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 LIBRARY 
 
HISTORY OF EUROPE 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 FALL OF NAPOLEON 
 
 IN MDCCCXV 
 
 TO THE 
 
 ACCESSION OF LOUIS NAPOLEON 
 
 IN MDCCCLII 
 
 SIR ARCHIBALD ALISON, BART., D.C.L 
 
 Author of the ' History of Europe from the Commencement of the French 
 Revolution in 1789, to the Battle of Waterloo,' 4c. 4c. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 EIOBTH THOUSAND 
 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS 
 
 I;DiK:BtJV.GH ANv;) -LONDON 
 
 MDCC'CLXIV^ ^j 
 
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 During a period of peace the eras of 
 history cannot be so clearly perceived 
 on a first and superficial glance as when 
 they are marked by the decisive events 
 of war ; but they are not, on that 
 account, the less obvious when their 
 respective limits have been once as- 
 certained. The triumphs of parties in 
 the senate-house or the forum are not, 
 in general, followed by the same im- 
 mediate and decisive results as those 
 of armies in the field ; and their con- 
 sequences are often not fully developed 
 for several years after they have taken 
 place. But they are equally real and 
 decisive. The results do not follow 
 with less certainty from the move- 
 ments which have preceded them. It is 
 in tracing these results, and connecting 
 them with the changes in legislation 
 or opinion in which they originated, 
 that the great interest and utility of 
 the history of pacific periods consists. 
 The periods which have passed over 
 during the thirty-seven years of Euro- 
 pean national peace— from the Fall of 
 Napoleon in 1815, to the Accession of 
 Louis Napoleon in 1852 — are not so 
 vividly marked as those which occur- 
 red during the wars of the French Re- 
 volution, but they have a distinctness 
 of their own, and the changes in which 
 they terminated were not less eventful. 
 The resumption of cash payments in 
 England in 1819 was not, to outward 
 appearance, so striking an event as the 
 battle of Austerlitz, but it was follow- 
 ed by results of equal permanent im- 
 portance. The Reform Bill was not the 
 cause of so visible a change in human 
 affairs as the battle of Waterloo, but it 
 was attended with consequences equal- 
 
 ly grave and lasting. "Without pre- 
 tending to have discerned with perfect 
 accuracy, as yet, the most important 
 of the many important events which 
 have signalised this memorable era, it 
 may be stated that it natui'ally divides 
 itself into five periods. 
 
 The First, commencing with the 
 entry of the Allies into Paris after the 
 fall of Napoleon, terminates with the 
 passing of the Currency Act of 1819 in 
 England, and the gi'eat creation of peers 
 in the democratic interest during the 
 same year in France. This period em- 
 braces the treat}' of Paris which closed 
 the war, the Congress of Aix - la - Cha- 
 pelle, and establishment of the gov- 
 ernment of the Restoration in France, 
 and the commencement of the social 
 changes and financial embarrassments 
 which have since become so serious in 
 Great Britain. The eftects of the mea- 
 sures pursued dviring this period were 
 not perceived at the time, but they are 
 very apparent now. The seeds which 
 produced such decisive results in after 
 times were all sown during its continu- 
 ance. 
 
 The Second Period is still more 
 clearly marked, for it begins with the 
 entire establishment of a Liberal gov- 
 ernment and system of administration 
 in France in 1819, and ends with the 
 Revolution which overthrew Charles X. 
 in 1830. Foreign transactions begin, 
 during this era, to become of impor- 
 tance, for it embraces the revolutions 
 of Spain, Portugal, Naples, and Pied- 
 mont, in 1820 ; the congresses of Lay- 
 bach, Troppau, and Verona ; the French 
 invasion of Spain in 1823, and over- 
 throw of the Revolution in that coun- 
 
 24858 
 
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION 
 
 try and Portugal ; the rise of Greece 
 as an independent state in the same 
 year, and battle of Navarino ; the im- 
 portant wars of Russia with Turkey 
 and Persia in 1828 and 1829 ; and the 
 vast conquests of England in India over 
 the Goorkhas and Burmese Empire. 
 The topics this period embraces are 
 more various and exciting than those 
 in tlie first, but thej'- are not more im- 
 jiortant : they are the growth which 
 followed the seeds previously sown. 
 England and France were still the 
 leaders in the movement ; the convul- 
 sions of the world were but the conse- 
 quence of the throes in their bosoms. 
 
 The Third Period commences with 
 the great debate on the Reform Bill — 
 of two 3^ears' continuance — in England 
 in 1831, and ends with the overthrow 
 of the Whig Ministry, by the election 
 of October 1841. The great and last- 
 ing effects of the cliange in the consti- 
 tution of Great Britain, by the passing 
 of the Reform Act, partially developed 
 themselves during this period ; and 
 the return of Sir Robert Peel to power 
 was the first great reaction against 
 them. During the same time, the na- 
 tural effects of the Revolution in France 
 appeared in the government, unavoid- 
 able in the circumstances, of mingled 
 force and corruption of Louis Philippe, 
 and the growth of discontent in the in- 
 ferior classes of society, from the disap- 
 pointment of their expec^-tations as to 
 the results of the previous convulsion. 
 Foreign episodes of surpassing interest 
 signalise this period, for it contains 
 the heroic effort of the Poles to restore 
 their national independence in 1831 ; 
 the heartrending episode of the Car- 
 list war in Spain and Portugal ; the 
 revolt of Ibraliim Pacha, the bom- 
 bardment of Acre, and the narrow es- 
 cape of Turkey from ruin ; our inva- 
 sion of Affghanistan, and subsequent 
 disaster there. Never did the Crescent 
 wane before the Cross as during its 
 continuance. 
 
 The Fourth Period, commencing 
 with the noble constancy in adversity 
 displayed by Sir Robert Peel and the 
 English Government in 1842, termin- 
 ates with the overthrow of Louis Phil- 
 ippe, and consequent European Revo- 
 
 lutions, in February 1848. If these 
 years were fraught with internal and 
 social changes of the very highest mo- 
 ment to the future fortunes of Great 
 Britain, and of the whole civilised 
 world, they were not less distinguished 
 by the brilliancy of her external tri- 
 umphs. Then it was that the old po- 
 licy of the empire was abandoned, and 
 free trade in corn, provisions, sugar, 
 and shipping introduced in its stead. 
 Then began the great emigration from 
 the British Islands ; then for the first 
 time its population, which had ad- 
 vanced unceasingly from the time of 
 Alfred, began for some years to de- 
 cline, and permanently to advance at 
 a retarded rate. But these years, so 
 strongly marked by alternate prospe- 
 rity and suffering at home, exhibit- 
 ed nothing but uniform success and 
 triumph abroad. They witnessed the 
 second expedition into Affghanistan 
 and capture of Cabul ; the conclusion 
 of a glorious peace with China under 
 the Avails of Nankin ; the conquest of 
 Scinde, and desperate passage of arms 
 on the Sutlej. Never did appear in 
 such striking colours the immense su- 
 periority which the arms of civilisation 
 had acquired over those of barbarism, 
 as in this brief and animating period. 
 The Fifth Period commences with 
 the overthrow of Louis Philippe in 
 February 1848, and terminates with 
 the seizure of supreme power by Louis 
 Napoleon in 1852. It is, beyond all 
 example, rich in external and internal 
 events of the very highest moment, 
 and attended by lasting consequences 
 in every part of the world. It wit- 
 nessed the spread of revolution over 
 Germany and Italy, and the desperate 
 military strife to which it gave rise ; 
 the brief but memorable campaigns in 
 Italy and Hungary ; and the bloodless 
 suppression of revolution in Great Bri- 
 tain and Ireland by the patriotism of 
 her people and the firmness of her 
 Government. Interesting, however, 
 as these events were, they yield in 
 ultimate importance to those Avhich, 
 at the same period, were in progress 
 in the distant parts of the earth. The 
 rich territories of the Punjaub were 
 duiinsc it added to the British domin- 
 
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 ions in India, which came thus to be 
 hounded only by the Indus and the 
 Himalaya snows. At the same time, 
 the spirit of republican aggrandise- 
 ment, not less powerful in the ISTew 
 than in the Old World, impelled the 
 Anglo-Saxons over their feeble neigh- 
 bours in Mexico ; Texas was overrun 
 ■ — California conquered — and the 
 discovery of gold mines, of vast extent 
 and surpassing riches, hitherto un- 
 known to man, changed the fortunes 
 of the world. The simultaneous dis- 
 covery of mines of the same precious 
 metal in Australia, acted as a mag- 
 net, which attracted the stream of mi- 
 gration and civilisation, for the first 
 time in the history of mankind, to the 
 Eastern Avorld ; Germany, convulsed 
 by democratic passions, came to send 
 a hundred and fifty thousand emi- 
 grants to the New World ; and now, 
 while half a million Europeans annu- 
 ally land in America, and double the 
 already marvellous rate of Transat- 
 lantic increase, nearly seventy thou- 
 sand Anglo - Saxons yearly migrate to 
 Australia, and lay the foundations of a 
 second England and another Europe, 
 in the vast seats provided there for 
 their reception. 
 
