers and Miners — Prosecutions for Blaspbemy — Habits of Blasphemy — Recol- lections of the War — The Press and the Church — The Masses of the Nation Not really Opposed to Christianity— Popular Views of Property — And of Dissent — Mr. Cai'lyle's View — The Corn Laws — Com at 46s. per quarter — Bounties Paid for Exports — Excess of Exports — "Wheat at 29s. 2J(Z. per quarter — At 51s. per quarter — Condition of Workmen — Absolute Prohibition of Exportation, Wheat in the same Year at 165s. and at 75s. M. per quarter — Workmen's Wages — Lords' Committee in 1815 — Bad Harvests of 1816, 1817, and 1818 — Political Reform — Catholic Claims — Emmett — The Social Re- formers ; Mr. Spence — Skilled Writing for Bad Laws — Legislation Against Workmen — Destruction of Machineiy — The Errors of Workmen ; the Worse Errors of Ministers of State — Dr. Malthus — The Bible Society — Alton Locke — Parliamentary Elections — Church Rates and Tithes — Position of Royalty — Party Action— Lord Grey's Decision — The Later Whigs— Power in the Hands of the Tories till 1827— Whig Clubs— Meeting of Parliament, 1816 — The Spa Field Riots — The Spy Castles — Mr. Hunt — The Spenceans — The Tory and the Whig Reviews— Whig and Tory Newspapers in the Provinces — Poor Rates, 1817 — Committals to Prison — Education. When the French war ended the position of England was generally declared throughont Europe to be one of great glory and distinction ; in reality it was almost more deplorable than that of the countries devastated by Napoleon's armies. The national burthens had increased in a ratio which only needs a comparative statement in approximately accurate figures to be intelligible. The term "approximately accurate figures" is used advisedly, that the statement may be taken as a general picture merely, and as based upon an estimate. It was, how- ever, made by a very accurate politician, the late Mr. W. J. XI.] THE NATIONAL DEBT: SUBSIDIES. 241 Fox, M.P. for Oldham./ Mr. Fox calculated that the reign of William III. rested on a war expenditure of 16 milUons raised in taxes, and 20 millions carried forward as debt — war cost. The reign of Anne — the glories of Marlborough — cost 30 millions in taxes, and 32 J millions debt ; the Spanish War and the War of the Austrian Succession, under the first two Georges, 25 millions and 29 millions debt; the Seven Years' War — Chatham's glorious war — 52 millions in taxes and 60 millions debt ; the American Revolution, and the wars con- sequent thereon, 32 millions in taxes, and 104 millions debt ; the wars with France from 1793 to 1802, in taxes 263| millions, and 200 millions debt; and the renewed war from 1803 to 1815, in taxes 770^ millions, and 388J millions debt. The bare official returns from the " Commons' Journals," show that on the 5th January, 1820, the nation owed 843,388,804^. ; and that while in 1761, the excess of expenditure over income had been as 19,213,680/. against 8,800,000/., it had in 1801 been as 46,886,303/. against 28,085,829/., in 1811, as 88,616,136/. against 64,427,371, and in 1819 was as 64,506,449/. against 48,162,232. The proportion of expenditure paid from income, instead of from loan, certainly had increased, and to that extent was a sign of increased health ; but the taxation was enormous, and as will be shown hereafter, pressed on every act of life. The figures prove that from year to year the burthens were growing heavier, while the Government were paying money, in some cases reasonably, in some unreasonably, to every Power in Europe. In loans and subsidies during the French War, the nation sent to continental nations, to further their own inter- ests, the vast sum of 68,000,000/. ; to Prussia more than seven millions, to Austria nearly eleven, to Portugal nearly twelve, to Eussia nine and a half millions. Six of the seven miUions paid to Prussia were in 1813-16 ; the entire sum paid to Russia was granted in 1812-16 ; the loans and subsidies to Austria covered the whole period of the war from 1794. These figures are from the official returns. Money, it has been said, was a small consideration to a nation fighting for existence ; but this is an error. At the utmost, money could only be deemed a K K 242 POPULAR PROGRESS- IN ENGLAND. [chap. secondary consideration even in so extreme a case. It was a huge drawback to a nation trying to be honest, and to rise to true nationality. In round figures the debt may, as Mr. Disraeli thinks, be a "flea-bite," and may, as Lord Macaulay held, represent an unimportant amount as compared with the ever-increasing resources of the nation ; but relatively to over- taxed millions, who lived from day to day dependent on that day's labour for food, it represented great privation and suffer- ing. In fifty years the cost of the poor had risen from 965,000?. (the amount in 1760), to 6,147,000 (the average in 1813-15), and rose more than a million higher in 1819-20. In M'Culloch's Commercial Dictionary, the estimate taken from official returns of the debt alone, is stated in these figures : — Prinpipal Funded and Unfunded. Debt at the Revolution, in 1689 £664,263 Excess of debt contracted during the reign of William III. above debt paid oflf 15,730,439 Debt at the accession of Queen Anne, in 1702 16,394,702 Debt contracted during Queen Anne's reign 37,750,661 Debt at the accession of George I., in 1714 54,145,36.3 Debt paid off during the reign of George I. above debt con- tracted 2,053,125 Debt at the accession of George II., in 1727 52,092,238 Debt contracted from the accession of George II. till the Peace of Paris in 1763, three years after the accession of George III 86,773,192 Debt in 1763 138,865,430 Paid during Peace, from 1763 to 1775 10,281,795 Debt at the commencement of the American War, in 1775 . . 128,583,635 Debt contracted during the American War 121,267,993 Debt at the conclusion of the American War, in 1784 . . . 249,851,628 Paid during Peace, from 1784 to 1793 10,501,380 Debt at the commencement of the French War, in 1793 . . . 239,350,148 Debt contracted during the. French War 601,500,.343 Total funded and Unfunded Debt on the 1st of February, 1817, when the English and Irish Exchequers were consolidated 840,850,491 To deal with these figures with a view to considering what value the nation had received for the enormous expenditure is beyond the object of this work. The inquiry would necessarily XI.] PUBLIC MORALS: STERN NONCONFORMITY. 243 take a wide scope, and could not be settled, as many people have delighted to settle it, by pronouncing all war an aristocratic amusement, in which only a few orders of men have any interest. This position would be a mere platitude, involving a large and dangerous fallacy, as well as an undoubted partial truth. Many questions demand examination when we consider, for instance, the war with France, and the issues as between Pitt and Fox There can be no difference of opinion, however as to the fact that a vast increase had been made to the national burthens, and there can be quite as little doubt that the nation was ill-prepared to bear that increase. Let us consider fairly what right the King and his ministers had to expect the national contentment and loyalty which they strove to exact. Talce the question of the bad laws made at the Restoration. When we ask how many of them had been repealed, what do we find ? Why, scarcely one. All the enormities of the divine right days, partly pictured in Chapter II., still remained on the statute book. Not much encouragement there for order, contentment, or loyalty. Men — excellent and devoted citizens — had lived and died under those laws, virtually outside the pale of social life. Their children had succeeded to the same heritage of a galling brand of inferiority to their fellows ; a brand that they could have removed in a moment by even the semblance of conformity, but which to the honour and well- being of England, and to their own honour in particular, they refused to remove on such terms. During all that fierce war-time the King and his chosen ministers had not taken one step to win the confidence of some of the most loyal and intelligent men in the country. Can we call that high statesmanship? Among the poor, also, entirely new forces existed. Machinery had risen like a very demon of destruction, and whole trades, and whole bodies of workmen, had been swept away. Prices had risen without any commensurate rise in the rate of wages. In the midst of all this a Parliament in which landowners vastly preponderated had made and maintained laws which had put an artificial price on bread. This was while people were perish- ing for want of food. On the return of peace the distress was e2 244 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap, intensified by men of a number of handicrafts being thrown out of employment. The nation had now in abundance ships, guns, ammunition, war- carriage, and a host of other articles which a short time before were greatly in demand. From these and like causes the first few years of the peace were far more dis- tressing than the last few years of the war. In fact, from the time that Wellington began his series of victories, the news from the Continent had been rather cheerful than otherwise to people who had no friends there, and when Wellington proved himself an overmatch in war for Napoleon's famous marshals, English- men began to think the bulletins rather pleasant reading. When Napoleon was safely imprisoned at St. Helena, the uneducated masses of the people were not all unprepared to believe, as many designing educated men were ready to teach, that the evils and distresses of the period had sprung from the peace, and that war after all really was a desirable state of affairs. Mr. Pitt's excuse for severe and stringent laws had been the dangers of the war. The excuses of Lord Liverpool, Lord Castlereagh, Lord Sidmouth, and Mr. Cannings for like laws, were the dangers and difficulties entailed by peace. For this history never will find an excuse. In time it became almost an article of political faith to a large number of misinformed workmen that the high prices of food and the low remuneratioa of labour had resulted from the termination of the " chances of war," and might fairly be ascribed to Waterloo and to Whig and ultra- Whig peacemongers. When merchant fleets were no longer liable to capture, the wages not merely of shipbuilders but of all persons employed in the- production of the lost cargoes were supposed to faU by a natural law altogether inimical to the interests of workmen. No arguments on the score of political economy were of much weight in such a ease. Of public morals the clearest of certainties was that they had not in the main improved since 1789; a fact all the more apparent, and all the more distressing, because the morals of important classes of the people undoubtedly had improved with the advance of education, and so had made the gulf between those classes and the greater body of the nation all the wider XI.] MINERS AND LABOURERS: PRISONS. 245 and all the more impassable. At the head of the state there was an example unutterably bad. The condition of agricultural labourers was in many cases very little higher than that of the brute creation. Herded together, male and female, even as to sleeping rooms, there was everything to lead to immorality, and little that could be held to conduce to decency and order. In the coal mines the state of affairs was even worse. Men, women, and children were sent down in company in the same baskets or tubs, with results which were at a later period heard of with horror. Good people could scarcely be brought to believe that such things existed in a nation which prided itself on its religion ; a nation more than ordinarily anxious to convert the other nations of men, and bring Jew, Turk, Infidel, and Heretic into one fold ; a nation which had done so much, by means of its law officers, often the reverse of over-moral men, to check blasphemy and profanity in the Press, and to secure uniformity of public worship, and, if possible, of the national creed. The naVal and mercantile ports were alike infested with crimps and persons who lived by the demoralization and impoverishment of sailors returning from long voyages or from the dangers of war. In the manufacturing towns children were born to parents who themselves were mere children. The prisons were crowded, and in spite of the humane efforts of John Howard and men like him, were often places of infamy. The memory of the hated pressgangs and ballotings for the militia was deeply engraven in the minds of sailors and workmen, and in spite of the supposed interest of war was as gall and wormwood, then and down to a much later period. Beggars' assemblies, penny hops, thieves' schools, still common enough to be noticeable features in the life of our great towns, were then the signs and marks of a sort of society into which it was dangerous to venture in daylight, and fatal to enter after dark. BuU-baitiag and cock-fighting were gentlemanly sports, countenanced by persons who boasted of royal and noble blood. The law was enforced with a rigour almost exceeding that of any earlier time against political crimes, in some cases new. Life was insecure, and property never out of danger in the possession of 246 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. persons travelling on the king's highway. Blasphemous lan- guage had become a fashion in the king's court, in the law courts, in the society that called itself upper, at the very time that the law was being put in rigorous force against the chance sale, or even the loan of, a copy of the Age of Reason or the Rights of Man. With the Prince Eegent every few words in ordinary conversation were followed by a profane oath ; and when the prince set an example there were sure to be numbers of people to follow — people who to the end of his inane life deemed George the first gentleman in Europe. Meanwhile the Press had become a great power in the state, and the inconsistencies and errors of the Government, and in particular of the Church, were pointed out without mercy. The term "priestcraft" carried with it almost more opprobrium than any other term representing dominant power. The Church Catechism was alleged to have been constructed for the purpose of teaching the children of poor parents to reverence and obey — to order themselves lowly and reverently to all in authority, to all persons of high position, the squire, the magistrate, the clergyman, to all who were termed "betters." The poor boy, it was pointed out, was taught to bow ,; not to persons rich and poor as French boys are, or like the English boy of a higher position, to equals as well as superiors, but merely to superiors. The " duty towards my neighbour " of the Church was compared with the sentiments of equality promulgated in France in 1789, and in America years earlier ; and all com- parisons were to the disadvantage of the Church. To sentiments such as these — foolish sentiments very often — the Govern- ment and " society " had, as a rule, but one reply. That one rested on the law and the prison, embittering all the relations of life. Sermons on the Deluge and the sin of Achan were met by songs about the " black bench with its big wigs," &c., and by the application to clerical magistrates of such texts as " God shall smite thee, thou whited wall." Perhaps the one most powerful and effective weapon of the Established Church, in opposition to principles and teachings which it must be granted were far from conducive to order and morality, was in the practice XI.] CHRISTIANITY AS A SOCIAL POWER. 