 Events so wonderful, and succeeding 
 one another Avith such rapidity, must 
 impress upon the most inconsiderate 
 observer the belief of a great change go- 
 ing forward in human atlairs, of which 
 we are the unconscious instruments. 
 That change is the second dlsj'ER- 
 siON OF mankind ; the sjiread of civil- 
 isation, the extension of Christianity, 
 over the hitherto desert and unpeopled 
 parts of the earth. AH the changes 
 which have occurred during the period 
 have conspired to bring about this re- 
 sult. They began with the first French 
 Revolution — the publication of The 
 Rights of Man first set them in motion ; 
 they will terminate only Avith the end 
 of the Avorld. It is hard to say whe- 
 ther the passions of ci-\nlisation, the 
 discoveries of science, or the treasures 
 of the wilderness, have acted most 
 powerfully in working out this great 
 change. The first develo])ed the energy 
 in the breast of civilised man, Avhich 
 rendered him capable of great achieve- 
 
 ments, and inspired him with passions 
 which prompted him to seek a wider 
 and more unfettered theatre for their 
 gratification than the Old World could 
 artbrd ; the second, in the discoveries 
 of steam, furnished liimAviththe means 
 of reaching Avith facility the most re- 
 mote regions, and armed him with 
 powers which rendered barbarous na- 
 tions powerless to repel his advance ; 
 the third presented irresistible attrac- 
 tions, at the same time, in the most 
 remote parts of the earth, which over- 
 came the attachments of home and the 
 indolence of aged civilisation, and sent 
 forth the hardy emigrant, a willing 
 adventurer, to seek his fortune in the 
 golden lottery of distant lands, No 
 such powerful causes, producing the 
 dispersion of the species, have come 
 into operation since mankind were 
 originally separated on the Assyrian 
 plains ; and it took jilace from an at- 
 tempt, springing from the pride and 
 ambition of man, as vain as the build- 
 ing the ToAver of Babel. 
 
 That attempt AA'as the endeavour to 
 establish social felicity, and insure the 
 fortunes of the species, by the mere 
 spread of knowledge, and the estab- 
 lishment of democratic institutions, 
 irrespective of religious influence or 
 the moral training of the people. As 
 this project A\^as based on the pride of 
 intellect, and rested on the doctrine of 
 human perfectibility, so it met Avith 
 the same result as the attempt, by a 
 tOAver raised by human hands, to 
 reach the heavens. The Avhole history 
 of Europe, from 1789 to the period 
 Avith AA'hich this History closes, is but 
 the annals of the unsuccessful eff"orts 
 of man to reach this unattainable ob- 
 ject. EveryAA'here it met Avith the 
 most signal failure. Carried into exe- 
 cution by fallible agents, it Avas met 
 and tliAA^arted by their usual passions ; 
 and the selfishness and grasping de- 
 sires of men led to a scene of discord and 
 confusion, unparalleled since the begin- 
 ning of the Avorld. It terminated in the 
 same result in Europe and America as in 
 Asia: the building of the political Tower 
 of Babel in France Awas attended by con- 
 sequences identical Avith those which 
 had followed the construction of its 
 
PREFACE TO THE EIEST EDITION. 
 
 predecessor on the plains of Sliinar. 
 The dispersion of mankind followed in 
 both cases — thongh in the latter after 
 a long interval — the vain attempt. 
 At last, through the agency of, and 
 after enduring a protracted period of 
 suffering, men in surpassing multitudes 
 found tlieniselves settled in new habi- 
 tations, and for ever severed from the 
 land of their birth, from the conse- 
 quences of the visionary projects in 
 which they had been engaged. The 
 development of the Avay in which this 
 eftect took place, and the means by 
 which it was worked out hj the un- 
 conscious activity of free agents, forms 
 the great object of this history. 
 
 Views of this kind must, in the pre- 
 sent aspect of human affairs, force 
 themselves upon the most inconsider- 
 ate mind ; and they tend at once to 
 unfold the designs of Providence, so 
 manifest in the direction of human 
 affairs, and to reconcile us to much 
 which might lead to desponding views 
 if we confined our survey to the for- 
 tunes of particular states. An examin- 
 ation of the social and political con- 
 dition of the principal European mon- 
 archies, particularly France and Eng- 
 land, at this time, and a retrospect of 
 the changes they have undergone dur- 
 ing the last thirty years, must proba- 
 bly lead every impartial person to the 
 conclusion that the period of their 
 greatest national eminence has passed, 
 and tliat the passions by which they 
 are now animated are those which 
 tend to shorten their existence. But 
 we shall cease to regard this inevi- 
 table change with melancholy, when 
 we reflect that, from the effect of 
 these ver}'" passions, the European, 
 and especially the I3ritish, family is 
 rapidly increasing in distant hemi- 
 spheres, and that the human race is 
 deriving fresh life and vigoui*, and 
 spreading over the wilds of nature, 
 from the causes which portend its de- 
 cline in its former habitations. 
 
 As the history of a period fraught 
 with such momentous changes, and 
 distinguished by such ceaseless and 
 rapid progress, as that which is under- 
 taken in this work, of necessity brings 
 the Author in contact with all the gi-eat 
 
 questions, social and political, whiclx 
 have agitated society during its con- 
 tinuance, he has deemed it essential 
 invariably to follow out the two rules 
 which were observed in his former 
 publication. These Avere, to give at 
 the end of every paragraph the autho- 
 rities, by volume and page, on which 
 it is founded ; and never to introduce 
 a great question without giving as co- 
 pious an abstract as the limits of the 
 work Avill admit, of the facts and argu- 
 ments brought forward on both sides. 
 The latter especially seemed to be 
 peculiarly called for in a history Avliich 
 is more occupied with social and poli- 
 tical than with military changes, and 
 which embraces a period when the vic- 
 tories were won in the forum or the 
 senate-house even more than the field. 
 The Author has made no attempt to 
 disguise his own opinion on every sub- 
 ject; but he has not exerted himself 
 the less anxiously to give, with all the 
 force and clearness in his power, those 
 which are adverse to it ; and he should 
 regret to think that the reader could 
 find in any other publication a more 
 forcible abstract of the arguments in 
 favour of Parliamentary Reform, a 
 Contracted Currency founded on the 
 retention of gold, or Free Trade in 
 corn and shipping, than are to be met 
 with in this. 
 
 In making this abstract he has 
 adopted two rules, which seemed es- 
 sential to the combining a faithful 
 record of opposite opinions with the 
 interests and limits necessary in a work 
 of general history. The first is to give 
 one argimient only on each side, and 
 not attempt to give separate abstracts 
 of the speeches of different men. Fe- 
 licitous or eloquent expressions are 
 occasionally preserved ; but, in gen- 
 eral, the oration given is rather an 
 abridgment of the best parts of the 
 arguments of many different speakers, 
 than a quoted transcript of the speech 
 of any one. That this is necessary, 
 must be obvious, from the considera- 
 tion that the Author is often called on 
 to give the marrow of an argument in 
 three or four pages, which is expended 
 over some hundreds of Hansard or the 
 Monitcicr ; and it is surprising how 
 
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 effectually, when the attempt is made 
 in sincerity and good faith, it proves 
 successful. The second is, when a sub- 
 ject has been once introduced, and the 
 opposite arguments fully given, to dis- 
 miss it afterwards with a mere state- 
 ment of the fate it met with, or the 
 division on it in the Legislature. As 
 the same subject Avas constantly de- 
 bated in both Houses of Parliament, 
 both in France and England, for many 
 consecutive years, any attempt to give 
 an account of each year's debate would 
 both lead to tedious repetition, and 
 extend the work to an immoderate 
 length. 
 
 For a similar reason, although the 
 History is a general one of the whole 
 European States, yet no attempt has 
 been made to bring forward, abreast 
 in every year, the annals of each jiar- 
 ticular State. On the contrary, the 
 transactions of different countries are 
 taken up together, and brought down 
 separately in one or more chapters, 
 through several consecutive years. 
 Thus, the first volume is chiefly occu- 
 pied Avith the internal annals of France 
 and England, from 1815 to 1820, when 
 all the great changes Avhich afterwards 
 took place were prepared ; the second, 
 besides the annals of France and Eng- 
 land, Avith the foreign A\'ars or revolu- 
 tions of Russia, Spain, Greece, and 
 Italy, during the next ten years. In 
 no other Avay is it possible to enable 
 the reader to form a clear idea of the 
 succession of cA^ents in each particular 
 State, or take that interest in its for- 
 
 tunes which is indispensable to success 
 or utility, not less in the narrative of 
 real, than in the conception of ima- 
 ginary events. 
 
 One very interesting subject is treat- 
 ed of at considerable length in these 
 volumes, Avhich could not, from the 
 pressure of Avarlike events, be intro- 
 duced at equal length into the Author's 
 former Avork. This is an account of 
 Literature, Manners, the Arts, and so- 
 cial changes in tlie principal European 
 States during the period it embraces. 
 An entire chapter on this subject, re- 
 garding Great Britain, has been intro- 
 duced into the first volume ; similar 
 ones, relating to literature and the arts 
 in France, Germany, Spain, and Italy, 
 Avill succeed in those which folloAV. 
 This plan has been adopted from more 
 than an anxious desire — strong as that 
 motive is — to relieve the reader's mind, 
 and present subjects of study more gen- 
 erally interesting than the weightier 
 matters of social and political change. 
 During pacific periods, it is in the 
 literature, which interests the public 
 mind, that is placed the true seat of 
 the power which directs it ; and if Ave 
 would discover the real rulers of man- 
 kind, AA'e shall find them rather in their 
 philosophers and literary men than 
 either their statesmen or their generals. 
 The only difference is, that it is a post- 
 humous dominion in general AA'hich 
 the author obtains : his reign does not 
 begin till he himself is mouldering in 
 the grave. 
 
 A. ALISON. 
 
 Fossil House, Lanarkshire, 
 October S, 1852. 
 
CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 GENERAL SKETCH OF THE WHOLE PERIOD FROM THE FALL OF NAPOLEON TO 
 THE ACCESSION OF LOUIS NAPOLEON. 
 
 Page 
 . 1 
 , ih. 
 
 Kesume of the war just concluded, , 
 
 Characteristics of the second drama, 
 
 Causes in France which predisposed 
 to the Revolution of 1830, . 
 
 And which made England share in 
 the convulsion, .... 
 
 Great effects of the Revolution in 
 both countries, .... 
 
 Vast extension of the United States 
 of America, .... 
 
 Vast increase of Russia during the 
 same period, .... 
 
 Simultaneous conquests of the Bri- 
 tish in India, and their origin in 
 necessity, 
 
 Revolution of 1848 in Paris, . 
 
 Extreme violence of the Revolution 
 in Germany, .... 
 
 Successful stand against the revo- 
 lutionary spirit in England and 
 France, 
 
 Restoration of military power in 
 Austria and in France, 
 
 Effects of the Revolution of 184S, . 
 
 Dangers of Great Britain in parti- 
 cular, 
 
 Gold mines of California and Aus- 
 tralia, 
 
 Undue influence of wealth in the 
 later stages of society. 
 
 Influence of contraction and expan- 
 sion of the currency, . 
 
 Great distress from its contraction 
 since the peace, .... 
 
 Prospects of industry in Great Bri- 
 tain, 
 
 Effect of the discovery of the Cali- 
 fornian gold, .... 
 
 What if California had not been dis- 
 covered? 21 
 
 Application of steam to mechanical 
 labour, 22 
 
 ih. 
 
 And importance of its being inap- 
 plicable to agriculture, . . 23 
 
 Influence of this law on the fate of 
 particular nations, . . .24 
 
 Effect of general education on mor- 
 ality, .25 
 
 Influence of mind on human affairs, 28 
 
 Ease with which the press may be 
 perverted to the purposes of des- 
 potism, 29 
 
 Effect of the discovery of steam and 
 electric communication, . . ih. 
 
 General longing after representative 
 institutions, . . . .30 
 
 Their effect in Britain, ... 31 
 
 And in America, . . . .32 
 
 Rise of divisions and passions of race, 33 
 
 Error in supposing national charac- 
 ter depends on institutions, . ih. 
 
 Real character of representative in- 
 stitutions, 35 
 
 Effect of the social passions of Eu- 
 rope in propelling its inhabitants 
 to the New World, . . . ih. 
 
 And of the discovery of the gold 
 mines of California and Australia, 36 
 
 Increasing influence of Russian con- 
 quest, 37 
 
 Migratory propensities of men in 
 the youth of civilisation, . . 38 
 
 Necessity of republican institutions 
 to colonial settlements, . . 39 
 
 Adaptation of the Sclavonic and 
 Anglo - Saxon character to the 
 parts assigned them in their pro- 
 gress, 40 
 
 Destiny of the race of Japhet in re- 
 ference to Christianity, ^ . . ih. 
 
 Increasing influence of religion in 
 Europe, 41 
 
 Differences of the era of this history 
 and that of the last, . . .42 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ENGLAND FROM THE PEACE OP PARIS IN 1815 TO THE END OF THE 
 YEAR 1816. 
 
 Page 
 Position of Great Britain at the 
 
 close of the war, . . .43 
 
 Anticipations of general prosperity 
 
 on the peace, . . . .44 
 Disappointment of these hopes, . 45 
 Distress among the export merchants, ib. 
 Its spread to the agriculturists, . 46 
 Scarcity of 1816, .... ih. 
 Diminished supply of the precious 
 
 metals from tSouth America, . 48 
 Contraction of the paper currency 
 
 of Great Britain, . . .49 
 
 Discussions on the Property Tax 
 
 and other topics, . . .50 
 Abolition of the tax, . . .53 
 Remission of the war Malt Tax, . 54 
 Reduced estimates formed by Gov- 
 ernment, 55 
 
 Establishments ultimately voted, 58 
 Debates on agricultural distress, 59 
 
 Measures of Government in regard 
 
 Page 
 to the restriction of cash pay- 
 ments and a loan from the Bank, 63 
 
 Consolidation of the English and 
 Irish Exchequers, . . .67 
 
 Motion respecting the'Holy Alliance 
 by Mr Brougham, . . .68 
 
 Bill for the detention of Napoleon, ib. 
 
 Marriage of the Princess Charlotte 
 of Wales, ..... 69 
 
 Votes for public monuments, . ib. 
 
 Grants to the officers and men em- 
 ployed in the war, . . .70 
 
 New coinage, .... ib. 
 
 Efforts of the factious to stir up 
 sedition, 71 
 
 Spafield riots, .... 72 
 
 Expedition to Algiers, . . . ib. 
 
 The Algerines submit, and peace is 
 concluded, 80 
 
 Honours bestowed on Lord Exmouth 
 and the fleet, . . . .81 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 FRANCE FROM THE SECOND RESTORATION OF LOUIS XVIII. TO THE ORDINANCES 
 OF SEPTEMBER 7, 1816. 
 
 Page 
 
 Difficulties of the Government of 
 France after the battle of Wa- 
 terloo, 83 
 
 Humiliation and sufferings of 
 France at this time, . . .84 
 
 Reaction against Napoleon and his 
 adherents, 85 
 
 Difficulties of Louis XVIII. in the 
 choice of his Ministers, . . 86 
 
 Formation of the Ministry, and re- 
 tirement of Chateaubriand . 87 
 
 The King's proclamation from Cam- 
 bra}', ib. 
 
 His entry into Paris, . . .88 
 
 Violence of the Royalists, . . 89 
 
 Difficulty in regard to the convoca- 
 tion of the Chambers, and de- 
 bates on it, . . . . ib. 
 
 Royal ordinance, changing the 
 modes and rules of election, . 90 
 
 Disunion between the King and the 
 Duke d'Angoul§me and Count 
 d'Artois, 91 
 
 The freedom of the press is restored 
 in all but the journals, . . 92 
 
 Page 
 Reasons which rendered the punish- 
 ment of the leading Napoleonists 
 
 necessary, 92 
 
 Lists of persons to be accused pre- 
 pared by Fouch^, . . .93 
 Ordinances regarding the Chamber 
 
 of Peers, ib. 
 
 Arrival of the Allied Sovereigns in 
 
 Paris, 94 
 
 Disbanding of the army of the Loire, 95 
 Reorganisation of the army, . . 96 
 Breaking up of the Museum, , ib. 
 
 State of the finances, . . .97 
 Settlements of the Allied troops in 
 
 France, and their exactions, . 98 
 Reaction in the south, . . . ib. 
 IVIarshal Brune, . . . .99 
 Murdered at Avignon, . . . 100 
 Farther massacres in the south, . ib. 
 Persecution of the Protestants, . 101 
 Temper of France during the elec- 
 tions, 102 
 
 Their ultra-Royalist character, . ib. 
 Dismissal of Fouch^, , . . 103 
 Fall of Talleyrand and his Ministry, 104 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 Ministry of the Duke de Richelieu, 105 
 Of M. Decazes, . . . .106 
 The negotiations with the Allied 
 
 powers, . . . . . 107 
 Exorbitant demands of Austria and 
 
 the lesser powers, . . . 108 
 Treaty of Paris, .... ih. 
 Convention for the exclusion of Na- 
 poleon and his family from the 
 throne of France, . . . 109 
 The Holy Alliance, . . .110 
 
 Treaties regarding the Ionian Isles, 
 a Russian subsidy, and Napoleon 
 Buonaparte, . . . .111 
 
 Temper and disposition of the Cham- 
 ber of Deputies, .... 113 
 Composition and parties in the 
 
 Chambers, ib. 
 
 Composition of the Chamber of 
 
 Peers, 115 
 
 Opening of the Chamber, and speech 
 
 of the King, . . . .116 
 Difficulties at taking the Oath of 
 
 Fidelity, 117 
 
 Law against seditious cries, . . 118 
 Law suspending individual liberty, ' 119 
 Law establishing courts-martial for 
 
 political offences, ... 120 
 
 Proposal for rendering the inferior 
 
 judges removable during a year, ih. 
 Discussion on the Acts in the Peers, 121 
 Colonel Labedoyere, . . . 124 
 
 His trial and condemnation, 
 
 His death. 
 
 Trial of Marshal Ney, . 
 
 His execution, 
 
 Trial of Lavalette, 
 
 Page 
 . 124 
 . 125 
 . 126 
 . 130 
 . 131 
 
 He escapes from prison by the aid 
 
 of his wife, . . . .132 
 
 Adventures of ]\Iurat after the battle 
 
 of Waterloo, . . . .134 
 His descent on Naples, . . .136 
 
 His death, 138 
 
 Death of Mouton-Duvernet and Ge- 
 neral Chartrand, . . .139 
 General aninest}^, .... 140 
 New law of elections, . . . 142 
 
 The Budget, 144 
 
 Proposition of the Chamber regard- 
 ing the clergy, . . . .146 
 Changes in the administration, . 148 
 Conspiracy of the Liberal party, . 149 
 Outbreak at Grenoble, . . . i6. 
 Speech of M. Decazes in favour of a 
 
 co^lp cVetat, 152 
 
 Preparations for carrying them into 
 
 execution, ..... 153 
 Ordinance of September 5, 1816, . 154 
 Consternation of the ultra-Royalists, 
 
 and dismissal of Chateaubriand, . ib. 
 The reaction of 1815, . . .156 
 Expedience of abolishing entirely 
 the punishment of death in purely 
 political offences, . . . 158 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ENGLAND FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF 1817 TO THE REPEAL OF THE 
 BANK RESTRICTION ACT IN 1819. 
 