247 of Sunday ty Sunday reading in the Lessons, and the Epistles and Gospels, words which always had a healthy and henignant influence,, even on those who could not read for themselves ; and perhaps the effect was much more real than was at the time supposed, even by those who perceived the general fact. Certain it is that the men who talked most loudly against priestcraft were not in anything like a large proportion of cases followers of Paine. When Eobert Owen declared himself against all the religions of the world, the first notable effect of his declaration was to wean awaytfrom him a large number of those who had been attracted to his schemes of social reform. The same fact was observable at a later period when the Chartists were in their hey-day of political defiance. Some influence assuredly had prevailed to check tendencies towards the destruction of the Christian religion as a social power, and to prevent forget- fulness of it as the faith which, after all had been said of human errors with I'espect to it, was at the foundation of all that was best in the individual life. Nay, the feeling went even farther than that, if statesmen had had intelligence enough to perceive a fact that was at their very doors. It was no uncommon thing for a Dissenter who had spent the greater part of a life in antagonism to the Established Church, to request at last that his body should be laid under the shadow of the sacred building, aad that the solemn words, " I am the Eesurrection and the Life " should be pronounced over the tenamtless clay. It is only on some such grounds that it is possible to understand how the Established Church survived, and still survives, the opposition of which, during the years succeeding the French war, it was by far the most conspicuous object. Another peculiarity of English character, very markedly exhibited at this time, was its objection to certain new views of property which came into prominence in connection with the names of Eobert Owen and an old schoolmaster named Spence, many years dead, but whose name had been revived, and used to designate certain clubs — termed the Spencean Clubs — which sprang into existence about the conclusion of the war. There was no subject on which the men who called themselves political 248 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. Teformers were more in earnest than their non-identification with a division of property, after the plan of Mr. Spence, or with a social cure for political evils after the plans of Mr. Owen. Many social and political principles, called by the name of "Eeform," were in direct antagonism to each other, and perhaps in a degree more intense than their common antagonism to the Government, which certainly represented some ages of virtual as well as nominal despotism. But between the social and the political reformers there was the widest gulf of aU. These questions demand consideration if we would account for the public feeling existing in 1815-17 on many subjects which in these days appear to present no difficulty whatever. We shall see these facts more markedly a little later. It may not be out of place also once more to observe that whatever the popular feeling was with respect to the Established ' Church, it was by no means more favourable towards Dissent. There was a belief, very erroneous no doubt, but very strong, that a Methodist had a means all his own of conveying a falsehood without telling a direct lie in so many words. Th e Methodist was presumed to be guilty, not merely of canting, but of using the false weights that are an abomination to the Lord. To Cobbett, as we have seen, the Quaker was an English Jew — the Quaker to whom we owe so many consistent efforts for reform ; and the feeling in both cases was far from uncommon. The necessity, moreover, of professing a '* change " with the Methodist or other Dissenter, and ta:lking of it in class meetings or church meetings, never very forcibly commended itself to the mass of workmen in England. There remained an old feeling in favour of Sunday botanising in green fields, or on the wild mountain or moorland, where the song of the bird had no reproach, but something that sounded like a welcome to men who had been confined for six days, and during long hours in each, in the factory, then " sickly " in a sense for which happily we have now no parallel. No view of these subjects and times has been more misinter- preted and perhaps misunderstood than that of Mr. Carlyle. It is not always easy to know exactly to whom he applies the XI.] VIEWS OF POOR MEN ; THE CORN LAWS. 249 term " windbag " ; but it is very easy to see that he does not apply it to the many thousands of workmen in all the large towns who at this time and long after were utterly bewildered among the variety of views propounded for the improvement erf their social condition. We know very well what Mr. Carlyle thinks of Bentham and utilitarian philosophy, and of some other men and other philosophies. With respect also to his view of the dumb millions who waited and watched to know what lawyers and statesmen and eloquent divines meant, we are left in no doubt. They were no cowards, Mr. Carlyle says, though they ran from the military when the military represented even the errors of the law. One other point beyond all this is equally clear and certain ; namely, that workmen had been learning for several generations to distrust at once the wisdom and the patriotism of the educated classes. We have seen somewhat- of the outrageous character of the penal laws against freedom of religion. Let us consider for a short time the nature and effect of certain other laws which cost a hard and bitter struggle before they were repealed, and in particular the laws which governed the importation and exportation of corn. It was a sore and grievous subject to men at this time that, with bread riots all the country through, the free im- portation of corn should have been forbidden and that by a landowning Parliament. No skill of tongue or pen could hide the fact that legislation with respect to corn had not been in the main patriotic legislation ; had not been in the main in the interest of the people who most needed legislation as to food. During the seven years ending 1679 the price of grain had risen no less than 3U per cent., and stood at the end of the seven years at 46s. a quarter, although there had been a con- siderable increase in the area of arable land. It was notable that when this advance in prices took place, entailing a vast amount" of distress on the poor, there was no disposition on the part of Parliament to open the ports, whereas at the end of the next ten years (1689), when the price of grain had fallen very considerably owing to the increase of tillage, not merely were the export duties removed, but premiums were paid for 250 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. the exportation of corn. From 1697 to 1773 the excess of im- ports, according to Mr. Piatt, quoting the Commons' Eeturns, amounted to 30,968,366 quarters, and the bounties paid were not less than 6,237,176Z. In the fifty years ending 1765, Mr. Piatt goes on to say, there had only been five defiicient harvests, and the price of grain during the entire half-century had only averaged 34s. lid., and during the ten years .ending 1751 was as low as 29s. 2^d. per quarter. In 1766, and again in 1770 importation was suspended, but in 1772 it was again allowed, and the City of London offered bounties for imported grain ; a most patriotic offer. In 1774 the price had risen from 29.S. 2^d., at which we have seen it in 1751, to 51s., at which it had stood for the ten years ending 1774. Now at length there was an excess of imports over exports, but not without a vigorous complaint on behalf of the landowners, of a " shifting policy " which allowed foreign grain to so seriously injure the legitimate interests of those who had expended money on the tillage of the land. Why, they asked, should the bounties on exportation be suspended simply because the price of grain had risen ? They never made the opposite inquiry when the price of grain fell. Manufacturing people who at all understood these questions must have had their patience greatly tried, when they found a demand for bounties on exportation, together with an actual rise in ten years of 75 per cent, in the price of grain. The high prices had led to no fewer than 585 new Inclosure Acts from 1760 to 1772, as compared with 226 such acts in the reign of George II., and 16 in that of George I. The wages of skilled workmen would only purchase, in 1801, half the amount of food that a slightly lower wage would have pur- chased in 1795. The condition of the unskilled workmen was deplorable. An Act in 1791 provided that, when wheat was imder 50s. per quarter, the import duty should be 24s. 3d. ; when it was 50s. and under 54s. only 2s. 6d. per quarter ; and when it was 54s. and over only 6d. per quarter. So that while wheat was under 50s. the duty amounted to an absolute prohibition of importation. That this was monstrously unjust legislation was very easily seen. In 1801 the price had risen to 155s. the XI.] INJUSTICE OF THE CORN LAWS. 2.51 quarter, but had fallen by June of the same year, with the prospect of a good harvest, to 129s. 8d., and at the year's end to 75s. 6d. Then there was a demand to stop the importation. Wheat had risen from 45s. in the ten years ending 1779, and very slightly more for the ten years ending 1789, to 155s. in 1801. Wages in the case of compositors had risen from 24s. to 27s. in 1795, and to 30s. in 1801, while in the case of out-door artisans — masons and others — the advance had been very in- considerable, and the fate of the unskilled labourer had, as usual, been worst of all. . It was not difficult, therefore, to see the un- reasonableness of the outcry for an amendment of the law of 1773. In the course of years, from 1801 to 1815 fresh attempts had been made from time to time to patch up and amend the corn laws. In the latter year the question began to take a new form. A Committee of the Lords examined agricultural witnesses as to what they deemed a reasonably remunerative price, and the price stated ranged at from 72s. to 96s., at which prohibition of importation ought to take effect. A Bill, based on the evidence, was introduced to both Houses. The Lords thought 80s. a fair price; the Commons had a proposal for 72s., but it was defeated, as also was an attempt to throw out the Bill. The minority in the first instance for something like reason was 35 against 154, and in the second was 55 against 218. The defeated members then tried 74s., but were again defeated ; and so with other amendments. The people were excited to fury. The Houses of Parliament were besieged ; the military were called out to defend the representatives of the people from those whom they represented. The final reading of the Bill was carried in the Lords by 128 against 21 ; but against also, however, a stern and solemn protest from a portion of the minority. No grain could now be imported from foreign countries if the price in England was under 80s., or from the colonies if it was under 67s ; and the case was made worse by the mode of taking the averages. The rule adopted was that if, for the six previous months, the price had stood at 80s., prohibi- tion should not take effect, unless, during the subsequent six weeks, the rate fell below 80s., in which case the rule as to the 252 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. standard was to be set aside, and importation prevented. So that the lauded interest gained even beyond the round figures of the baneful and iniquitous class-act. Every fact then known, or since discovered, condemns the corn legislation of especially the year at which we have now arrived. The "agricultural interest," as the landed proprietors were called, had at one time an estimate made showing the varying cost of cultivating 100 acres of arable land at different periods, but unfortunately for the object in view the figures merely show how the land had become ever dearer to the farmer, and ever more valuable to the proprietor and to the clergy. The statement — a real curiosity in its way — shows, under the head of three different years : — 1790. 1803. 1813. £ s. d. £ s. d. £ s. d. Rent.;. 88 6 Si .. 121 2 7^ 161 12 7| Tithe.. 20 14 1| .. 26 8 Oi 38 17 3^ The farmer, and especially the labourer, were evidently drifting from bad to worse with every year. The owner of land and tithe had, like Jeshurun, grown fat and kicked. Commerce certainly was also advancing; the total value of cargoes, which had been a little short of SIJ millions in 1803, was close upon 61 millions in 1815 ; an excellent position for merchants and shipowners, but of little direct significance to the agricultural labourer. The harvests of 1816, 1817, and 1818 — the worst known for a century — came to the aid of common sense, and as if to picture, by the light of irresistible facts, a course of legislation which seemed little less than insane. Every vigorous pen on the popular side assailed the Corn Laws ; defence in argument they had none. When, therefore, people wonder at the state of popular feeling from 1815 to 1835, and then again till the Corn Laws were repealed, it may be well to express the counter wonder that that feeling was no worse, and that indeed the whole fabric of the constitution was not swept away. Men of high position talking of sedition, and putting on grievous and iniquitous bread taxes, and a " society " at the head of which stood the greatest blasphemer in England — the estimable George — prosecuting worthy and sincere men for written blasphemy, XI.] DISAFFECTION THROUGHOUT THE LAND. 253 are facts to be remembered in our generations for ever. There are no seditions meetings or secret societies now. Such societies could not now live among us for a year in the light of the full publicity that rests on all that men do in a corporate capacity. Let us also remember, as a key to much that may seem dark, that in 1815, in the midst of untold distress^ the Corn Laws were simply made more stringent. These and many like subjects were referred back by the political reformers to Parliamentary Eeform. The slave trade had been abolished,' and the religious tests challenged, im- mediately that men like Charles James Fox, Earl Grey, Lord Holland and Mr. Erskine Were in office. The Catholic claims, for which the Whigs had left office, were disputed, satirised, and set at nought, by the men now in power. All efforts and measures, it was said by the advocates of reform, ought to resolve themselves into a complete and radical transformation of the House of Commons ; and the new party in the State^the party of Sir Francis Burdett and Lord Cochrane — added, the abolition of the House of Lords. The feeling on this latter point was intense. The cry came forth from every popular political meeting, " First of all let the bishops be swept away, as the worst opponents of just and righteous laws that England ever knew," The Catholics had the good fortune to see their claims made a national question in Ireland. There had been much to dishearten and repel. Other outbreaks had followed those of Wolfe Tone, Napper Tandy, and Oliver Bond. The services of spies were again brought into requisition, or into note — for they never ceased in fact, save for the short time the Whigs were in power, Eobert Emmett among others had had the honour of dying for his country, and leaving her a name long to be remembered and honoured. The promises made by Pitt and by Castlereagh had been broken by them. Much was dark ; but the Catholic claims were not suffered even for a moment to be again forced to the background and from public notice, Catholics and Dissenters were simply grappling here — not without some bigotries and injustice of their own accompanying it — with the legislation of the Eestoration. The struggle, thrown 254 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. back again and again for a hundred and fifty years, was now to hold its own to the end ; till many a bulwark and many a strong position of despotic legislation was carried and destroyed. It is good to remember and reiterate these facts^ as the best way of building up a nationality in which the general, and not any mere partial and special good^ wUl be paramount. The so-called Social Eeformers — men of Eobert Owen's views, men too from whom co-operative labour, and much else of good has come — drove the Political Eeformers, at times, nearly wild with rage, by asserting that : — " Small of all that human hearts endure, The part that Kings and Laws can cause or cure." Why, it was replied, kings and laws at this moment are causing incalculable misery. Our prisons are filled to overflowing with honest men who simply see more clearly, and act less selfishly, than those charlatans in power. Combinations of workmen to raise the price of labour are forbidden. Combinations of land- owners to keep up the price of corn have from time immemorial been expressly sanctioned by law, and encouraged by bounties from the national purse — from the pockets of men whom these very laws have deprived of food. The " Social " and " Political " men were both right. Eobert Owen was the originator of Infant Schools. He assisted to implant habits of self-reliance in people who never before had known what self-reliance was. He showed men how by union of interests and integrity of conduct the well-being of their own families and that of the nation could at the same time be secured. Mr. Owen was deemed less dangerous than the political men. He came in time to have a public meeting presided over by a royal Duke, the father of our Queen ; but the societies which bore the name of Mr. Spence, who certainly never could have anticipated so great a renown, were deemed infinitely worse than Cobbett himself, and were put in the same category with Paine. All injustice however comes back to its fountain-head. A statesman of great note, both as a writer and a politician — a man of brilliant wit, and uncommon success in life — told the story of a knife-grinder XI.] "POLITICAL" AND "SOCIAL REFORMERS." 255 who met a pitying philanthropist with the joyful assertion, " Lord bless yoa, sir, I have nothing to complain of." Another man of great prominence had long befo-re told of a sailor who, bereft of a leg, and otherwise disabled, could still huzza for "Liberty, Property, and Old England;:" but the utter uselessaess of such writing against one broad fact was now clearly shown. Mr. Holyoake, in his history of co-operation says of a later period : — " What they (the statuses) had come to in 1822, Francis Place has recorded. In that year a poor farrier had travelled from Alnwick, in Northumberland, to London in search of work. On the same day a shopman to a grocer arriyed penniless from Shropshire,'' They met, and ventured to sleep in Smithfleld market, where " they were seized by the police, and taken before a magistrate of the city. Both begged to be discharged, and promised to make their way home the beat way they could ; but to this the magistrate would not accede. He said ' he was of opinion that the prisoners were not justified in coming to town without any prospect before them, for they must have known that, in the present state of trade, no one would take them in, nor would any one be justified in taking in a perfect stranger ; but whether their conduct arose sfdely from ignorance or not he considered was imma- terial ; the magistrates could not know the minds of the prisoners, and could make no distinction.' The lord mayor agreed with the alderman who had delivered this decision, and who consulted him in the case. ' The city magistrates,' the mayor said, ' wish it to be known in the country at large, that in future they should feel themselves bound to send all to hard labour for the term enacted' (which was not less than one, and as much as three months), ' whether they were actuated by a vicious spirit of vagabondage, or with whatever professed object or speculation they came to town.' " This was in 1822, when some progress had been made with respect to popular power. There has been a general miscon- ception and misinterpretation with respect to the opposition of workmen to machinery. It is well to remember that the men who, without advantages of education, destroyed machinery, were famishing, and their families with them, for want of bread, of which the machinery for the time deprived them ; whereas the men who sent out, as spies, persons who really incited to sedition and treason against which, they afterwards gave fatal evidence, were men of education and beyond the reach of pecuniary privation, or the want of any luxury of 256 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. life. It would be very unjust to subject to the same stem criticism both bodies of men. It is only fair to ascribe to the privations of the sorely-tried workmen those incendiary acts on which a class of writers have laid so fierce a ban. At the door of the vestrymen and parish overseers who at that time held office as cabinet ministers, men against whom the ancient virtue of classical nations would have revolted in scorn, men ■who talked of the constable's baton when they should have thought of wise and healing laws, much of the blame must lie. No sensible man now argues against machinery. There is no longer a ban against the spinning jenny or the mule. The carpenter mortises and tenons and moulds by machinery ; the engineer, and other workers in iron, plane and drill by machinery. Our heavy and hght guns, our arms of precision, our bayonets and swords, are alike the work of, in many cases, altogether self-acting machines. Life is the happier too, and the condition of poor people the better, for the change. It was very different when those droves of people went out into the country with their doleful half-Methodist wail, mocked by petty humorists on the stage and elsewhere, " We have come from Manchester, and we've got no work to do." Very different indeed.; but there are people living who can remember those dark days. The invention of machinery altered, healthily, the whole conditions of labour, of trade guilds, of privileges of apprenticeship, and of those rights of citizenship which entailed countless evils on workmen who were not citizens. Moreover, it brought men to live in great towns ; those great towns which assisted so materially to break the tenure of feudal customs and laws. There had been one proposal which intelligent workmen abhorred more than any other ; and they remembered that the proposer was a clergyman, who gave his name to an economical creed. The principles of Mai thus were added at this time to the seething mass which bore the elements of the fate of England. Dr. Malthus published his book on Population in 1798, at the time when Europe was finding its way into so many new means of lessening population. Godwin, Condorcet, and XI.] MALTHUS : THE BIBLE SOCIETY. 257 others, had told the world of day-dreams, in which a glowiag future appeared for men. Malthus proclaimed, "Unless you restrict population you have a future of ruin." God, it was remembered, had said — " Increase and multiply." Malthus — a clergyman, it never was forgotten, though it was forgotten, if it ever was known, that he was an amiable and well-meaning man — taught a new doctrine in direct opposition to that which had come with a " Thus saith the Lord." Who, reading the command of the Most High, in the spring time of human history, and then reading Malthus on Population, could believe that Malthus believed in God ? Yet it was known that persons of high position had welcomed the doctrine as the new Evangel of Christendom. Was it wonderful that the Eev. Thomas Robert Malthus should have had his name so lengthened, and given in full, as that of a kidnapper, worse than Burke and Hare ; that at the mention of the hated name poor women drew their children closer to them, as Eachel might have drawn hers when the destroyers came ? Had Buonaparte been conquered merely that poor people might be the more certainly and surely brought face to face with Malthus, with fierce prosecutions, with machinery that seemed to portend ruin, with a huge debt and huge taxes, with Govern- ment spies and informers, with persons who preached content to men and women perishing for want of food? N"or had the essay of Malthus been a mere trifle of the pen, thrown off and perhaps regretted. It was a philosophy: Its literary success had been such that its author had gone away to foreign countries to perfect his theory by knowledge ; and when this had been done, the first essay had grown into an imposing book. Society bowed to Dr. Malthus as to a great discoverer. The East India Company appointed him to the Chair of History and Political Economy at its great college. All this poor men knew, and abhorred. There were however other and healthier agencies abroad. There was one Society which, amid the vicissitudes of parties, stood alone among religious societies as representing and uniting all Protestant religious bodies ; a society that never seems to E s 258 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. have been obnoxious to those to whom most other religious organizations were objectionable. The action both of the Church and of Dissent might be questioned and disputed. There was nothing to urge against the British and Foreign Bible Society, which, in one year, from March 1817, to the same date in the following year, distributed close upon a hundred thousand copies of the Bible, and more than a hundred thousand copies of the New Testament. It is difficult to say where that mighty influence ended so far as social order and the preservation of the nation were concerned. Men learned here, without dogma intervening, that the equality of Paine and CamiLle Desmoulins had been promulgated long before their time, and without the aid or use of any histrionic appeals to human passion, by One who went far beyond mere equality before the law, to equality before God, and whose doctrines went deeper than rectification of public affairs, to rectification of the inner man. It was a time of reading, a time of craving inquiry, a time of dispute. There was no noise or display in the scattering abroad of these copies of the Gospel of the Great Teacher who came to heal the broken-hearted, as well as to break the chains of the captives. All was quiet and calm as the flowing of a brook, or the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. Let us not doubt that the influence of this society was as a healing balm at this time, when foolish writers of tracts were doing their part to make religion itself nauseous. That there were other good influences operating for the same end is not disputed. This one, however, it is suggested, stands alone. Let us recall in another sense what the facts and influences of this time portended. Politics and affairs of State were no longer left to men from the universities. Literature and satire were no longer the sole possession of persons who could "ask for a candle in three languages." The religious teachings of scholars were questioned, and their arguments beaten from many a place of dispute by illiterate men. Such were the true circumstances of the time. Mr. Kingsley, anxious to point out to clergymen and others the amiability that might be found, in cottage life, together with crude dreams of politics, pictured in Alton Locke XI.] ALTON LOCKE : CLASS VIEWS. 259 a character which perhaps more than any other has tended to misrepresent the true working man ; the serious, kind, unsenti- mental man who began at the end of the Great War to determine that, come what might, and that whatever price the struggle might cost, he would do something, as one of his fiercest songs said, " to make the world better yet ; " the " world " of that well-loved England in which his little children were growing up without knowledge or a hope in life. Alton Locke is a simple absurdity, even as a caricature of such a man. It was not intended* as a caricature, but as a picture, and as that is a burlesque. Burns singing — " Nae gentle dames, or ladies fair, shall ever be my Muse's care," represented a deep feeling of cottage men. Alton Locke, dreaming of one silly lady, and watched for his good by another with a whole generation of assumption in her character, was no picture of the true brave working man who refused to bow to the squire. There were some of the keenest observers in England among workmen, watching and laughing at Southey's abortive attempts, when once he had become laureate, to buy up his republican poem Wat Tyler, as there were like men long afterwards, not exactly to laugh at, but to indignantly condemn, Wordsworth's querulous complaint that his solitude among the lakes was being broken into by railways, and by the untaught excur- sionists from large towns, laughing, romping, and may be dancing, after the manner of people "out for the day." One might have imagined that Wordsworth, above aU other men, would have rejoiced to see the workshops of Manchester give up, even though but for an hour, their pale faces to the heather and broom of the mountain sides. " Let them come when they can appreciate the beauties of lake and moorland," some people say. No ; let them come to learn to appreciate ; that is, let them come to a school where Nature is the teacher. The parallel that Macaulay applied to freedom when he suggested, on the principle of some arguers for delay, that a man should not go into water till he could swim, applies with equal force here. A mountain solitude may be enjoyed with half the education that is needed to enjoy an Italian opera; and in s 2 260 POPULAR PEOGEESS IN ENGLAND. . [chap. the former case Lancashire and Yorkshire have a preparatory school on their own moors and wolds, and in their own coimtry lanes. Nor can we overlook the electioneering falseness of the time. An election of a member of Parliament was a public inicLuity, as elections in many cases remain. Bribery and corruption were huge facts, which clergymen and educated men of various kinds countenanced and supported. There had never, it may be repeated, since Cromwell's time, been wanting in English society a strong free fibre — a fibre thickened and strengthened by every such election, little as this was supposed by the men who took part in the wild revels of the hustings, and the canvass, and the " open houses." Tithes and church-rates were tormenting every village and every town. If workmen in any imposing strength, in any large number of districts, had been Dissenters, there would have been certain and repeated out- breaks. The Dissenting minister, however, was in many cases noted for as great assumption as the clergyman. Indeed the latter was often truly humble in spirit, and ready for compromise. Hence church-rates and tithes never became, save in isolated cases, a gage of battle as between the Church and workmen, though they never ceased to be_so as between the Church and Dissent. The moment the dispute became one as between the Church and Nonconformity the mass of workmen fell away, often perhaps without rightly knowing why. The question to them was English, not sectarian ; and so it remains. Dis- senters have very rarely seen this, and removed the whole questions in dispute to the higher ground of nationality. Then royalty itself was a source of weakness. When Henry V. returned from his victorious wars. Lord Brougham says, " he encouraged his subjects to state to him their grievances, and he took measures for preventing the oppressions and abuses that had crept into the administration of justice during his absence." The people had seen nothing of this in any of the Hanoverian kings up to this time. Elizabeth had possessed the quality in a high degree. William III. did not possess it, but simply because he knew nothing intimately of the XI.] NEW POLITICAL ACTION. 261 nation — he was a true king, but not an Bnglish king. Anne, who undoubtedly wished to do right, did not know right from wrong in any beyond very ordinary affairs. We owe much negatively to the Georges. They forbore to do this and that. That is, they had little of that truest feature of old kingliness which removed the causes of discontent. They never under- stood the sentiment of Burke's remark, " 1 see no other way for the preservation of a decent attention to public interest in the representatives but the interposition of the body of the people itself, whenever it slfall appear by some flagrant and notorious act, — by some capital innovation, — that these representatives are going to overleap the fences of the law, and to introduce an arbitrary power. This interposition is a most unpleasant remedy. But if it be a legal remedy, it is intended on some occasions to be used ; to be used then only when it is evident that nothing else can hold the constitution to its true prin- ciples. It is not in Parliament alone that the remedy for parliamentary disorder can be completed ; hardly indeed can it begin there." It will be observed, also, that Toryism was hardly ever an effect, but nearly always a cause of popular discontent. There had, however, been such sickening tergiversation in the tran- sactions of the Whigs and Tories that the mind rests with relief on Lord Grey's refusal to join the Perceval Government, or even to consider Mr. Perceval's proposals. Between Lord Grey and Mr. Perceval there were fundamental differences, and the conduct of the former, when viewed by the light of prior, and contemporary, and subsequent political dishonesty stands out brightly. It was now that the "Whigs were beginning to attach some meaning to their professed principles. If we cast back the mind to Walpole, with and against Harley, to the jumble, meaning nothing, of Carteret, the Pelhams, the Temples, nay, to Chatham himself, and to the later times of George II.'s reign, we shall find scarcely a resting-place for an identification of Whig principles. The prospect brightens when we come to the great speeches of Fox, to the consistent action of Earl Grey, to the course taken in Ireland by Earl Eitzwilliam, and to the 262 POPULAR PROGEBSS IN ENGLAND. [chap. long modest and tentative, bnt unwavering, course of Earl Eussell. Whiggery, however, had dallied too long with the Delilah of despotism, and when it came as of right to claim its place and power in 1815, it found the ground occupied by the party of Lord Liverpool, which held fast to office and kept its position tUl Lord Liverpool's death in 1827, and by the third party of Cochrane and Burdett, which, although yet nameless — it was not " Eadical " tiU a little later — gradually put itself forward for the exposition of the popular needs. Earl Grey, contending for parliamentary reform against Pitt and Burke and Jenkinson (Lord Liverpool), brings the "Whigs into the light of history as "Whigs. To comprehend what they really accom- plished we must remember what they did, by means of the Press and by the formation of political clubs, to spread constitutional information and to protect people threatened with prosecution for political action or the expression of opinion. Here, again and again, important public service was done by men like Lord Grey and Lord Holland, when, to all appearance, no one else could have done that service. On the 1st of February, 1816, Parliament met after a year of brilliant festivities and negotiations, and the Government were able to present Lord Castlereagh to Parliament as a victor fresh from those scenes of glory, the famous meetings of foreign diplomatists who had drawn out and signed the ever-to-be-remembered treaty of 1815. Before the end of the year (December 2nd) the Spa Eields Eiots, which decided the policy of the Government in favour of new repressive laws, took place. A meeting to petition for parliamentary reform had been held on these fields on ISTovember 15th, and had been presided over by Mr. Henry Hunt. The petition was voted in the usual form, and the meeting adjourned for a fortnight, after which certain leading reformers went to dine, and in one or two cases self-invited, with Mr. Hunt at his hotel in Bouverie Street. Among them there was a pro- minent member of the Spencean Club named Castles, who came from nobody knew whence, and advocated the most extreme measures — far in advance of the wildest " Spencean " aims as developed at the time. This man was known afterwards as a XI.] THE SPA FIELDS KIOTS. 