 Page 
 Vicissitudes in human affairs, . 159 
 
 Exemplifications of this in France 
 
 and England after the Revolution, ib. 
 Fundamental cause which has led 
 
 to disaster in France, . .160 
 
 What has done so in England, . 161 
 Continued distress and discontent 
 
 in the country, .... 162 
 Planformedof a general insurrection, 163 
 Meeting of Parliament, and attack 
 
 on the Prince- Regent, . . ib. 
 
 Report of. the secret committee in 
 
 both Houses, . . . .164 
 Suspension of the Habeas Corpus 
 
 Act, and passing of the Seditious 
 
 Meetings Act, .... ib. 
 Measures of Government to suppress 
 
 the insurrection, which breaks out 
 
 at Derby, 165 
 
 Restoration of confidence, and im- 
 
 Page 
 proved prospects towards the 
 close of the year, . . . 166 
 
 Finance accounts of 1817, . . 167 
 
 Mr Peel's Irish Insui-rection Act, . ib. 
 
 Trial by jury in civil causes in Scot- 
 land, 168 
 
 Acquittal of Watson and Hone, . 169 
 
 Effects of the suspension of the Ha- 
 beas Corpus Act, . . . 170 
 
 Motion of Mr Brougham regarding 
 the trade and manufactures of the 
 country, 171 
 
 Establishment of savings banks, 
 and diminished severity of pun- 
 ishment in criminal cases, . . ib. 
 
 Return of Mr Canning from Lisbon, 
 and death of Mr Ponsonby and Mr 
 Horner, . . . . ,172 
 
 Mr Horner's life and character, . ib. 
 
 Death of the Princess Charlotte, . 173 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 , 174 
 
 Improved condition of the country, 
 
 Steps of the Bank towards cash pay- 
 ments, 
 
 Bill of Indemnity for persons seized 
 under the suspension of the Ha- 
 beas Corpus Act, ... 
 
 Military and naval forces voted, and 
 revenue, ..... 
 
 Of exports, imports, and shipping, 
 in 1817 and 1818, 
 
 Grant to build new churches. 
 
 Treaty with Spain for the abolition 
 of the slave trade. 
 
 Alien Bill, and Mr Brougham's com- 
 mittee concerning charities, 
 
 Efforts of Sir Samuel Romilly to ob- 
 tain a relaxation of our criminal 
 code, 183 
 
 Death of Sir Samuel Romilly, . ih. 
 
 Death and character of Lord Ellen- 
 borough, 184 
 
 175 
 
 179 
 ih. 
 
 180 
 
 181 
 
 182 
 ib. 
 
 Page 
 Death of Warren Hastings and Sir 
 Philip Franeis, . . . . 185 
 
 Sir James Mackintosh, . . . ib. 
 Death and character of Queen Char- 
 lotte, ...... 187 
 
 Favourable aspect of aflFairs at the 
 opening of 1819, and disasters at 
 
 its close, ib. 
 
 Debates on the currency question, 188 
 Decision of ParUament, . .198 
 Mr Vansittart's finance resolutions, 199 
 His finance plan and new taxes, . 200 
 Sir James Mackintosh's argument 
 in support of criminal law re- 
 form, 200-2 
 
 Clandestine succours sent by the 
 English to the South American in- 
 surgents, 207 
 
 Extent of the aid thus afforded, . 211 
 Punishment which England has re- 
 ceived for this injustice, . . lb. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 PROGRESS OF LITERATURE, SCIENCE, THE ARTS, AND MANNERS, IN GREAT 
 BRITAIN AFTER THE WAR. 
 
 Page 
 Impulse given to literature and 
 
 science after the war, . . . 214 
 Rapid progress of steam navigation 
 
 in Britain, 215 
 
 And of the cotton manufacture, . ib. 
 Progress in other branches of manu- 
 facture, 216 
 
 Brilliant eras in literature which 
 generally succeed those of great 
 public dangers, . . . .217 
 Literary character of Sir Walter 
 
 Scott, ih. 
 
 Lord Byron, 219 
 
 Moore as a lyric poet, . . . 220 
 Campbell: his vast and noble ge- 
 nius, 222 
 
 Rogers's Pleasures of Memory, . ih. 
 Southey : his peculiar character, . 223 
 Wordsworth : his character as a 
 
 writer, and great fame, . . 224 
 Coleridge — his poetic character ; 
 
 and Shelley, . . . .225 
 
 Mrs Hemans, .... 226 
 
 Crabbe, ih. 
 
 Joanna Baillie, 227 
 
 Tennyson, ih. 
 
 Character of the prose compositions 
 
 of the period, .... ib. 
 Dugald Stewart, .... 228 
 Dr Brown, . . . . . ih. 
 Paley, ...... 229 
 
 and 
 
 Sir William Hamilton, . 
 Malthus, ... 
 
 Ricardo, M'Culloch, Senior 
 
 Mill : . 
 
 Davy, Brunei, Telford, Rennie, 
 Stephenson, . . . . 
 
 Herschel, Playfair, D'Israeli, Ali- 
 son, 
 
 Modern geology : Buckland, Sedge- 
 wick, Sir Charles Lyell, and Sir 
 David Brewster, 
 
 Rise of the Edinburgh Review, 
 Quarterly Review, and Black- 
 wood's Magazine, 
 
 Jeffrey, ...... 
 
 Brougham, 
 
 Sir James Mackintosh, . 
 
 Sydney Smith, . . . . 
 
 Macaulay, 
 
 Lockhart, 
 
 Wilson, 
 
 Change ii. the style of history. Hal- 
 lam, 
 
 Sharon Turner and Palgrave, 
 
 Lingard : previous prejudices of the 
 historians of the Reformation, . 
 
 Tytler : his impartial character, 
 
 Napier, 
 
 Lord Alahon 
 
 Macaulay' s History, 
 
 Miss Strickland, . . , , 
 
 Paae 
 229 
 230 
 
 232 
 
 233 
 
 234 
 
 ib. 
 
 235 
 236 
 237 
 
 ib. 
 238 
 
 ih. 
 239 
 
 ib. 
 
 240 
 ib. 
 
 241 
 
 242 
 243 
 244 
 ib. 
 245 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 Miss Martineau, .... 245 
 
 Lord Campbell, .... 246 
 
 Mitford, ib. 
 
 Grote, 247 
 
 Thirlwall, ib. 
 
 Arnold, 248 
 
 Mill, ib. 
 
 The new school of novelists, . . ib. 
 Miss Edgeworth, . . . .249 
 
 ]Mr James, 250 
 
 Sir Edward B. Lytton, . . . ib. 
 
 Disraeli, 251 
 
 Dickens, 252 
 
 Tliackeray, ib. 
 
 Miss Austen and Miss Sinclair, . 253 
 
 Mrs Norton, 254 
 
 Mr Warren, ib. 
 
 Carlyle, . . . . . ib. 
 
 Dr Crol3% 255 
 
 Hazlitt, ib. 
 
 Eentham, ih. 
 
 Sir John Sinclair, .... 256 
 
 Chalmers, ib. 
 
 Monckton IMilnes and Aytoun, . ib. 
 L. E. L., Warburton, and the author 
 
 of ' Eothen,' .... 257 
 
 The Fine Arts — Architecture, . ib. 
 
 Revival of Gothic Architecture, . 258 
 
 Page 
 Sir Thomas Lawrence, . . . 258 
 
 Turner, 259 
 
 Copley Fielding, Williams, Thomson, ih. 
 Grant, Pickersgill, Swinton, East- 
 lake, and Thorburn, . . .260 
 
 Landseer, ih. 
 
 Wilkie, 261 
 
 Martin, ...... ih. 
 
 Danby, 262 
 
 Chantrey, ih. 
 
 Flaxman, ih. 
 
 Gibson, ...... ih. 
 
 Marochetti, 263 
 
 Mrs Siddons, ih. 
 
 John Kemble, . . . .264 
 
 Miss F. Kemble, .... ih. 
 
 Miss O'Neil, ih. 
 
 Kean, 265 
 
 Miss Helen Faucit, . . . ib. 
 
 Decline of the drama in England, 266 
 The exclusive system in society, . ib. 
 Increasing liberalism of the higher 
 
 ranks, 267 
 
 Influence of the great Whig houses, 2G8 
 Rise and influence of the newspaper 
 press, ...... 269 
 
 Ephemeral decorations of such lit- 
 I erature, 27i) 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 FEAXCE FROM THE COUP D'eTAT OF SEPTEMBER 5, 1S16, TO THE 
 CREATION OF PEERS IN 1S19. 
 
 Paf 
 
 Eflfects of the coup d'etat of 5th Sep 
 
 tember 1816, 
 Democratic basis on which the elec 
 
 tive franchise was founded. 
 The elections of 1815, and measures 
 
 taken to secure them. 
 Result of the elections, . 
 Internal government after the coiip 
 
 detat of 5th September, 
 Great distress, 
 Opening of the Chambers, 
 State of parties. 
 Law of elections of 5th February 
 
 1817 
 
 Laws on personal freedom and the 
 
 liberty of the press, . 
 Scarcity, and measures of Govern 
 
 ment in consequence, 
 More liberal system in the army, 
 Concordat with Rome, . 
 Difficulty re2:arding the finances. 
 Efforts of the Emperor Alexander 
 
 and the Duke of Wellington to 
 . obviate .these difficulties, . , 283 
 
 271 
 
 ih. 
 