263 paid spy and informer. He very narrowly escaped expulsion from the hotel for having, on this particular occasion, given an infamous toast directed against the highest personage in the land, and on being suffered to remain, he fell, it was said, into a "fox-sleep," and appeared to know nothing of what was transpiring. On the 2nd of December, Mr. Hunt, driving along Cheapside to attend the adjourned meeting, was met by Castles and told by him that the people had assembled sooner than the appointed hour, but had broken up in lawless disorder, and that a portion of them vere now in possession of the Tower, while others were inducing a general uprising. This must have been dreadful news to Mr. Hunt, who was infinitely better qualified for making a noise than for commanding the Tower. He wisely decided to go on, to the Spa fields, and on arriving there he found that there had indeed been riot, but not in the way pointed out by Castles. The people, addressed by Mr. Watson, a Spencean, were suddenly called upon by the orator's son to pay no more regard to petitions, but to follow him and take what they wanted. No more was needed to set a large number of excited but unarmed people at the young desperado's heels. A still considerable number, however, remained to meet Mr. Hunt in the manner agreed upon, and so escaped complicity with the rioters. The only bloodshed was in a gunsmith's shop on Snow Hill, where young Watson fired at and wounded one of the shopmen, and then, appalled at his audacity, offered himself as a medical man to attend to the person he had wounded. The rest of the mischief done consisted in the plunder of a few gunsmiths' shops in the Minories and elsewhere. Then, the police appearing, and the military having been sent for, the bubble burst. Every man made his way as speedily as possible to some place of hiding. Nothing more contemptible ever had been known in the history of riots ; but ministers showed themselves very apt in making the most of the event for the purposes on which their minds were fixed for putting down obnoxious clubs, and with them political opposition. Several persons, including the elder Watson and John Cashman, a sailor, charged with joining in the plunder of the shop on Snow HiU, were apprehended. 264: POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. The younger Watson escaped to America. It was lucky that a portion even of the people assembled had maintained the peaceful character of the meeting, and so in advance had checkmated legal proceedings, which were soon proved to be sufficiently vindictive. Of the Spenceans, Lord Albemarle afterwards said, that they had taken the name of an old madman who many years previously had promulgated the hateful doctrine that landowners are not proprietors, but stewards — an utter mad- man, the apostle of madmen, but virtuous compared with the shallow orators who declaimed about reform, since the Spenceans at least stated what they meant. This was the view of a very respectable horror-stricken lord. The real truth was that the Spenceans, like the members of the Hampden and other clubs, were not in the main anything at all like revolutionists. It was proved in after times that even those who did advocate revolutionary measures were in most cases incited by spies and other paid tools of the Government. It is not easy to see in what respect, during all these troubles, the Whig Ediriburgh Review was more favourable or just than the Tory Quarterly to the new Third Party in politics. The political articles in this year and the two following were as scathing and severe in the Edinhurgh Review against all but moderate — that is Whig — reform, as anything found in the Eeview whose business it was to prove the Government right, and the men who were calling for reform not only wrong and misguided, but incendiary persons. A brief perusal of the Whig organ indeed is sufficient to show one why the Eadicals denounced and abhorred the Whig Press. The Quarterly, of course, went all lengths. In its number dated October 16, it directed especial attention to and denounced the Common Council of London, which had questioned the acts of the Govern- ment, and encouraged the demands for parliamentary reform, and the free expression of political opinion. In 1814, the Eeview writer said, the Common Council of London had been a good council, proud of the glories of our arms. In 1816 it was on the side of the enemies of law and order ; was in fact " Philip drunk," repeating the vUe language of Burdett and Cochrane, and XI.] NEWSPAPERS OUT OF LONDON. 265 even of that infamous Wilkes, and following " Orator Hunt " in his intense vulgarity and disloyalty. The position of the country Press was very curious. In many cases a single paper had been made for a long time to serve the interests of both the political parties in a district, tUl some struggle of unusual importance convinced one of the parties that it would not have fair play in the joint organ. Then the fight was generally terrific in scandal and abuse. This fact was brought home to West- moreland, for instance, in the year of Mr. Brougham's first fight for the county r^resentation. The Whigs and Eadicals, a stout band, met and declared that they could not any longer submit to the political dictation of one family. The Tories then began to look for special representation in the Press, and found it ; the common editor at first evincing great hesitation as to his proper course, but eventually becoming all Whig. Then the battle was waged with persistent attacks, lampoons, and all else that went to make up that electioneering armoury which English- men know only too well. The separation of the parties in the Press, however, was useful in many parts of the country, for it made the nominal Whig organ a little more than Whig, in order that it might be a little farther away from Toryism, and it gave to Toryism its true form and character. Journalism was to that extent the healthier for the change. We may well feel it a duty to deal gently and kindly with the men who were the " horror " of both the Whig and Tory newspapers. They were, though often most honourable men, stigmatised in terms which far exceeded anything that the one paper or the other applied to the vilest criminals. The exact pictures which Dickens drew of two rival papers — rival calumniators — and the pictures that many American journals still draw of themselves, may be safely and justly referred back to EngUsh Party, and chiefly to English elections. In other words, the two English political parties had rested on principles and a course of action purely immoral and meretricious ; and a system of literature and calumny had taken its rise under the shelter of these parties, to be used or disowned as the purpose served. Of the nature of the squibs, the writer, some Uttle time ago, had a curious example. An intelligent 266 POPULAR PEOGEESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. xr. auctioneer in the north of England, who reads as well as sells books, in making his catalogue preparatory to a sale at a fine old hall, the property for generations of a Whig family, found one room — a lumber-room merely — ^papered with squibs referring to the Pitt period, and chiefly to the enormous taxes. These, cut carefully from the walls, were sold for 101. The land was inundated with such productions, the point of which was less in their venom than their truth. As a slight evidence of the deeper depths of poverty, the poor-rates may be noted as having risen in fifty years (1750 to 1801) from, in round figures, 800,000^. to more than four and half millions ; and in 1817 to close upon seven millions. The committals to prison in England and Wales in 1816 were 9,091, the largest number then ever recorded in one year. In 1817 they were 13,932 — a fact that needs no explanation. To wages reference has been made elsewhere ; and the general rule holds good the nearer we come to our own time. Education, however, had made immense progress during the twenty years now ending. The British School of Joseph Lancaster had given a new and invaluable educational system to Dissenters, and the National School Society, formed on the noble initiative of Dr. Bell, an equally great power to the Church. Both systems had been in full operation and healthy rivalry for twenty years, and their influence was felt mightUy, even where it was not seen, and perhaps not suspected. Infant schools began about a couple of years later. CHAPTEE XII. WILLIAM HONE, PUBLISHER AND "PARODIST." The Life of Mr. Hone as illustrating certain Social and Political Iniiuencea of the French War — Autobiography of Mr. Hone the Elder ; his " Conversion ; " his Opinion of his Son's Trials and Parodies — Bath — Lady Huntingdon and her "Boys" — Mr. Hone the "Parodist" — The London Missionaiy Society, 1796 — Baptist Missions — William Carey — The Catholic — The Moravian — The Propagation Society— Church Missionary Society — Scotch Societies ; the " Scottish " and the Glasgow Societies— How these Societies were Viewed hy the Poor. The three trials of WiUiam Hone, the publisher, and his sub- sequent numerous contributions to literature, seemed to point to his life as one of the best available as an illustration of the condition of at least one class of workmen, possessing tradi- tions of the American Eevolution, and carrying down those traditions, through all the Great War with France, to the time when an entirely new order of social affairs had begun. Mr. Hone himself edited and published his father's autobiography, which kppears to have been carefully preserved and pruned with a view to public usefidness. It is a mere pamphlet, pur- porting to be " The Early life and Conversion of William Hone, born at Homestead Farm, Eipley, Surrey ; afterwards of Ham- mersmith, and latterly of Clerkenwell, where he died, aged 76." Taken in connection with a like narrative of "the life and conversion" of his son, this autobiography is a singularly instructive production, indicating, as the life of the younger Mr. Hone indicates, an almost overmastering sense of self-conscious- ness, a remarkably quick intelligence, and the iafluence of religious and other principles on the life of a man otherwise untaught as to the foundations of ideas. Mr. Hone the elder 268 POPULAE PEOGRBSS IN ENGLAND. [chap. enters minutely into tlie circumstances of Ms birth, and of sundry preservations, such perhaps as every human being could record if he cared to record them, but in which Mr. Hone, converted, saw a marvellous interposition of Providence in his behalf He was born in 1755, the eldest of ten children, and at fifteen years of age was apprenticed to a law-stationer in London, and, according to his own account, learned everything that was immoral, besides defying the law-stationer to his teeth. At length he determined to run away, and was so successful in his plan of operations that he subsequently enforced his own freedom and that of his feUow apprentices. Then he fell among play-people, and was thinking of the stage, when he says " such a strange thing happened as completely struck me dead to at least the desire for either reading a play or seeing one acted." The strange thing was the appearance of a stage devil one night at the Haymarket Theatre. This led to the flight of the would-be actor from play-work for ever. Still, he says, he was not " chased from the devil." He gave himself up to all manner of profanity, lodging the while with a hatter in Chancery Lane, and resolving never to marry, but to have his full run in vice. At length he providentially strolled into St. Dunstan's Church, where he was " struck " by a text, and perturbation of mind followed. Striving to leave London, he was, at the very time of his need, engaged to go to Bath as clerk in a solicitor's office. On the eve of starting he was robbed by a comrade, and had to take the journey on common carts or on foot, selling his clothes to provide food, but hearing mysterious voices and seeing visions, one of which had directed him, before the' journey, to a place where he found his late robber-comrade. The result was many reproaches on Mr. Hone's part, but no acquisition of money. He arrived in Bath on a Sunday in September 1778, and found lodging with a widow lady, whose daughter he married at Bristol in May the following year. On " the 3rd June, 1780," he says, " my wife brought forth our first-born, whom I named after myself, William. The word signifies a conqueror ; this was verified by my being made a conqueror over Satan, the foe of XII.] THE FATHER OF WILLIAM HONE. 269 God and man, and being turned from darkness to light. Oh ! that the like conquest may be verified in WDliam, my son, who by an unexpected appearance of the hand of God towards him was favoured with great deliverances and triumph over Lord E borough by verdicts of acquittal on his three-days' trials, &c. Herein was the significance of his Christian name, WiUiam, answered, and as Hone signifies a stone, may he be a lively stone built up in the spiritual house of God." It will be observed that the writer speaks of the " deliverances " without any remark whatef er as to the nature of the productions for which his son had been tried. After his marriage Mr. Hone quitted the service of the solicitor for that of a carriage -builder and corn-factor. Believing also that he had a gift for preaching be applied personally to Lady Huntingdon, at that time in Bath, and she graciously handed him over " to two of her boys, as she called them." The "boys" were appalled at their visitor's expressions, asked him what books he had been read- ing, and finally forced upon him the conviction that whatever gospel they might have for others they had none for him " but mere darkness, barrenness, the contents of Mount Sinai which gender to bondage." He began, therefore, to preach on his own account, and with such " acceptation " to one poor woman that she would see no other spiritual adviser on her death-bed. " Satan,'' Mr. Hone says, " wrought powerfully to get the parish clergyman to visit her by the entreaties of her husband," but Satan was unsuccessful, and in the end, when aU was over, the wicked husband sent the unordained teacher " a silk hatband and gloves for the funeral." Mr. Hone now found that he had a " call " to London, and in due time he turned his back on Bath, leaving his family for the time behind him. Arriving in London, he made his way to his brother, who was in a solicitor's office, and was soundly rated by him for haviag obeyed the call and left his work in Bath. This, Mr. Hone thought, one of the hardest things in all the world's history. In fact he had a rare gift for making mountains of troubles not larger than mole- hills. Very soon, however, he found a clerkship, and here the autobiography ends. The continuation is by William Hone 270 POPULAR PEOGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. the younger, and chiefly consists of a detailed account of an attempt made by that gentleman to unravel the past history of his family, with sundry other accounts of his father's occu- pations as a manager of lime works, and overseer of parochial work in Clerkenwell, the latter of which posts he held while his strength enabled him to perform the duties it involved. He died, his son says, in 1813, leaving behind him "two hundred and thirty hymns fairly copied out," and having preached often, and done sundry like duty, in the country villages around London. The autobiography does not appear to picture a healthy school of thought in any sense of the term, but an exceeding morbid, though at the same time an honest, one, which could not fail to have an influence on the future life of the son, who was destined from one notable circumstance and some hard and meritorious literary work, to leave a name so much better known. Mr. Hone the elder must have carried away with him from Bath not merely recollections of Lady Huntingdon's sect, whose services he long afterwards attended, in London, but of the pomps and vanities of the foremost of watering-places, and perhaps most beautiful of English towns. There were people living who remembered the great Beau Nash pining away in poverty, dying worth only a few invaluable trinkets — the gifts of princes and princesses, and lords and ladies of high renown ; and then, having a funeral for which the Corporation of Bath voted fifty pounds, so that the king of Bath and of Beaus might be buried with royal splendour. Sable plumes there were, three clergymen and three aldermen to precede the cofSn, and six senior aldermen to bear the paU, with solemn music and hymns, and housetops crowded with people — the great sight of the age to Bath, and perhaps to many a place around. A little earlier the poor Beau, trying hard to stave off the approaching signs of age, had been found out, by the appear- ance of his silk stockings, on the public parade, to have legs that were not what they seemed, and the news had gone through all the fashionable saloons that the man who had "made" Bath and ruled it with such marvellous genius — who xii.] BATH: LADY HUNTINGDON. 271 had done more for it indeed than its great Prince Bladud, whose name belongs to the misty ages — was failing to preserve that soundness of limb which had once been the glory of Bath. George III. had been a few months on the throne. Pitt and Bute were fighting for the mastery; events of world-wide import- ance had transpired and were transpiring, but no event could be to Bath what the funeral of Beau Nash was. Of Mr. Hone the younger it may be said that he was thirteen years of age when Louis XVI. was beheaded ; seventeen at the time of the Mutiny at thff Nore ; nineteen in the year of the Irish rebellion ; and twenty at the time of the union of Great Britain and Ireland. Men of sixty years of age when he was ten would remember the rejoicings for Minden, for the capture of Quebec, for Culloden, for Dettingen, for the fall of Walpole's ministry, for the rise of the Great Commoner who for so long a period was destined to fill the whole world with his fame. Many persons then living, and some possibly living in Bath, had seen the rebel heads bleaching on Temple Bar, and might have known persons who remembered the wild march of Monmouth, the Bloody Circuit of Jeffreys, and the landing of the Deliverer at Torbay. Grave recollections like these, and of Lady Hunting- don, mingled with reminiscences of stage-coaches, coming in as regularly as the sun rose, from Bristol and Wells, from Andover and DevizeSj from Windsor, and indeed from London, amid unrivalled churches and shops, afforded a curious series of contrasts to a lad when he began to digest the recollections of his father, which might grow into day-dreams, with facts col- lected on his own part, from reading and investigation. The autobiography, unhealthy as it may seem, affords very vivid glimpses of the influence of religious teaching of a certain kind on a morbidly sensitive and self-communing temperament like that of the father of WiUiam Hone the Parodist. As the Doncaster or Malton boy begins with the first dawn of intellect to make wagers on horse-racing, and the Manchester boy to hear traditions of the days when politics involved questions of life or death, and the Liverpool boy to hear of privateering and press-gangs, so must the influence of those Lady Huntingdon 272 POPULAR PEOGEBSS IN ENGLAND. [chap. Chapel days, forming for a long time almost his entire mental food, have sunk deeply in the mind of a hoy like William Hone. His father's violent prejudice against the clergy of the Estab- lished Church, and his habit of preaching and writing out hymns, seem to have almost foreshadowed the double character which in his son perplexed many persons in after years. It may be said to supply the key to two distinct phases of the life of the man who was at one time shunned as a profane parodist, and at another eulogised as a brand plucked from the burning. There were, however, other classes of influences rising ; and among them, and of a kindred character to the teachings of Wesley, the missionary societies may be named. In the year 1800 the London Missionary Society had been about seven years in existence, and three years after its formation had sent twenty- nine missionaries down the Thames for the islands of the South Sea. A man of clerical gifts and character had risen in G-osport, and pointed to the old methods of teaching known to Peter and Paul. England, not knowing exactly how to reach its own poor effectively, had grasped at the idea of reaching some poor; and the South Sea Islanders were believed to be poor enough. It was said indeed that they ate human flesh. The London Society gave speedy effect to the missionary idea. Money and men both were forthcoming, and the tidings went forth of Him who so many long centuries before had come to save the poor and the lost. It was, look at the subject as we may, the birth-time of one vital form of Christianity among Protestants in England. The Baptists caught the fire first, but their work began in the northern counties, and so was less known to London and the cities most readily reached from London. In October 1792, a few persons held a meeting at Kettering, in Northamptonshire, to devise means for reaching some heathen people somewhere, and at the end of the meeting they made a collection amount- ing to 131. 2s. 6d. A man named John Thomas had been to India as surgeon of a vessel, and had preached and prayed with his own countrymen in Bengal — people in constant danger, and hence in many cases believing in prayer. Mr. Thomas had remained in India from 1787 to 1792, learning the Bengalee XII.] MISSIONARY SOCIETIES. "- 273 language. He then came to England, and the Baptist Society- invited him to go hack as its representative. The society was justified in speaking with confidence, for had it not the money- chest, 131. 2s. 6d., collected at Kettering ? Then, to find a man to accompany Mr. Thomas, who was ready to return. There was a Baptist minister named William Carey in Leicester, formerly a " cobbler " in Northampton, who had both talked and written about missions ; would he go ? Yes, William Carey would go, with or without money-chest. So the first Baptist missionaries, Mr. Thomas and Mr. Carey, went out with their families. They suffered, and were oppressed, and were separated ; but Mr. Carey lived to be Dr. Carey, Professor in a Govern- ment College, co-founder of a great missionary school, and the owner of, some say, the finest botanical garden in India. Flying from the stern edicts of the Honourable Company against inter- lopers, he settled among the Danes. The site of his house is now part of the bed of the Ganges, but the chapel in which he preached is that which Havelock attended when in Bengal, and the "Mission" that he founded is a great fact in Anglo-Indian life. The Eoman Catholics, the Moravians, and the Church of England in its Propagation Society (dating with a royal charter 1701), had long preceded these voluntary efforts of England, but in the voluntary efforts consisted the influence on the public mind. The Church Missionary Society was formed in 1799, and in 1804 it sent a little missionary colony to Western Africa, with stores, seeds, artisans, and all other provisions as for a settlement. Two societies had also been begun in Scotland at an earlier date — the "Scottish" and the "Glasgow" societies, and had sent out men to Africa in 1797. So that from 1796 to 1804, in the midst of war and the sufferings of war, the network of missionary operations now represented by the May Meetings in Exeter Hall, had been formed. It was a new fact, but time has shown that it was not a mere passing zeal. When the history of Missions is written by an impartial hand, it will be a very mixed history indeed. The so-called privation will be seen in many cases to have been no privation at all. It wOl be found also that missionaries have frequently talked and acted foolishly R T 274 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. in view of the faiths, and the habits and customs of uncul- . tured or nnchristianised races. But it will not, on the other hand, be forgotten that missionaries have often, against all odds, represented Christianity, Humanity, and the great mercifulness of the civilisation based thereon, and have forced the so-called civilisation that is too frequently based on a real though polished barbarism, to unloose its victims. In other words, the name of missionary will not be taken as evidence of sacrifice and devotion, while the facts of sacrifice and devotion, wherever they exist, will be taken to ennoble the name of missionary. Considerably more than half a century has only deepened the lesson of that ardent and clear-sighted man who sent out the true word from Gosport, and pointed to the duty which, rightly performed, no one can doubt is worthy to be classed among the great efforts of men. We might imagine, however, even if we had not the means of knowing, how the vast scope of these societies was viewed by unemployed workmen, in a time of bread riots, of criminal actions with regard to the Press, of suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. In reality the men who were directing their attention to Africa, and India, and the South Seas, were not by any means directing their attention from England. Many of them were working hard to do at home what they were so ready also to do abroad. That there was rivalry among the societies need not be disputed. The Scotch Church was not inclined to have its vitality, as compared with that of the Baptists questioned ; and so in other cases. The Church of England asserted a fore- most place, as accorded with its wealth and scholastic position, and certainly it maintained that place in the common-sense character of the arrangements made for the colony to "Western Africa. How these facts would appear to men from whom William Hone was learning, a circumstance related by him in his Reformists' Register in 1817 shows pretty conclusively. He says : — "In the year 1793, being very young and inexperienced — little more than twelve years of age — I wrote and composed a small tract, in prose and verse, in praise of the British Constitution, which I caused to be printed, and XII.] FROM TORYISM TO RADICALISM. 275 enclosed a copy thereof to the chairman of the ' Society for Preserving Liberty and Property against Republicans and Levellers,' at the Crovm and Anchor tavern in the Strand. This tract furnished the design for a woodcut or engraving in the said Loyal Association papers, and for the communication I received a letter from the Secretary of the Association, as follows : — " ' Ceown and Anchoe, April 27th, 1793. " ' Sir, — I received the favour of your letter, addressed to the Chairman, of the 25th instant, and am requested to make known to you the high opinion the committee entertain of your abilities, and the good use you make of them. It is with peculiar pleasure they perceive a spirit of loyalty in a person so young as y8a represeiit yourself to be, and have no doubt but a continuance in the same sentiments will make you a valuable and useful member of the community. " ' To Mr. WiUiam Hone, Old North Street, Bed Lion Square.' " The Chairman referred to here is the Mr. Eeeves to whom reference is made on page 212, as the defendant in a stupid action against a stupider libel, and as giving good advice to William Cobbett, on that gentleman's return from America in 1800. Mr. Hone describes him as " one of the patentees of the office of King's printer, and under and by virtue of his patent proprietor of a number of editions of the Common Prayer edited by himself." Hone goes on to say : — "Being then a purchaser and reader of all the loyal association papers, which contained much varied matter, in a lively style, I went on buying and admiring until I had the curiosity to read some of the articles which the association papers were answers to ; when all on a sudden, in spite of my flattering letter from Mr. Secretary M'Dowall, still in my possession, I began to perceive a rapid ' discontinuance of the same sentiments ' praised by that gentleman, which I could no more help than the shining of the sun. But I very well recollect that a Parody of the Church Catechism was actually pub- lished in a penny political tract, at the expense of this ' Association for Preserving Liberty and Property against Republicans and Levellers.' This was the first parody I ever saw ; but, about the year 1796, a parody on the third chapter of Daniel appeared in a daily newspaper ; since when I have seen many, published both before and afterwards, and I have the authority of Earl Grey for saying that a parody of the Litany was written even by a dignitary of the Church ! " When Mr. Hone's age is remembered, his precocity as " a purchaser and reader of all the Association Papers" will be admitted, even where it may not be admired. Certainly it T 2 276 POPULAR PEOGEESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. showed a remarkably sharpened intelligence, and a disposition on the boy's part not to hide himself, or suffer any one to hide him, under a bushel. It seems very evident also that his ideas, such as they were, had altogether a tendency in favour of those who held power at the time. In selecting Mr. Hone as illustrating certain phases of cottage life, it is not intended to represent him as illustrating •the most rugged phases of that life. Unlihe Cobbett, he remained in the ranks ; he never was, nor ever seemed capable of being, a leader. Unlike such men as Thelwall, Carlile, and Gale Jones, he did not succeed in directing political organisation by personal intercourse. Till his trials, Hone was a simple shopman, who understood market wants, and met them, often with large pecuniary gains, though never with lasting benefit to himself. " The money went " again in some way, but simply from his inaptitude to "husband" or utilise what he earned; no one ever charged him with putting his earnings to a base use. Again, Cobbett was the teacher where Hone was the learner in politics, though in a wide knowledge of literature Hone was as clearly Cobbett's master as Cobbett was his in politics. Hone, in fact, was one of the best read men of his time. He could repeat from memory vast passages, which he had thoroughly made his own, from Jeremy Taylor and other of the best authors. He could write squibs which brought the newsmen to his shop door long before dawn for large numbers of copies for the country ; and his publications were intended to have, and did have, the ordinary market success. Apart from this his influence was merely local. Samii.el Bamford, the Eadical, had a direct and great personal influence in Lancashire, and used it, while William Hone, apart from his pen, was of small account in London. Yet whUe Cobbett mainly represented himself and his own views. Hone reflected the views of vast numbers of persons whom, nevertheless, he did not personally lead. Then he was admittedly from first to last a moral man, with honest motives and generosity of views. His latter end is said to have been tinged with a faith strongly intermingled with mysticism ; but it was mysticism of the kind of the latter days of Eobert XII.] THE WRITINGS OF WILLIAM HONE. 277 Owen, not of that of the latter days of Eichard Carlile, and it never seems to have heen more than a crude fancy, for the basis of which, as the reader has seen, we have not far to seek. His writings did not in the main possess high literary value. He wrote hurriedly, for bread; but where convictions were con- cerned he was true to his own perceptions of fact, and where intimidation was in question he was beyond anything at all resembling cowardice. In a time of hack-writing, he had a pen which no minister of state could have bought, though it is not equally clear that ifi catering for the literary market he was proof against providing what was in demand; that his productions though strictly Conscientious, are free from the charge of being in their general character what the people who looked to his shop for -literature were readiest to buy. It is clear that down to the time of his three trials no one had the remotest idea that in the oral application of his reading he could have confronted two judges, including the most terrible judge of the age, and two distinguished members of the Bar, and have borne away the palm. r Another reason why attention will now be directed to "William Hone is that his life is one of a single event, and that that event was the last episode in a remarkable series of Government humili- ations that broke the baneful spell of those ex-officio informations which had been directed chiefly against the Press, and by means of which an incalculable amount of suffering had been entailed on a vast number of persons, against M'hom no other fault is now alleged than that they endeavoured, in some cases mistakenly, in some otherwise, to contribute something to a correct know- ledge and