 272 
 273 
 
 ib. 
 274 
 
 ib. 
 275 
 
 ib. 
 
 279 
 
 2S1 
 ib. 
 
 282 
 ib. 
 
 Page 
 Diminution of the arm}' of occupa- 
 tion, 284 
 
 The Budget of 1817, . . . ih. 
 Law regarding bequests to theChurch, 285 
 Modification of the Ministrj-, . 288 
 
 Biography and character of Count 
 
 ]\Iole, ih. 
 
 Gouvion de St Cvr, . . . ih. 
 
 The elections of 1817, . . .289 
 State of public opinion, and of the 
 
 press, 290 
 
 The Orleanists, .... ih. 
 jMeasures of the session : the law of 
 
 recruiting, 291 
 
 Law regardingthe liberty of the press, 294 
 Expiry of the laws against personal 
 
 freedom and the Prevfital Courts, 295 
 Failure of the law for establishing 
 the new concordat, . . . ih. 
 
 The Budget, 296 
 
 Conclusion of arrangement regard- 
 ing the indemnities, . . . 297 
 Aix-la-Chapelle and its concourse of 
 illustrious foreigners, . .. . ih. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 _ Page 
 Conversation of Alexander with Ri- 
 chelieu, ... .298 
 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, . , ib. 
 Secret treaty with the Allies, . 299 
 Secret Protocol, .... 300 
 Secret Royalist Memoir presented 
 to the Allied Sovereigns at Aix- 
 la-Chapelle, . . . .301 
 Evacuation of the French territory 
 
 by the Allies, . . . .302 
 Attempted assassination of the Duke 
 
 of Wellington, . . . .303 
 Visit of Alexander to Louis XVIII. 
 
 at Paris, 304 
 
 Elections of 1S18, . . . .305 
 Financial crisis, .... ib. 
 Difficulties of the Duke de Richelieu, 306 
 Break-up of the Ministry, . . ib. 
 Formation of the new Ministry, . 307 
 Recompense voted to the Duke de 
 Richelieu, and declined, . . 308 
 
 Pnge 
 
 Pleasures of the new Ministers, . iJuS 
 
 General promotion of the Liberals 
 in the civil service, . . . 309 
 
 Movement against the Electoral 
 Law in the Peers, . . . ib. 
 
 The proposition is carried, and sen- 
 sation throughout France, . . 310 
 
 Measures of the Cabinet, and the 
 Liberals in the Chamber of De- 
 puties, 311 
 
 Adoption of M. Earths Cray's pro- 
 position, and defeat of Ministers 
 on the fixing of the financial 
 year, 313 
 
 Measures of the Government, . 314 
 
 Majority in the Chamber of Depu- 
 ties for Ministers, . . . ib. 
 
 Results of the changes already made 
 in France, ..... 315 
 
 Repeated coups cVetat since the Re- 
 storation, , . , , , 
 
 CHAPTER VI L 
 
 SPAIN AND ITALY FROM THE PEACE OF 1S14 TO THE REVOLUTION 
 
 1820. 
 
 Page 
 
 Analogy of the early history of 
 Spain and England, . . . 317 
 
 Colonies are always a benefit to the 
 parent state, .... 318 
 
 What the colonial policy of the pa- 
 rent state should be, . . . ib. 
 
 Tyrannical i-ule of old Spain over 
 her colonies, .... 320 
 
 Want of industry in the national 
 character, 321 
 
 The physical circumstances of Spain 
 favoured commerce, but not man- 
 ufactures, ib. 
 
 Effect of the long - continued hos- 
 tility with the Moors, . . 322 
 
 Impolitic laws in regard to money, ib. 
 
 Effect of the Romish faith, . . 323 
 
 Difference of the towns and country 
 in respec^ of political opinion, . 324 
 
 Disposition of thte army, . . ib. 
 
 The church, . ^ . , . . ib. 
 
 State of the peasantry, . . . 325 
 
 State of the nobility, . . .326 
 
 Gap in the revenue from the loss of 
 the South American colonies, . ib. 
 
 Constitution of 1812, . . .327 
 
 Influence of the Cortes on South 
 America, 329 
 
 Situation of Portugal : eflFect of the 
 removal of the seat of govern- 
 ment to Rio Janeiro, . , . 330 
 
 Character of Ferdinand VII., . 331 
 
 Ferdinand's arrival in Spain, . . ib. 
 
 Page 
 
 Unpopularity of the Cortes, . . 332 
 
 Decree of Valencia, . . . ib. 
 
 Ferdinand's despotic measures. Re- 
 establishment of the Inquisition, 335 
 
 Revolt of Mina in Navarre, . . ib. 
 
 Fresh arbitrary decree of Ferdi- 
 nand, ib. 
 
 Further violent proceedings of the 
 king, and Porlier's revolt, . . 336 
 
 Invasion of France and retreat of 
 the Spaniards. Fresh tyrannical 
 acts of the king, . . . ib. 
 
 Change of ministers, and policy at 
 Madrid, 337 
 
 Restoration of the Jesuits, and 
 other despotic measures, . . 338 
 
 Double marriages of the royal fami- 
 lies of Spain and Portugal, . ib. 
 
 Creation of the kingdom of Brazil, 339 
 
 Insurrection at Valencia, . . ib. 
 
 Abortive conspiracy in Barcelona, 
 and death of General Lacy, . ib. 
 
 Papal bull regarding the contribu- 
 tion by the Spanish church, . 340 
 
 Treaty regarding the Queen of Et- 
 niria, ib. 
 
 Treaty for the limitation of the 
 slave-trade, ib. 
 
 State of Spain : its army and navy, 341 
 
 Death of Queen ]\Iaria Isabella, . 342 
 
 Fate of the first expedition to Lima, ib. 
 
 Fresh revolt at Valencia, . . ib. 
 
 Insurrection at Cadiz, . , . 343 
 
XIV 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 Additional measures of severity on 
 the part of the Government, . 344 
 
 Yellow fever at Cadiz, . . . 345 
 
 Sale of Florida to the Americans, . ih. 
 
 Marriage of the king, . . . 346 
 
 Revolution attempted by Eiego, . ib. 
 
 Capture of the arsenal, and expedi- 
 tion of Riego into the interior . 347 
 
 Perilous position of Quiroga in the 
 Isle of Leon, . . . .348 
 
 Insurrection at Corunna, and in Na- 
 varre, ih. 
 
 Revolution at Madrid : the king ac- 
 cepts the constitution, . . 349 
 
 !RIassacre at Cadiz, . . . 351 
 
 New Ministry, .... ih. 
 
 First measures of the new govern- 
 ment, 352 
 
 Establishment of clubs in Madrid, 
 and other revolutionary measures, ih. 
 
 Meeting of the Cortes, . . . 353 
 
 Disorders in the provinces, . . ih. 
 
 Murder of one of the body-guard, 
 and reward of the murderers, . ih. 
 
 Report on the state of the army, . 354 
 
 Suppression of the Jesuits, and 
 measures regarding entails, . 355 
 
 Financial measures, . . . ih. 
 
 Tumult at Madrid, and dismissal of 
 Riego, 356 
 
 Closing of the session, and rupture 
 with the king, . . . . ih. 
 
 Reception of the decree against the 
 priests, 357 
 
 Illegal appointment of General Car- 
 vajal, ih. 
 
 Page 
 Return of the king to Madrid, . 358 
 Society for execution of lynch law, ib. 
 Revolution at Oporto and at Lis- 
 bon, 359-60 
 
 Return of ^Marshal Beresford, who 
 
 is forced to go to England, . 361 
 
 Reaction, and adoption of moder- 
 ate measures, .... ih. 
 Commencement of reforms in Italy, 362 
 Breach of the king's promise of a 
 
 constitution, .... ib. 
 Slight reforms already introduced, . 363 
 Origin of secret societies, . . ib. 
 Commencement of the Neapolitan 
 
 revolution, . . . . . 364 
 The king swears to the constitu- 
 tion, ih. 
 
 Revolution in Palermo, . . , 366 
 Frightful massacre, . . . ib. 
 
 Measures of the new junta, . . 367 
 Failure of the negotiations with 
 
 Naples, ih. 
 
 Suppression of the insurrection in 
 
 Palermo, ih. 
 
 Renewal of hostilities, . . . 368 
 Meeting of the Neapolitan parlia- 
 ment, ib. 
 
 Insurrection of the galley-slaves in 
 
 Civita Vecchia, . . . .369 
 The revolution in Piedmont, . . ib. 
 Resignation of the king, and pro- 
 clamation of the Prince of Carig- 
 nan as regent, and the Spanish 
 constitution, .... 371 
 General character of the revolutions 
 of 1820, ib. 
 
HISTOEY OF ETJEOPE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 GENERAL SKETCH OF THE WHOLE PERIOD FROM THE FALL OF 
 NAPOLEON TO THE ACCESSION OF LOUIS NAPOLEON. 
 
 1. The fall of ^Napoleon completed 
 the first drama of the historical series 
 arising out of the French E evolution. 
 Democratic ambition had found its 
 natural and inevitable issue in warlike 
 achievement ; the passions of the camp 
 had succeeded those of the forum, and 
 the conquest of all the Continental 
 monarchies had for a time apparently 
 satiated the desires of an ambitious 
 people. But the reaction was as vio- 
 lent as the action : in every warlike 
 operation two parties are to be consid- 
 ered — the conqueror and the conquer- 
 ed. The rapacity, the insolence, the 
 organised exactions of the French pro- 
 ved grievous in the extreme ; and the 
 hardship was felt as the more insupport- 
 able, when the administrative powers 
 of Napoleon gave to them the form 
 of a regular tribute, and conducted the 
 riches of conquered Europe in a per- 
 ennial stream to the Imperial treasury. 
 A unanimous cry of indignation arose 
 from every part of the Continent ; a 
 crusade commenced in all quarters, 
 from the experienced suffering of man- 
 kind ;— from the east and from the 
 west, from the north and from the 
 south, the liberating warriors came 
 forth, and the strength of an injured 
 world collected, by a con^iilsive effort 
 at the heart, to throw off the load 
 which had oppressed it. Securely 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 cradled amidst the waves, England, 
 like her immortal chief at Waterloo, 
 calmly awaited the hour when she 
 might be called on to take the lead in 
 the terrible strife ; her energy, Avhen 
 it arrived, rivalled her former patience 
 in privation, her fortitude in suiTer- 
 ing ; and the one only nation which, 
 throughout the struggle, had been un- 
 conquered, at length stood foremost in 
 the fight, and struck the final and de- 
 cisive blow for the deliverance of the 
 world. 
 
 2. But the victory of nations did 
 not terminate the war of opinion ; the 
 triumph of armies did not end the col- 
 lision of thought. France was con- 
 quered, but the principles of her Re- 
 volution were not extirpated ; they 
 had covered her own soil with mourn- 
 ing, but they were too flattering to the 
 pride of the human heart to be sub- 
 dued but by many ages of sufl'ering. 
 The lesson taught by the subjugation 
 of her power, the double capture of her 
 capital, was too serious to be soon for- 
 gotten by her rulers ; but the agony 
 wdiich had been previously felt by the 
 people had ended with a generation 
 wdiich was now mouldering in the 
 gi'ave. It is by the last impression 
 that the durable opinions of mankind 
 are formed ; and effects had here suc- 
 ceeded each other so rapidly that the 
 
2 
 
 HISTORY OF EUllOPE. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 earlier ones were in a great measure for- 
 gotten. The conscription had caused 
 the guillotine to be forgotten ; grief 
 for the loss of the frontier of the Rhine 
 had obliterated that for the dissolution 
 of the iSTational Assembly, Men did 
 not know that the first disaster w_s 
 the natural result of the perilous inno- 
 vations of the last legislature. There 
 was little danger of France soon cross- 
 ing the Rhine, but much of her re- 
 viving the opinions of ]\Iirabeau and 
 Sieves. The first drama, where the 
 military bore the prominent part, was 
 ended ; but the second, in which civil 
 patriots were to be the leading charac- 
 ters, and vehement political passions 
 excited, was still to come ; the Lager 
 had terminated, but the Piccolomini 
 was only beginning, and AVallenstein's 
 Death had not yet commenced. 
 
 3. Everything conspired to render 
 the era subsequent to the fall of Napo- 
 leon as memorable for civil changes as 
 that era itself had been for military tri- 
 umphs. Catherine of Russia had said 
 at the commencement of the Revolu- 
 tion, that the only way to prevent its 
 principles spreading, and save Europe 
 from civil convulsion, was to engage 
 in war, and cause the national to super- 
 sede the social passions. The experi- 
 ment, after a fearful struggle, succeeded ; 
 but it succeeded only for a time. War 
 wore itself out ; a contest of twenty 
 years' duration at once drained away 
 the blood and exhausted the treasures 
 of Europe. The excitement, the ani- 
 mation, the mingled horrors and glo- 
 ries of military strife, were followed 
 by a long period of repose, during 
 which the social passions were daily 
 gaining strength from the very magni- 
 tude of the contest which had preceded 
 it. The desire for excitement con- 
 tinued, and the means of gratifying it 
 had ceased : the cannon of Leipsic and 
 "Waterloo still resounded through the 
 world, but no new combats furnished 
 daily materials for anxiety, terror, or 
 exultation. The nations were chained 
 to peace by the immensity of the sacri- 
 fices made in the preceding war, but 
 they had not lost the passion for ex- 
 citement which it had produced. All 
 governments had suffered so much 
 
 during its continuance, that, like 
 wounded veterans, they dreaded a re- 
 newal of the fight, but all people 
 panted for some fresh object of desire. 
 Duiing the many years of constrained 
 repose which succeeded the battle of 
 Waterloo, the vehement excitement 
 occasioned by the Revolutionary wars 
 continued ; but, from default of exter- 
 nal, it turned to internal objects. 
 Democratic came instead of military 
 ambition ; the social succeeded the 
 national passions ; the spirit was the 
 same, but its field was changed. 
 Meanwhile the blessed effect of long- 
 continued peace, by allo^^dng industry 
 in every quarter to reap its fruits in 
 quiet, was daily adding to the strength 
 and energy, by augmenting the resour- 
 ces of the middle class, in whom these 
 feelings are ever the strongest, because 
 they are the first to be promoted by a 
 change ; while, in a similar proportion, 
 the power of government was daily 
 declining, from the necessity of pro- 
 viding for the interest of the debts 
 contracted during the preceding strife, 
 and reducing the military forces which 
 had so long averted its dangers or 
 achieved its triumphs. 
 
 4. The change in the ruling passions 
 of mankind clearly appeared in the 
 annals of nations, in the thirty years 
 which followed the fall of Napoleon, 
 Governments had often great difficul- 
 ties to contend with, but they were 
 not with each other, but with their 
 subjects ; many of them were overturn- 
 ed, but it was not by foreign armies, 
 but their own. Europe was more than 
 once on the verge of a general war, 
 but the danger of it arose, not, as in 
 former days, from the throne, but from 
 the cottage ; — the persons who urged 
 it on were not kings or their ministers ; 
 they were the tribunes of the people. 
 The chief efforts of governments in 
 every country were directed to the pre- 
 servation of that peace which the colli- 
 sion of so many interests, and the ve- 
 hemence of such passions endangered ; 
 war was repeatedly threatened ; but 
 by the people, not by sovereigns. The 
 sovereigns were successful ; but their 
 being so onh^ augmented the dangers 
 of their position, and increased the 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 3 
 
 peril arising from the ardour of the 
 social passions with which they had to 
 contend ; for every year of repose added 
 to the strength of their opponents as 
 much as it diminished their own. 
 
 5. The preservation of peace, xin- 
 hroken from 1815 to 1830, was fraught 
 with immense blessings to Europe, 
 and, had it been properly improved, 
 might have been so to the cause of 
 freedom throughout the world ; but it 
 jiroved fatal to the dynasty of the Re- 
 storation. From necessity as well as 
 inclination — from the recollection of 
 the double capture of Paris, as well as 
 conscious inability to conduct warlike 
 operations— Loxiis XVI II. remained at 
 peace ; and no monarch who does so 
 will long sit on the French throne. 
 Death, and extreme prudence of con- 
 duct, alone saved him from dethrone- 
 ment. The whole history of the Re- 
 storation, from 1815 to 1830,Avas that 
 of one vast and ceaseless conspiracy 
 against the Bourbons, existing rather 
 in the hearts and minds than in the 
 measures and designs of men. No con- 
 cessions to freedom, no moderation of 
 government, no diminution of public 
 burdens, could reconcile the nation to 
 a dynasty imposed on it by the stranger. 
 One part of the people were dreaming 
 of the past, another speculating on the 
 future : all were dissatisfied with the 
 present. The wars, the glories of the 
 Empire, rose up in painful contrast to 
 the peace and monotony of the present. 
 Successive alterations of the elective 
 constituency, and restrictions on the 
 press, had no effect in diminishing the 
 feelings thus excited in the minds of 
 men, and which only became, like all 
 other concealed passions, more power- 
 ful from the difficulty of giving it ex- 
 pression. France was daily increasing 
 in wealth, freedom, and material well- 
 being, but it was as steadily declining 
 in contentment, loj^altj^ and happiness 
 — a strange combination, though one 
 by no means unknown in private life, 
 when all external appliances are favour- 
 able, but the heart is gnawed by a secret 
 and ungratified passion. At length the 
 general discontent rose to such a pitch 
 that it became impossible to carry on 
 the government ; a coup d'etat was 
 
 attempted, to restore some degree of 
 efficiency to the executive, but it was 
 conducted by the "feeble arms of con- 
 fessors and kings;" the army wavered 
 in its duty ; the Orleans family took ad- 
 vantage of the tunmlt ; and the dynasty 
 of the elder branch of the Bourbons 
 was overthrown. 
 