righteous control of public affairs'. Of Mr. Hone's suffering in consequence of the informations against him very little will be made in these pages. When we consider what a castaway sailor may suffer from being one night on a spar in the sea, or a wounded soldier from being left one night on a battle- field, or an unemployed artisan from seeing his family taken to the workhouse, one is not inclined to make over-much of anything that William Hone suffered in connection with the informations granted against him by Lord EUenborough. He certainly lost 278 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. money in the first instance, and had pecuniary difficulties ; but all this was amply made up to him by a munificent subscription after the trials, and by the approval of men whose goodwill must of itself have been beyond price. A subscription of more than 3,000^. enabled him to extend his business ; but still he drifted downward, tiU at last, in sore distress, he found his way to a debtors' prison, and subs3quently became the keeper of a coffee- house, furnished for him by his friends. In all these respects Mr. Hone's life ought to picture even more of the peculiar character of the time in which he lived than the lives of more distinguished men. His keenest suffering was long after his trials. To the day of his death, even in the quiet retreat of the monastery of the Weigh House Chapel, he was '.' Hone the Parodist." He wrote dedications to men like the Earl of Darlington, signed himself the friend of Charles Lamb, heard sermons from the Eev. Thomas Binney, preached sermons on his own account, wrote of his father's conversion, and talked of his own, in the exact phrase- ology that is most approved by the good people who need no repentance ; but he was " Hone the Parodist " after all. Turn where he might, for years, the same foolish and ungenerous charge met him, and met his family. In bitterness of spirit he wrote words which carried with them the sting that few persons cared to face. Then his enemies said, "You see how little he is changed." It was enough to madden any one. It was more than enough to madden this strangely-constituted sensitive man. To Eichard Carlile it was nothing to be called infidel or revolutionist, for he was both, and gloried in the terms. "When society denounced Gale Jones, the denunciation was accepted and laughed to scorn. Mr. Jones had no wish to meet at least a portion of society other than in battle. With William Hone it was different. He wanted people to understand him, and bear with him a little, even though they treated him in the spirit of a spoilt child. He yearned to be received into the great sympathies of humanity. Would his countrymen listen to him if he gave up politics, and began to pick up for them nosegays of literature ? Would they let him cull for them fresh wild XII.] HONE AND THE FRIENDS OF HIS LATER YEARS. 279 flowers from crevices and rocks, from under mountain cascades' which only he knew? Would they let him gather primroses and buttercups and daisies for their children, and put the hateful parodies for ever aside ? Such really were the pleas ; but people paused, and looked at their children ; and took the flowers, for they were pretty, and well arranged ; and then they passed on — the gatherer was " Hone the Parodist." It must be granted, as will be shown later, that Mr. Hone, after he ^decisively cast in his lot with the Congregationalists, was much too ready to allow his new friends to speak and write of him as a former atheist. Even in referring to himself, he wrote as if he adopted as a correct designation of him some remarks in a then new edition of Simpson's " Plea for Eeligion," in which he is referred to as having held " sceptical, if not atheistical opinions," with the further remark that " though at the time of his celebrated trials his opinions may have been less extravagant, neither his intellect nor his heart had submitted to the authority of revealed religion.'' Some one, probably Mr, Hone, in reproducing the passage, has italicised the word revealed, with the evident intention of making a distinction between religion itself in the broad sense of a relation to the Supreme Being, and religion in the sense of an acceptance of the verbal inspiration of the Bible. Nothing, certainly, can be more distinct than Mr. Hone's own statement during ,his trials, that, though he would make no confession of faith as to dogma, he was a Christian. This will appear markedly in the ensuing chapters, and perhaps would appear still more clearly from private papers in the possession of Mr. Hone's family, and destined at some not distant time, we may well hope, to be given to the public. Of that material the present writer has not seen one line, nor directly or indirectly become acquainted with one fact, hoping and believing that these glimpses of Mr. Hone and his work may lead to a desire on the part of the pubKc to know more of facts wliich never can be repeated in England, and in that way, while adding an instructive chapter to history, may be of service to the family Mr. Hone left behind. In aU respects, therefore, what is said 280 POPULAE PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. here, and what -will follow, with respect to Mr. Hone, has either appeared in print in some form, or has been obtained from private sources quite apart from Mr. Hone's family, and all that the writer claims for it is that in some cases it has been far-sought and ia all cases has been honestly compared, statement with statement, with a view to the simple truth. On many subjects there can hardly be a doubt that Mr. Hone's children can throw light valuable for a complete life. In this hope, and in the hope, too, that a work of pecuniary value to them may be the result, the present writer has avoided encroach- ing on their knowledge in any way whatever. The main object here ia to show the nature of some of the influences which were in the times with which we are dealing brought to bear on the youthful and the adult mind of Eagland. In 1S24, writing, at his shop in Ludgate Hill, an introduction to certain pamphlets, to which reference will be made. Hone put forth a half-comical, half-earnest plea that people would once for all take it as a settled matter that he intended to write no more. " A notion prevails," he says, " with many that I am usually engaged in preparing something or other for the press, and few are persuadable to the contrary : — " ' Why am I asked what next shall see the light ? Heavens ! was I born for nothing but to write ? ' " He now " publicly declared, what he had frequently affirmed m private, that, with the exception of finishing one work at his entire leisure, he would withhold his pen from every purpose but that of cataloguing books." He was induced to activity by duty to his family ; " and, perhaps," he quaintly adds, " I am qualified for the business of a book-auctioneer in particular by the knowledge I possess of the nature and value of literary property, obtained from long experience in every department of the bookselling business, and intimacy with books themselves. ... I have made arrangements, and fitted up my present premises accordingly. Few, I presume, will blame me for not desiring to be a ' rocking-stone ' or a ' rolling-stone.' " Burns, it will be remembered, once took a kindred resolution. He XII.] THE PAKODIBS. 281 wrote, and the words have a ring of more than poetic reality : — " I backward mused on wasted time, How I had spent my youthfu' prime, An' done uae thing But stringing blethers up in rhyme For fools to sing. " I started, mutt'ring, ' Blockhead ! coof ! ' And heaVd on high my waukit loof, To swear by a' yon starry roof, Or some rash aith. That I henceforth would be rhyme-proof Till my last breath — When click ! the string the sneck did draw, And jee ! the door gaed to the wa '." * * * The muse of the poet's country had entered to cheer his loneli- ness, and to tell him that, come what might, he must neither rule a market nor " dark " his account in any bank, but that he would be bound to the last to the wheel of sorrow and to the destiny of an undying fame. William Hone bad no promise at all like that, but he had the unseen hand laid upon him, turning him, whether he willed it or not, to his pen. " Parodist ! " rang in his ears to the last, even in that Weigh House Chapel ; even in , the congenial employment of the " Every-day Book," of the gossip about Old London, among the manuscripts in the British Museum — everywhere : " Hone the Parodist ! " If he had lived iifty years later, he might have heard from the Conservative side of the House of Lords stronger terms than all but the strongest of his on political subjects. The trials were simply one event among many. Mr. Hone did not win the day by his eloquence. The nation won. It had resolved that the Government was in the wrrong, and that if possible every ex-officio information should be defeated. To defend the parodies, would now, even on the score of good taste, be simply pronounced an absurdity. Mr. Hone defended them on the ground that they were not profane; and he failed. He defended them on the ground that the infor- mations against him were not in the least influenced by the alleged profanity, but altogether by the admitted political 282 POPULAE PKOGEBSS IN ENGLAND. [chap. satire ; and there he succeeded. Indeed, before he had spoken a word in his defence, the whole country had instinctively- decided that he was right. He had made, and he again made great errors as to his estimates of men and motives. Many of the Whigs, whom he had denounced, came to him in his difB- CTilties, and bade him be of good courage, when once they had seen that he was a true workman in literature, and not a boy playing with edge-tools. Like his father, he also hated what he deemed priestcraft, and often mistook for priestcraft what was genuine Christianity, yet some generous clergymen supported him against Lord Sidmouth's prosecutions. Again, if Mr. Hone were taken solely as an illustration, he would present but an imperfect picture even of the struggles of poor men in that exceptional time. In the very same year in which he was tried, Samuel Bamford, a man poorer, less known, hardly at all educated, save by nature, had some curious interviews with Lord Sidmouth; interviews of which some particulars will be given in a later chapter. Mr. Hone was inferior to Mr. Bamford in that keen observation of life which will cause the books of the Eadical poet — the man who gave the Lancashire cottage a voice in song, to live for perhaps ages to come. Henry Hunt, with his loud voice, and blustering manner, and bombast, would have been less known if fate had not thrown across his path that curiously impatient, wonder- fully forbearing, Lancashire workman, who had had more real physical difficulties crowded into a year than Mr. Hone had into a life-time, and who rose over them in a light-hearted manner which has yet its charm in history. The prosecutions of Home Tooke, of the Times, the Chronicle, and the Examiner will show, among other like facts, the dismal state of affairs that existed during the war. The sufferings of the Puritans and of the Non-Puritans have shown the action of despotic laws wielded at different times by different classes of persons ; now by the Divine Eight clergy, now by the EepubHcan Nonconformists. But with the year 1817, we say the spell of despotism was broken, and from that year henceforth the principles of the glorious Eestoration began to lose ground. Victory after victory xu.] APPROACHING BATTLES FOR FREEDOM. 283 — the repeal of the Tests, the emancipation of the Catholics, the great successes of 1832, and of the Anti-Corn Law League — attest the triumph of the popular interest in the State. To say that these victories were in any special degree owing to any one man were absurd. A host of agencies had prepared the way for Cohhett, as a host of different agencies had prepared the way for Mr. Fox and for Earl Grey. It was men like Hone and much more so men like Eobert Burns, who rendered the influence of Cobbett powerful. The ground was prepared in erery case, where success followed any kind of popular action. To show how it was prepared wiU be one of the main objects of the chapters that will follow here. Perhaps, too, some little good may result from the digging up of these old facts for use in less dangerous times, but of times also which never can be safe tin the whole nation is educated to the knowledge both of its rights and duties. How marvellous a change has already taken place since the years with which we are dealing may be seen in the peculiar characteristics of the tempest of popidar indignation that has rolled over the land since the doings of the Bashi-Bazouks in Bulgaria were made public. Tories have thundered out that Toryism shall neither signify nor shelter murder, and the Eadical Economists and former Eussiaphobists have professed themselves ready to face any danger rather than allow the acts to pass unpunished. Foolish and rash speeches have of course been made, and great interests spoken of in ignorance of what those interests involved ; but the way in which political parties have joined hands for humanity shows how great an advance has been made in political knowledge, how much nearer we are drawing to the patriot's ideal of nationality. If we bear this in mind we shall have one trustworthy key to the facts about to be recorded. CHAPTEE Xril.. SUSPENSION OF HABEAS CORPUS IN 1817. 1817 — Meaning of Suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act in 1817 as compared with Former Years — England at Peace with the World — The Men to whom the Nation would not Surrender its Liberties — How Mr. Fox would have met Dis- content — Political Judges and Jurists ; Mansfield ; Loughborough ; Ellen- borough ; Eldon ; Thurlow, and others — Private Character no Guarantee for Public Virtue — Opening of Parliament, January Sth — Alleged Outrage on the Prince Eegent — The Times, the Courier, and the Morning Chronicle — Hone's Reformists' Register, First Number, February 1st ; Last Number, October 25, same year — Ridicule of the Alleged Outrage — Hone's Weekly Commentary— CoVoett's Register — His Twopenny Trash — Burdett's Notice of Motion for Refonn — Lord Cochrane presents a number of Petitions for Reform — Sir WiUiam Garrow Declares a Petition a Deliberate Libel on the House — Mr. Brougham's Reply — Melbourne, RomiUy, and others — The House as compared with that of 1793 — Amendments to the Address — The Lords — Earl Grey ; Lord Harrowby ; Marquis "Wellesley ; Lord Sidmouth — Assertion that the Distresses were Consequent on the Peace — Promised Message from the Prince Regent — Mr. Canning's "Stand" — Mr. Brougham and the Whigs — Their Political Error — Hone's Denunciation of Brougham and the Whigs — Royal Message — Secret Committee — Thanksgiving for the Prince Regent — Hone's Register, March 1st — Hone's Defiance to the Govern- ment and the Tories — His Poverty and Apparent Helplessness — Spirit of Parliament and the Law Courts — Impending Events — Hone's Vulnerability on the Score of Parodies — The Lords — Lord Sidmouth's Motion for Sus- pension of Habeas Corpus — Lord Wellesley ; Lord Liverpool ; Earl Grey ; the Duke of Sussex ; Jjord GrenviUe — The Commons — Lord Castlereagh — Bills Against Sedition, &c. — Mr. Ponsonby— Sir Francis Burdett — Sir S. Romilly, Mr. Brougham, and Mr. Canning — Suspension of Habeas Corpus — Mr. Bennett on Lord Castlereagh — Personal Charges against Castlereagh — The Lord Advocate of Scotland — Lord John Russell — Habeas Corpus suspended March 4th — Seditious Meetings Bill — Army and Navy Seduction Bill — Treasonable Practices Bill — The Blanket Meeting — Samuel Bansford — William Lovett. It -will be evident that the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act in 1817 had quite a different meaning from that of OH. XIII.] ACTION OF LORD LIVERPOOL'S GOVERNMENT. 285 any former suspension of the Act from the time it became law. William III. had both foreign and domestic enemies to contend against. The reign of Anne was a reign of war. The first and second Georges were disturbed by the House of Stuart. The third George was brought face to face with two events which, in their character and magnitude united, were unparalleled in history, the American War of Independ- ence and the French Eevolution. It may be reasserted that there had been, and will remain, this excuse for Pitt as against Pox, that he saw vSist and destructive forces let loose at home and abroad, and that destructive forces are always more easily unchained than .chained. People who possessed property and valued freedom, for others as weU as for themselves, were, reasonably or unreasonably, startled into apprehension, and in many cases drifted to the side of those to whom property was everything, and in whose view general freedom and progress were undesirable objects. That is, the law of self-preservation had been paramount, and the national instinct had gone with Pitt during the crisis of the French War. Where now, it was everywhere asked, was the danger, unless the nation itself could not be trusted? Was there not uni- versal peace ? Had not the disturber of Europe been secured in a prison from whence escape was impossible ? Had not France seen her revolutionary fires burn out in wars for an all-absorbing despotism which had eaten up the devourers of Moderatists, Girondists, Septembrists, and Terrorists ; and finally which had itself been eaten up by the universal sense of Europe, or of those portions of the nations of Europe which held and directed administrative policy 1 Had not the " Crowned Heads " formed a Holy Alliance, based, as they said, on the New Testa- ment, that wars and rumours of wars should henceforth be to state polity what the Ptolemaic system was to Science? If there was any longer danger it could only be from within ; and if there was danger from within it could only be because there were sound reasons for discontent; because there were bad laws to repeal ; classes of persons to resolve into nationality ; privilege to make bend to the general well-leing. -286 POPULAE PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. Again, granted that there was danger from within, and that •the causes of discontent could not, as iadeed it might be granted they could not, speedily be removed, had the men at the head of political affairs, and at the head of the law courts, inspired suffi- cient public confidence in their ability and rectitude to justify the nation in placing its liberties in their hands ? If the chapter preceding this is not incorrect, there were no such grounds for public confidence. The bitter and vindictive State prosecutions ■of 1794 were yet fresh in men's minds. The fierce cruelties in Scotland, in Ireland, and in many parts of England were as of yesterday ; and the same spirit had been carried on from year to year as the perfection of a system of administration that knew nothing higher than government by fear, government in that state ■of siege which all great statesmen have abhorred, and to which all little statesmen have clung. In one of the finest passages of one of the finest speeches of Fox, delivered at the end of 1792, before the Terror had set in, a reply is given to the question — What would you do to remove popular discontent ? " What," he said, " it may be asked, would I propose to do in hours of agitation like the present ? I will answer openly. If there is a tendency in the Dissenters to discontent, because they conceive themselves unjustly suspected and cruelly calumniated, what should I do 1 I would instantly repeal the Test and Corporation Acts, and take from them thereby all cause of complaint. If there were any persons tinctured with a republican spirit, because they thought that the representative government was more perfect in a republic, I would endeavour to amend the representation of the Commons, and to prove that the House of Commons though not chosen by all, should have no other interest than to prove itself the representative of all. If there were men dissatisfied in Scotland, or Ireland, or elsewhere, on account of disabilities and exemptions, of unjust prejudices and of cruel restrictions, I would repeal the penal statutes, which are a disgrace to our law-book. If there were other complaints of grievances, I would redress them where they were really proved ; but, above all, I would constantly, cheer- fully, patiently listen ; I would make it known that if any man felt, or thought he felt, a grievance, he might come freely to the bar of this House and bring his proofs ; and it should be redressed ; or if not that it should be made manifest. If I were to issue a proclamation, this should be my proclamation — ' If any man has a grievance, let him bring it to the bar of the Commons' House of Parliament, with the firm persuasion of having it honestly investigated.' These are the subsidies that I would grant to Government." XIII.] MINISTEES: POLITICAL JUDGES. 287 If, tlien/for some reason, the liberties of the nation were to he suspended, at least, people thought, the suspension should be in hands different from these of men like Lord Castlereagh, Lord Sidmouth, and Lord Ellenhorough, who had shown no concep- tion of any rule of government higher than that of fear. The power of ex-officio informations had been seen in full operation, and had been felt to the very marrow of the national life. There was a determination to prevent in peace a repetition of the scenes which even in war had been viewed with horror. Looking to the law-courts, no one could well miss the fact, previously noticed here, that the judges were appointed on political grounds and for political purposes, and no one who looked a little below the surface could doubt that many of the characters most eulogised in such history as was taught at schools were by no means so lofty as they appeared on a mere cursory examination. The story of Lord Chancellors and Lord Chief Justices, as told by Lord Campbell, is almost uniformly of the same character. A smart and gifted young man, with useful college friends, arrives in London to push his way at the Bar. He works hard, dresses well, seeks introductions to drawing-rooms which have the power to stamp a man as of "society," makes a name in politics by means of some one eloquent speech, pointless possibly, but to all appearance pointed, and carefully adapted to incline to the direction to which the political weathercock has turned for the passing hour. He notes which of the two parties in the State is likely first to need a Solicitor-General, and which seems to command the clearest path to the woolsack. Then he decides — on political principle ? No one can imagine so, after studying the career of these distinguished lawyers. On high judicial grounds ? That idea were still more absurd. He decides on the principle of self-interest. Few names have stood higher than that of Lord Mansfield. Among effective speakers he had few rivals, and, in many respects, no superior in his time. Yet we have seen that not only was Lord Mansfield a thorough and devoted parlizan, but that he was spoken of as having "no force or elevation of character," and "no idea of truth 288 POPULAR PKOGEESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. whatever." To Lord Loughborough the reader's attention has been still more markedly directed ; and few careers are more instructive either as a study of character or with a view to the solution of historical problems. Through a great portion of his first few years at the English Bar this successful lawyer pre- sented all the characteristics of a fish out of water. His aim, like that of the fish, was direct enough ; the one seeks the water, and the other sought the woolsack, and the wrigglings towards the latter are mournfully suggestive, ifow Mr. Wedderburn was Tory, now Whig ; now opposing Lord North as if he had been opposing a pickpocket, now supporting Lord North as if he had been the saviour of England ; at length becoming Lord North's Solicitor-General, and the subject of Lord Camden's bitter remark to Lord Chatham, " I am not surprised, but grieved." Lord Ellenborough began life as a Whig, and became a Tory. His intellect and acquirements were unquestioned. His political tendencies were of the most repressive character, and if an attempt to break the power of the political lawyer was necessary, no better selection could have been made for the experiment. That the attempt was necessary the general sense of the country affirmed. When questions such as those connected with Junius or Wilkes, or Home Tooke had arisen, the first inquiry had been, "Who is to be the judge?" or " Is the trial to be before the King's Bench, or in the Court of Common Pleas ?" According to the judge the issue of the trial was predicted. If Justice Abbott had presided at the three trials of William Hone, some legal historian would certainly have said, " Ah ! if Ellenborough had been there you would have seen a different affair;" as Lord Campbell said, in the case of Chief Justice Kenyou and Home Tooke : — " If Lord Mansfield had presided .... Home Tooke would have left the court not only defeated, but disgraced." There is good reason to question this. Great lawyers seldom have appeared to much advantage when confronted by anything like ability and courage, unfettered by "rule of fence." Lord Camden as a Whig and Lord Eldon as a fierce and relentless Tory, were probably as sincere politicians as any of their con- XIII.] INSULT TO THE PRINCE REGENT. 2S9 temporaries, and their decisions took the complexion of their principles. In Lord Thurlow we see a man who, with great powers, had neither principle in politics, nor faith in human rights ; a man too who, like Lord Eld on, would have crushed out every free impulse of " the common herd." Of course there are fine traits of character recorded of most of these distinguished men. The solicitude of Lord Northington, then Mr. Henley, to prevent Mr. Pratt, afterwards Lord Camden, from leaving the Bar in despair, is a fine picture, honourable to private gentle - manliness. Lord Loughborough, " a second father " to his niece, who writes of his affection and kindness with a filial hand ; and Lord Eldon stopping in the midst of his ambitious struggle to write to his brother William, and to his " dearest life," his " dearest Betsy " — every letter with some new brain-coinage applied to his wife by a man to whom that wife was as * the light of life " — ^will never be passed over in a fair estimate of character. Yet all this is nothing in view of the important questions at this time before the public. There were cottage Betsys, and nieces, and daughters of infinite importance to poor people. There were children growing up in barbarism, in vice, without a hope in the world. " Do you think political reform will amend this ? " shouted the minister of state, the clergyman, and the lawyer, as with one accord. From the depths of the dim, uncared-for population there came, with like accord^ and with a torrent and whirlwind of passion, an affirmative answer which became the key to political action. Parliament was opened by the Prince Eegent csi the 28th January, the speech from the throne expressing in ominous terms the resolution of the ministry " to omit no precaution for preserving the public peace, and for counteracting the designs of the disaffected." The Commons then went to their own House, and were about to begin what promised to be a vigorous debate on the Address, when a message from the Lords arrived with intelligence of a gross outrage that had been offered to the Prince Eegent on his way from Parliament, and requesting an imme- diate conference in the Painted Chamber. The Commons on arriving there found that the Lords had already agreed to an R u 290 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap, ■address, expressing their " deepest concern and indignation that there should be found any individual in His Majesty's dominions capable of an attack so daring and flagitious, and desiring that measures be taken without delay to discover and bring to justice the aiders and abettors of the atrocious proceeding." The reference to " aiders and abettors " accorded so entirely with passages in the speech evidently directed against prominent political men whom no one heretofore had dared to charge with abetting sedition, that public feeling and opinion almost imme- diately took the form of disputing that there had been any outrage at all of a more serious character than a stone flung through the windows of the state carriage, and that perhaps an accident. The Times allowed that there had been some expres- sions of disapprobation among the people who lined the road along which the Prince passed to Parliament ; and though there had been nothing to excite alarm, it was noticed that the delivering of the speech by the Prince betokened spiritssomewhatdepressed. The Morning Chronicle suggested that the outrage was a pure accident. The Courier denied that there had been any want of firmness in the Prince's tone when reading the speech, and as for disapprobation or discontent in the crowd, nothing of the kind reached the royal ears, while what there was of such a vile nature was drowned by huzzas. The Examiner said that " the hissing and groaning continued more or less during the progress to and from Parliament, and the only attempt at applause was at the back of Carlton House, where about six hats were waved, and about as many cheers given .... The mob followed on both sides of the carriage with hissings and groanings both loud and deep." Hone's Reformists' Register, the first number of which was published on February 1st, in time to reflect the popular feeling of the week, turned the alleged outrage into ridicule. Upon what evidence, Mr. Hone asked, were people invited to believe that the Prince had been fired at ? Why, '' on that of the Duke of Montrose, Master of the Horse, and Lord James Murray, a Lord of the Bedchamber." The number of italicised words, and in capitals, with notes of exclamation, in these and, indeed, in all Mr. Hone's writings, are wonderful to behold. xin.] HONE'S KEGISTER. 291 Half way down the Mall, the writer goes on to say, the window on the left of his Eoyal Highness was broken, and " alarm was excited that it might have proceeded from an air-gun. The state carriage was struck three times, and was broken, and his lord- ship had said, ' not the least doubt it was fractured by bullets.' Some allowance must be made for the noble lord being so confident, when it is recollected that in answer to the first question put to him he said, ' I am a Lord of the Bedchamber.' " Mr. Hone was satisfied that the noble lord was frightened because it was in evMence that " the noble lord thrust his hat into the broken window, and kept it there till the carriage drove into the stable-yard, to keep out bullets. Bravo ! Lord James Murray." All this must have been very vexatious to the court, and more especially since it beyond doubt reflected the opinions of Mr. Hone's readers. The beginning and ending of the Reformists' Register were curious. In the previous month, January 18th and 22nd, Mr. Hone had published two numbers of a serial entitled Hone's Weekly Commentary, which was now discontinued, or, as the advertisement stated, was " merged with the Reformists' Register, which, from the difference of its plan, is altogether a new work." The price of the Commentary had been sixpence ; that of the Register was only twopence ; so that the change of plan evidently involved a great increase of power. From what transpired afterwards it is clear that Hone was aware of Cobbett's determination not again to be sent to prison, and that in the case of the threatened suspension of Habeas Corpus, he would put the Atlantic between him and Lord Sidmouth ; as he did, with a completeness of arrangement that could hardly have been hastily made. Cobbett's Weekly Register had been started almost at the beginning of the century, but for a time had a very uncertain sound politically. In 1803 a change began to pass over the journal, and in 1804 Cobbett was found guilty of a hbel on Lord Eedesdale and other members of the Irish Government. In 1810 he was again convicted for a pamphlet on the flogging of some militiamen, and sentenced to a fine of 1,000/. and to two years' imprisonment. In November u2 292 POPULAR PEOGEESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. 