 6. That so great an event as the over- 
 throw of a dynasty by a sudden urban 
 insurrection, should have produced a 
 great impression all over the world, 
 was to have been expected ; but it could 
 hardly have been anticipated it would 
 have been attended by the effects which 
 actually followed in Great Britain. But 
 many causes had conspired, at that 
 period, to prepare the public mind in 
 England for change ; and, what is very 
 remarkable, these causes had arisen 
 mainly from the magnitude of the suc- 
 cesses with which the war had been 
 attended. The great aristocratic party, 
 whether in land or money, had been 
 so triumphant that they deemed their 
 ])ower beyond the reach of attack ; 
 compromise, concession, or even con- 
 sideration for their opponents, was out 
 of the question. They neither attended 
 to their interests in legislation, nor had 
 regard to their feelings in manner. The 
 capital which had been realised during 
 the war had been so great, the influence 
 of the monied interest so powerful, that 
 the legislature became affected by the 
 desires of its possessors. The Monetary 
 Bill of 1819, before many years had 
 elapsed, added fifty per cent to the 
 value of money and weight of debts 
 and taxes, and took as much from the 
 remuneration of industry. Hence a 
 total change in the feelings, influences, 
 and political relations of society. The 
 territorial aristocracy was weakened by 
 that measure as much as the commercial 
 was aggrandised ; small landed proprie- 
 tors were generally ruined from the fall 
 of prices; the magnates stood forth 
 in increased lustre from the enhanced 
 value of their revenues. Industry was 
 querulous, from long-continued suflTer- 
 ing; wealth ambitious, from sudden 
 exaltation. Political power was coveted 
 in one class, from the excess of its 
 riches ; in another, from tlie depth of 
 its misery. The emancipation of the 
 
HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. I. 
 
 Roman Catholics severed the last bond, 
 that of a common religion, which had 
 hitherto held together the different 
 sections of society, and imprinted on 
 the minds of a large and sincere body 
 of men a thirst for vengeance, which 
 overwhelmed every consideration of 
 reason. The result of these concurring 
 causes was, that the institutions of 
 England were essentially altered by 
 the earthquake of 1830, and a new class 
 elevated to supreme power by means, 
 bloodless indeed, but scarcely less vio- 
 lent than the revolution wliich had 
 overturned Charles X. 
 
 7. The Revolution of 1830 elevated 
 the middle class to the direction of 
 affairs in France, and the Reform Bill 
 in England vested the same class in 
 effect with supreme power in the Brit- 
 ish empire. Vast consequences fol- 
 lowed this all-important cliange in both 
 countries. For the first time in the 
 history of mankind, the experiment 
 was made of vesting the electoral fran- 
 chise, not in a varied class, limited in 
 number, but embracing all interests, 
 as in old England ; or in the whole 
 citizens, as in revolutionary France or 
 America ; but in persons possessed only 
 of a certain money qualification. The 
 franchise was not materially changed 
 in France ; but the general arming of 
 the national guard, and the revolu- 
 tionary origin of the new government, 
 effectually secured attention to the 
 wishes of the burgher aristocracy. In 
 England they were at once vested with 
 the command of the state, for the House 
 of Commons was returned by a million 
 of electors, who voted for 658 members, 
 of whom two-thirds were the represent- 
 atives of boroughs, and two-thirds of 
 their constituents shopkeepers, or per- 
 sons whom they influenced. Thence 
 consequences of incalculable import- 
 ance in both countries, and effects 
 which have left indelible traces in the 
 future history of mankind. 
 
 8. The first effect of this identity of 
 feeling and interest, in the class then 
 for the first time intrusted with the 
 
 . practical direction of affairs in both 
 countries, was a close political alliance 
 between their governments, and an 
 entire change in the foreign policy of 
 
 Great Britain. To the vehement hos- 
 tility and ceaseless rivalry of four cen- 
 turies succeeded a union sincere and 
 cordial at the time, though, like other 
 intimacies founded on identity of pas- 
 sion, not of interest, it might be doubted 
 whether it would survive the emotions 
 which gave it birth. In the mean time, 
 however, the effects of this alliance 
 were novel, and in the highest degree 
 important. When tlie lords of the 
 earth and the sea united, no power in 
 Europe ventured to confront them ; 
 the peace of Europe was preserved by 
 their union. The Czar, in full march 
 towards Paris, was arrested on the Vis- 
 tula ; he found ample employment for 
 his arms in resisting the efforts of the 
 Poles to restore their much -loved na- 
 tionality. Austria and Prussia were 
 too much occupied with the surveil- 
 lance of the discontented in their own 
 dominions to think of renewing the 
 crusade of 1813 ; nor did they venture 
 to do so when the forces of England 
 were united to those of France. The 
 consequence was, that the march of 
 revolution was unresisted in Western 
 Europe, and an entire change was 
 effected in the institutions and dynas- 
 ties on the throne in its principal Con- 
 tinental states. The Orleans family 
 continued firmly, and to all appearance 
 permanentl}^ seated on the throne of 
 France ; Belgium was revolutionised, 
 torn from the monarchy of the Nether- 
 lands, and the Coburg family placed 
 on its throne ; the monarchies of Spain 
 and Portugal were overturned, and a re- 
 volutionary dynasty of queens estab- 
 lished on their thrones, in direct viola- 
 tion of the Treaty of Utrecht ; while in 
 the east of Europe the last remnants of 
 Polish nationality were extinguished on 
 the banks of the Vistula by the irresisti- 
 ble legions of the Czar. Durable inter- 
 ests were overlooked, ancient alliances 
 broken, long - established rivalries for- 
 gotten, in the fleeting passions of the 
 moment. Confederacies the most op- 
 posite to the lasting policy of the very 
 nations who contracted them, were not 
 only formed, but acted upon. Europe 
 beheld with astonishment the arms of 
 Prussia united mth those of Russia to 
 destroy the barrier of the Continent 
 
I.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUEOPE. 
 
 against the Muscovite power on the Sar- 
 niatian plains ; the Leopards of England 
 joined to the tricolor standard to wrest 
 Antwerp from Holland, and secure the 
 throne of the Netherlands to a son-in- 
 law of France ; and the scarlet uniforms 
 blended with the ensigns of revolution 
 to beat down the liberties of the Basque 
 provinces, and prepare a princess who 
 might become the heiress of Spain for 
 the arms of a son of France, on the very 
 theatre of Wellington's triumphs. 
 
 9. Unlooked for and extraordinary 
 as were the results of the Revolution 
 of 1830 upon the political relations of 
 Europe, its effects upon the colonial 
 empire of England, and, through it, 
 upon the future destinies of the human 
 species, were still greater and more 
 important. To the end of the world, 
 the consequence of the change in the 
 policy of England will be felt in every 
 (juarter of the globe. Its first effect 
 was to bring about the emancipation 
 of the negroes in the West Indies. , 
 Eight hundred thousand slaves in the 
 British colonies, in that quarter of the 
 globe, received the perilous gift of un- 
 conditional freedom. For the first time 
 in the history of mankind, the experi- 
 ment was made, of suddenly extending 
 the institutions of civilised to savage 
 man. As a natural result of so vast 
 and sudden a change, and of the con- 
 ferring of the institutions of the An- 
 glo - Saxons upon unlettered negroes, 
 the pi-oprietors of those noble colonies 
 were ruined, their aff'ectious alienated, 
 and the authority of the mother coun- 
 try preserved only by the terror of 
 arms ; while the slaves themselves, for 
 ■whom all these evils and dangers were 
 incurred, were fast relapsing into the 
 state of nature. Canada shared in the 
 moral earthquake Avhich shook the 
 globe ; and that noble offshoot of the 
 empire was alone preserved to Great 
 Britain by the courage of its soldiers, 
 and the loyalty of its English and 
 Highland citizens. Australia rapidly 
 advanced in wealth, industry, and po- 
 pulation during these eventful years : 
 every commercial crisis which para- 
 lysed industry, every social struggle 
 which excited hope, every successful 
 innovation which diminished security, 
 
 added to the stream of liardy and en- 
 terprising emigrants who crowded to 
 its shores. New Zealand Avas added 
 to the already colossal empire of Eng- 
 land in Oceania ; and it was soon ap- 
 parent that the foundations were laid 
 in the southern hemisphere of another 
 nation destined to rival, perha})S eclipse, 
 Europe itself in the career of human 
 improvement. For the first time in 
 the history of mankind, the course of 
 advancement ceased to l^e from East 
 to West ; but it was not destined to 
 be arrested by the Rocky Mountains ; 
 — the mighty day of four thousand 
 years was drawing to its close; but 
 before its light was extinguished in 
 the West, civilisation had returned to 
 the land of its birth ; and ere its orb 
 had set in the waves of the Pacific, the 
 sun of knowledge was illuminating tlie 
 isles of the Eastern Sea. 
 