1816, he published his famous "Twopenny Trash," which all at once had a weeklj' sale of 50,000 copies, and an influence on the large body of the people greater than any publication ever had before, or perhaps has had since. It was the text-book of workshops and miUs, and by its bold and unsparing language was fast creating a power which the ministry and others viewed with dismay. That Cobbett would be one of the first persons apprehended in case of suspension of Habeas Corpus was certain ; and Cobbett, who acknowledged that he passionately prized freedom and fresh air, quietly arranged for his passage to America, leaving his character to his friends, and, among them, to William Hone. On the first day of the meeting of Parliament, and before the Address had been voted, Sir Francis Burdett gave notice " that, -on this day month, I shall bring forward a motion for the reform of this House." On the 29th, Lord Cochrane said he had several petitions to present, praying for a reform of Parlia- ment. One, numerously, signed, stated that "the gaols were filled with insolvents, the poorhouses with paupers, the streets with beggars ; that the enormous amount of taxation and debt were the real causes of the nation's misery, and, combined with the objects of placemen, pensioners, and sinecurists, the enormous ■ci-vil list, the military establishment of 150,000 men in profound peace, were a gross insult to the understanding." Sir Wilham Garrow declared the petition, " from the beginning to the end, a contrived, deliberate, and determined libel on the House." Mr. Brougham, in reply to this, made one of his neatest home-thrusts. The petition, which had been declared a libel on the House, began, he said, and ended, with a demand for Parliamentary reform. It was not very happily worded certainly, and pos- sibly the petitioners might have escaped some errors if they had enjoyed the benefit of the Attorney-General's help, " especially if he were a sincere friend to the cause, as he might have been some years ago." This blow was evidently given with great good-wni. Lord Brougham could not resist the temptation long afterwards in his "English Statesmen," to remind his readers that Garrow was known at the Old Bailey as " Old Filch," from XIII.] PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 293 his tendency to steal ideas ; and these are not the only occa- sions on which Sir William felt his keen satire. Mr. Lambe (afterwards Lord Melbourne), Sir WiLliam Geary, Sir Samuel Eomilly, and others, suggested that it would be tantamount to a violation of one of the simplest rights of the constituencies if the House refused to receive the petition. On the other hand, the sentiments of the petition were by common consent declared outrageous. Eventually the House declined, by 135 to 48 votes, to allow the petition to lie on the table. It will be observed that the temper of the House of Commons had changed con- siderably for the worse, since, in 1793 — in the most intense excitement of the French Eevolution — Mr. Grey had presented, among other petitions for reform, that famous one from the " Society of Friends of the People," which occupied half-an-hour in the reading, and completely analysed the state of the popular representation in the House of Commons. Mr. Grey's petition stated facts which went quite as direct to the heart of the question as anything affirmed by Lord Cochrane. The petition of 1817 was written with the evident design of being made a political manifesto ; and that, in spite of its rejection, it becanie. It roundly declared that "the public grievances could not be relieved by members who were the tools of an oligarchy of boroughmongers" — an assertion which must have vexed the House greatly. The other petitions were severally dealt with, and some were received. A general amendment to the Address having been rejected, Lord Cochrane moved another, which contained this passage : — ■ " And this House begs to assure your Eoyal Highness that not one single instance can be discovered in which meetings assem- bled for the purpose of petitioning for Parliamentary reform have been accompanied with any attempt to disturb the pubHc tran- quillity." This was "received with a loud laugh of derision," The amendment was not seconded. The spirit with which Ministers intended to legislate was shown best, however, iu the House of Lords, where Earl Grey stepped to the front with great decision, and declared that the attack on the Eegent called for nothing beyond the usual operation of the law as it stood. He 294 POPULAR PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. [chap. asked the House if it was not in human nature, wlien distressed to express its discontent. He had himself been denounced by public meetings, but it would be one of the last things in his mind to, on that account, restrict free speech. " Will you," he asked, " show the people that you are more anxious to limit their rights than to relieve their wants — to fetter the voice of complaint rather than attend to the prayer of their aggravated distresses V Lord Harrowby significantly asked if there was not sufficient evi- dence before the House to show from whence the opinions which had led to the outrage on the Prince had come. " "Was it aston- ishing, after the dissemination of so many publications tending to excite odium and hatred against the illustrious person at the head of the Government, that an impression of rancour was excited amongst misguided persons smarting under distress, and too prone to listen to calumniators ? " The Marquis Wellesley pronounced " all the theories of reform that had met his eyes or ear as utterly subversive of the constitution. Thank God, they were as impracticable as they were unsound." To Lord Sidmouth, however, belonged the palm of originality in this memorable debate. " Eetrenchment," he said, " had been carried as far as possible, consistent with the interests of the country. It would be for the House to consider whether it should be carried farther. The reduction in the army was lower than sound policy would perhaps allow, and it liad in fact aggravated the distress, by increasing the number of persons out of employment." Mr. Hone printed this with an extraordinary number of capitals and italics. The whole drift of the argument on the side of the Governrntot was to the effect that the distress was owing to the peace, while the Opposition held that it had been caused by the war. It would seem as if Lord Sidmouth hardly could have gone much farther than this in announcing a policy tending to the disintegration of all the relations of classes. Yet he went much farther, and with heartiness and zeal. In answer to the demands for economy and reform, he announced that in three days he would be prepared to present a message from the Prince Eegent with reference to the disaffection of large bodies of men. No one affected to doubt for a moment what this meant. In the XIII.] MR. CANNING AGAINST EEFOKM. 295 Commons, Mr. Canning, who had been made President of the Board of Control, took his determined stand against Parliamentary reform. " Whenever this question should be agitated he was prepared to meet it — not with any objection founded on incon- venience, not with any suggestion of partial or temporary modi- fication, but should be prepared to oppose the remedy by a direct denial of the gTievance. He denied that the House was not, to all useful purposes, an adequate representation of the people." Mr. Canning appears to no great advantage in these debates. His eloquence, it is true, never flags, but when the mind recurs to the enlightened sentiments of Charles James Fox more than twenty years earlier, it is dif&cult to look upon the course taken by Canning in the interests of one of the least noble of English administrations as other than exceedingly melancholy. Lord Brougham has ably pointed out that of all men Mr. Canning had acquired a reputation for liberal statesmanship on the slightest possible grounds. To his high sounding declaration about calling a new world into existence to redress the balance of the old, and some like remarks, Lord Brougham ascribes an entire miscon- ception of Canning's character as a statesman. Brougham and the new Whigs on their own part clashed almost as markedly with the men who were demanding reform. The fiery orator roundly denied that the suffrage was an ancient right of Englishmen. The ancient right was one of villeinage, not of freedom ; the latter was a privilege conferred. Hone's Register represents the violent feeling that was fast rising against the Whigs, and especially against Brougham ; a feeling already referred to in a former chapter. If the Whig organ could have shown anything like real sympathy with the people in their dis- tresses, it might have led them to good results. But no irony, or sarcasm, or denunciation of the Tory Qttarterly surpassed the irony, denunciation and sarcasm of the Whig Eeview when it dealt with the mass meetings held for reform, and with the incendiary publi- cations, the "Twopenny Trash" of Cobbett, the Reformists' Register of Hone, and like productions, which appeared without the Whig imprimatur. It is very clear indeed that the real grievance with men like Brougham and Sydney Smith was the refusal of the 296 POPULAR PEOGEBSS IN ENGLAND. [chap. ■untaught masses to accept Whig leadership. Wherever the leadership of Brougham was allowed, his language was rarely so conservative as it was at this critical time in Parliament, and was often to the last degree radical. It is hard to say of two men like Lord Brougham and the Rev. Sydney Smith that not only were the masses of the people opposed to them, but that they had reason to be so, and that if they were bitter in language and tone, they were treated with a refinement o satire that oyng and others, 318 ; defence of the spy system in Pailia- ment, ibid. ; the spy Reynolds, 320 ; his infamy and his reward, ibid. ; the spy Castles, exposure of, by Sir Charles Wetherell, 344 ; the spies and Richard Oarlile, 359. Stanhope, Earl, President of the Revo- lution Society, 1V7, 180. Steele, Richard, a Whig journalist, 66 ; made Sir Richard, 72 ; see also the "Press." Stephenson, George, England's debt to, 583. Stowell, Lord ; see Eldon. Sunday-schools, in connection with Wesley and Raikes, 105 ; Samuel Bamford taught at, 310 ; general view of, 575. Swift, Dean, his powerful writing against the Hanoverian succession, 57 ; his keen satire, ibid. ; for Church and King, ibid. ; satire against him affixed to the cathedral door when he was made dean, ibid. ; see also the "Press." Temple, Lord ; see the Grenvilles. Tennison, Archbishop, at the declara- tion of the succession of George I , 65. Terror, Reign of, in England, 188; see also Wedderburn, Kenyon, and Eldon. Test Act passed, 13 ; repeal of, de- manded by James IL, 38 ; refusal of Parliament, 39; Act illegally set aside by eleven judges, including Lord Chief Justice Herbert, 40. Thackeray, Mr., on the landing of George I., 63 ; and on the Hues which an " eminent divine " wrote on the death of George 11., 103 ; appeal of, to America, 354 ; "this fribble of a prince," 414. Thurlow, Lord, reference to, 90 ; en- treating the Lords to put down adultery, 91 ; his cant derided by Wilkes, 92 ; Attorney-General, 129; Lord Chancellor in the Shelburne Government, 134 ; prosecutes Home Tooke vindictively, 142 ; first meet- ing of Thurlow and Tooke after the trial, ibid. ; their subsequent cordial intercourse, ibid. ; defeated by Lord Camden on the law of libel, 182; ignominiously dismissed from the Lord Chancellorship by Pitt, 188 ; Thurlow a "patriot," ibid. ; rela- tion to Tooke, 207 ; reference to, 412, 414. Tillotson, Archbishop, the friend of John Howe, 21 ; reproved by Howe for a divine right sermon, 25 ; raised to the Primacy, 46. "Times," prosecution of, 177 ; attack upon by Hone, 324; comment on Hone's first trial, 391 ; dispute with the " Chronicle," 392 ; on Hone's second ti-ial, 418 ; on the third trial, 450 ; see also Press. Tooke, Home, introductory reference to, 1 ; a clergyman of the Estab- lished Church, 141 ; charged at the Guildhall on an ra-q^cto information, ibid. ; first meeting and subsequent 630 INDEX. intercourse with Lord Thurlow, 143 ; is refused admission to the Bar, 144 ; his valuable contributions to litera- ture, ibid. ; denounced by Cobbett, 187 ; action of, against Fox, before Lord Kenyon, 196 ; trial of, for high treason, 204 — 211 ; specimens of his wit and sarcasm, ibid. ; death of, in 1812, ibid. Tories, the, introductory reference to, 2 ; party spirit of, and of the Whigs, 4 ; watchword of, 5 ; first use of the term Tory, 19 ; Tory supremacy in the Ministry and Parliament in the reign of Queen Anne, 48 ; long lease of Government under Lord Liver- pool, 233. Tower of London, Lord Essex commits suicide in, 17 ; the seven bishops sent to, 40 ; Marlborough sent to, by Queen Mary, 46 ; Oxford, Lord, committed to, 67 ; two members of the House of Commons committed . to, 140 ; attack on of the Spa Fields Rioters, 263. Townshend, Charles, Chancellor of Exchequer, 125 ; proposes new taxes on the Americans, 126 ; death and character of, 127. Townshend, Lord, brother-in-law of Sir R. Walpole, 78. Treason Bill passed, 46. Triennial Parliament Bill rejected by William III., but carried subse- quently, 46 ; repealed by the Whigs, 69. Trimmers, political, the, in the reign of James II., 39 ; their predecessors and successors, ibid. ; the Trimmers against James, 40 ; the clergy as Trimmers, ibid. : Trimmers in the reign of William III., 42; Marl- borough, 43. U. Uniformity, Act of, passed, 10 ; Lord EUenborough's view of, 431. Union Jack, the, adopted as the flag oi Great Britain, 49. V. Victoria, Queen, the succession, 62; relation of the Duchess of Kent to Prince Leopold, 363 ; impartiality of the Queen as between parties, 559 ; John Bright's allegiance to, 563 ; Radical address to, 593 ; heal- ing influence of the Queen's reign, 601. W. Wakefield, Rev. Gilbert, prosecution of, 233. Walpole, Sir Robert, 59 ; temporary disgrace of, 64 ; skilful intrigue for the Hanoverian succession, 65 ; rise to power, 67 ; deals with Convo- cation, 69 ; Septennial Parliament Act, ibid. ; press prosecutions, 72 ; opposed by the party of Prince Frederick, 76 ; and especially by Pitt, ibid. ; hatred of the Duchess of Marl- borough to, ibid. ; his many enemies, 78 ; his isolation, 79 ; his contempt for Nonconformity and for literature, 80 ; cajoles the bishops, 81 ; motion that he be dismissed from his Majesty's councils, ibid. ; first Prime Minister, ibid. ; Lord Oiford, 82 ; threatened with impeachment, ibid. ; retirement of, ibid. ; death, ibid. ; and character, 83 ; attempts of, to reduce the debt, ibid. ; reference to his latter days, 84, 129 ; final reference to, 565, 585. Walter, Mr., imprisoned ; see the " Times " and the Press. Washington, George, " Esquire," 132 ; retirement from public Hie, 215. Waterlow, Sir Sydney, 575. Watt, James, and steam-power, 154. Wellesley, Marqiiis of, Governor- General of India, 217 ; Secretary for Foreign Affairs, 233 ; pronounces all theories of reform impracticable, 294 ; objects to suspending the law, 304. Wellington, Duke of, position of, at the breaMng out of the French Revolu- tion, 177; in India, 217; leaves Madras for England, 227 ; secretaiy for Ireland, 230 ; commands the force sent to seize the Danish fleet, 231 ; embarks for Portugal, 232 ; satirised by Hone, 469, 536. Wesley, John, great work of, 103. Wharton, Lord, a leading Whig, author of the famous ballad, " LiUebulero," 65 ; character of, 70. Wharton, Lord, son of the above, offers in the House of Lords to defend im- moral clubs against the bishops and INDEX. 631 from the Bible, 73 ; Pope's descrip- tion of, ibid. Whigs, public services of, 2; party spirit of, and of the Tories, i ; Whig watchword, 5 ; the term Whig first used, 19 ; see also, Charles James Fox, Earl Grey, Press, and French E evolution. Wilberforce, Mr., his high position in the House of Commons, 149 ; motion against the slave trade, 167. Wilkes, John, birth and position of, 111; the "North Briton," ibid.; attack on the King's Speech, 112 ; arrested on a general warrant, ibid. ; released by Sir Charles Pratt, Lord Camden, ibid. ; his "Essay on Woman " condemned by Lord Sand- wich, 113 ; disgust arising from Lord Sandwich's noted immorality, ibid. ; recovers damages for unlawful arrest, 114; Lord Camden denounces the arrest, ibid. ; Wilkes withdraws to the continent, ibid. ; his return and im- pi-isonment by Lord Mansfield, 116 ; the judgment challenged by Lord Camden, 117 ; elected High Sheriff, and Lord Mayor, and five times member for Middlesex, ibid. ; Minute against, on the records of the House of Commons reversed, ibid. ; cha- racter of, 117, 118 ; releases two printers imprisoned by order of the JHCouse of Commons, 140; quarrel of, with Home Tooke, 144 ; his conduct during the Lord George Gordon riots, 161. William IIL as Prince of Orange in- vited to rescue England from the tyranny of James II., 41 ; his diffi- cult position on the throne, 42 ; the intrigue against him, ibid. ; his high title to the throne, 43 ; the Bill of Rights and the Mutiny Act, 44 ; WUliam's proposal to admit Dis- senters to places of tnist, ibid. ; the Toleration Act, ibid. ; William in Ireland, 45 ; his error in casting off Sarsfield, ibid. ; the massacre of Glen- coe, ibid. ; a Tory Parliament, ibid. ; foundation of the National Debt and the Bank of England, 46 ; Queen Mary, ibid ; La Hogue and Green- wich Hospital, ibid. ; Bill for Trien- nial Parliaments refused and then accepted by William, ibid. ; Treason Act, ibid. ; liberty of the press, ibid. ; William as a general, 47 ; his hatred to Louis XIV. , ibid. ; his wars and his kingliness, ibid. ; insult offered to his memory in the reign of Anne, 50. "Wonderful Walker," a clergyman of the old time, 54. Wooler, Jonathan, and the Black Dwarf, 335, 336 ; libel of, 347 ; trial and able speech, 347—349; great service to liberty in revision of jury lists, ibid. ; his victory, 356 ; speech at the London Tavern, 447. Wordsworth, influence of his writings, 173 ; oppcsition to railways to flie lakes, 259. Wyatt, see Hargraves. Y. Yarmouth, Lady, the King's mistress, sells a bishopric, 102 ; the last woman of her class ennobled in England, ibid. Yorke, Lord Chancellor, son of Lord Hardwioke, 90. THE END. LONDON K. OLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOfi, PUINTEBS, BRKAD STREET HILL, QUEEN VICTOR r\ STREET. i^^t^iji* rfti".^ t'riVito.d^»*.ii