 10. Great and important as were 
 these results of the social convulsions 
 of France and England in the first in- 
 stance, they sank into insignificance 
 comi)ared to those which followed the 
 change in the commercial policy, and 
 the increased stringency of the mone- 
 tary laws, of Great Britain. The effect 
 of these all-important measures, from 
 which so much was expected, and so 
 little, save suffering, received, was to 
 augment to an extraordinary and un- 
 paralleled degree the outward tendency 
 of the British people. The agricul- 
 tural population, especially in Ireland, 
 were violently torn up from the land 
 of their birth by woeful suffering; a 
 famine of the thirteenth appeared 
 amidst the population of the nine- 
 teenth century; and to this terrible, 
 but transient, source of suffering, was 
 superadded the lasting discouragement 
 arising from the virtual closing of the 
 market of England to their produce, 
 by the inundation of grain from for- 
 eign states. When the barriers raised 
 by human regulations were thrown 
 down, the eternal laws of nature ap- 
 peared in full operation ; the old and 
 rich state can always undersell the 
 young and poor one in manufactures, 
 and is always undersold by it in agri- 
 cultural produce. The fate of old Rome 
 apparently was reserved for Great Bri- 
 
HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 tain ; the hcarvests of Poland, the Uk- 
 raine, and America, began to prostrate 
 agriculture in the British Isles as ef- 
 fectually as those of Sicily, Libya, and 
 Egypt had done that of the old Patri- 
 mony of the Legions; and after the 
 lapse of eighteen hundred years, the 
 same effects appeared. The great cities 
 flourished, but the country decayed; 
 the exportation of human beings, and 
 the importation of human food, kept 
 up a gainful traffic in the seaport 
 towns ; but it was everyday more and 
 more gliding into the hands of the 
 foreigners ; and while exports and im- 
 ports were constantly increasing, the 
 mainstay of national strength, the cul- 
 tivation of the soil, was rapidly declin- 
 ing. The effects upon the strength, 
 resources, and population of the em- 
 pire, and the growth of its colonial 
 possessions, were equally important. 
 Europe, before the middle of the cen- 
 tury, beheld with astonishment Great 
 Britain, which, at the end of the war, 
 had been self-supporting, importing 
 ten millions of quarters of gi-ain, being 
 a full third of the national subsistence, 
 and a constant stream of three hundred 
 thousand emigrants annually leaving 
 its shores.* Its inhabitants, which for 
 four centuries had been constantly in- 
 creasing, declined, upon the whole, half 
 a million in the five years from 1846 
 to 1850 in the two islands, and two 
 millions in Ireland, taken separately ; 
 and the direction which at least four- 
 fifths of these emigrants took to Ame- 
 
 * Emigration from Ireland, vrom 
 1843 TO 1852. 
 
 1843, . 
 
 . 39,500 
 
 1848, . 
 
 . 177,700 
 
 1844, . 
 
 . 55,200 
 
 1849, , 
 
 . 209,200 
 
 1845, . 
 
 . 76,700 
 
 1850, . 
 
 . 208,000 
 
 1846, . 
 
 . 106,500 
 
 1851, . 
 
 . 257,372 
 
 1847, . 
 
 . 214,700 
 
 1852, . 
 
 . 225,003 
 
 The entire emigrants from Great Britain 
 and Ireland for the last three years has been 
 as follows : — 
 
 1850, . . 280,484 
 
 1851, . . 335,966 
 
 1852, , . 368,764 
 
 985,214 
 The natural increase during the same period 
 was 730,000, showing a decrease on the whole 
 of 253,000 in three years.— See, for Irish Emi- 
 grants, Edinburgh Review, April 1853, p. 287; 
 and for General Emigration, Parliamentary 
 Report 1853, February 27. 
 
 [chap. I. 
 
 rica, proved it was the want of employ- 
 ment at home, not gold abroad, which 
 caused the decrease. Four millions of 
 quarters of wheat ceased to be raised 
 in the British Islands.* But the foun- 
 dations of a vast empire were laid in. 
 the Transatlantic and Australian wilds ; 
 and the annual addition of three hun- 
 dred thousand souls, from the English 
 and Irish races alone, to the European 
 population of the New World, by im- 
 migration, had come almost to double 
 the already marvellous rapidity of 
 American increase. 
 
 11. While this vast transference of 
 the Anglo-Saxon and Celtic population 
 to the embryo states beyond the At- 
 lantic and Australia was going forward, 
 the United States of America were ra- 
 pidly increasing in numbers and in 
 extent of territory. The usual and 
 fearful ambition of republican states 
 there appeared in more than its usual 
 proportions. During ten years, from 
 1840 to 1850, the inhabitants of the 
 United States increased six millions : 
 they had grown from eighteen to 
 twenty - four millions. But the in- 
 crease of its territory was still more 
 extraordinary : it had been extended, 
 during the same period, from some- 
 what above 2,000,000 to 3,300,000 
 square miles. A territory nine times 
 the size of Old France was added to 
 the devouring Republic in ten years. 
 The conquests of Rome in ancient, of 
 
 * Wheat sold in 290 inspected markets 
 IN England, 1845-1852. 
 
 Teai-s. 
 
 Quarters. 
 
 Years. 
 
 Quarters: 
 
 1845, . 
 
 6,666,246 
 
 1849, 
 
 . 4,453,982 
 
 lS46,t . 
 
 5,958,962 
 
 1850, 
 
 . 4,688,246 
 
 1847, . 
 
 4,637,616 
 
 1851, 
 
 , 4,487,041 
 
 1848, . 
 
 5,399,833 
 
 1852, 
 
 4,854,513 
 
 So that since Free Trade was introduced in 
 1846 the wheat sold in these markets of Eng- 
 land has declined on an average of years 
 about 2,000,000 quarters. Captain Larcom's 
 reports prove that 1,500,000 less quarters of 
 wheat were grown in Ireland in 1850 than 
 there was in 1846 ; and if it be supposed that 
 the diminution in Scotland is a tJiird of this 
 only, or 500,000 quarters, it results that at 
 least four millions less quarters of wheat are 
 now grown in the British Islands than was 
 the case before Free Trade w^as introduced. 
 The Author is indebted for the figures of the 
 markets to no friendly critic, who, with sin- 
 gular simplicity, supposes they disprove the 
 assertions in the text.— See Edinburgh Re- 
 view, April 1853, p. 293. 
 
 t Free Trade and famine in IrclaucL 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 the English in India in modern times, 
 aftord no j^arallel instance of rapid and 
 unbroken increase. Everything indi- 
 cates that a vast migration of the 
 human species is going forward, and 
 the European family in the course of 
 being transferred from its native to 
 its destined seats. To this prodigious 
 movement it is hard to say whether 
 the disappointed energy of democratic 
 vigour in Europe, or the insatiable 
 spirit of republican ambition in Amer- 
 ica, has most contributed ; for the first 
 overcame all the attachments of home, 
 and all the endearments of kindred in 
 a large — and that the most energetic 
 — portion of the people in the Old 
 World ; while the latter has prepared 
 for their reception ample seats — in 
 which a kindred tongue and institu- 
 tions prevail — in the New. 
 
 12. "While this vast and unexampled 
 exodus of the Anglo-Saxon race, across 
 a wider ocean than the Red Sea, and 
 to a gi-eater promised land than that of 
 Canaan, was going forward, a corres- 
 ponding, and, in some respects, still 
 more marvellous increase of the Scla- 
 vonic race in the Muscovite dominions 
 took place. The immense dominions 
 and formidable power of the Czar, 
 which had received so vast an addition 
 from the successful termination of the 
 contest with Napoleon, was scarcely 
 less augmented by the events of the 
 long peace Avhich followed. The in- 
 human cruelty with which the Turks 
 prosecuted the war -vWth the Greeks, 
 awakened the sympathies of the Chris- 
 tian world ; governments were impelled 
 by their subjects into a crusade against 
 the Crescent ; and the battle of Na- 
 varino, which, for the first time in 
 history, beheld the flags of England, 
 France, and Russia side by side, at 
 once ruined the Ottoman navy, and 
 reft the most important provinces of 
 Greece from the dominions of Turkey. 
 The inconceivable infatuation of the 
 Turks, and their characteristic ignor- 
 ance of the strength of the enemy 
 ■whom they provoked, impelled them 
 soon after into a w^ar with Russia ; 
 and then the inmieasurable superiority 
 which the Cross had now acquired 
 over the Crescent at once appeared. 
 
 Varna, the scene of the bloody defeat 
 of the French chivalry by the Jani- 
 zaries of Bajazct, yielded to the scien- 
 tific approaches of the Russians ; tlie 
 bastions of Erivan, to the firm assault 
 of Paskiewitch ; the barrier, hitherto 
 insurmountable, of the Balkan, was 
 passed by Diebitch ; Adrianople fell ; 
 and the anxious intervention of the 
 other European powers alone preven- 
 ted the entire subjugation of Turkey, 
 and the entry of the Muscovite battal- 
 ions through the breach made by the 
 cannon of Mahomet in tlie walls of 
 Constantinople. 
 
 13. Great as were these results to 
 the growth of Russia of the forced and 
 long-continued pacification of West- 
 ern Europe, still more important were 
 those which followed its intestine con- 
 \ailsions. Every throe of the revolu- 
 tionary earthquake in France has ten- 
 ded to her ultimate advantage, and 
 been attended by a great accession of 
 territory or augmentation of influence. 
 The Revolution of 1789, in its ultimate 
 eff"ects, brought the Cossacks to Paris ; 
 that of 1830 extinguished the last re- 
 mains of Polish nationality, and estab- 
 lished the ]\luscovites in a lasting way 
 on the banks of the Vistula. The re- 
 volt of Ibrahim Pacha, and the victory 
 of Koniah, which brought the Otto- 
 man empire to the verge of destruc- 
 tion, advanced the Russian battalionsv 
 to the shores of Scutari — and thus 
 averted the subjugation of the Porte 
 by a rebellious vassal, only by surren- 
 dering the keys of the Dardanelles to 
 the Czar, and converting the Black 
 Sea into a Russian lake. Greater still 
 were the results of the French Revolu- 
 tion of 1848 to the moral influence, 
 and, through it, to the real power of 
 Russia. Germany, torn by revolution- 
 ary passions, was soon brought into 
 the most deplorable state of anarchy ; 
 Austria, distracted at once by a Bo- 
 hemian, Italian, and Hungarian revolt, 
 was within a hair's-breadth of destruc- 
 tion ; and the presence of 160,000 
 Russians on the Hungarian plains 
 alone determined the Magyar contest 
 in favour of the house of Hapsburg. 
 Immense was the addition which this 
 decisive move made to the influence of 
 
8 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [cHAr. 
 
 Russia ; no charge of the Old Guard of 
 Napoleon at the close of the day was 
 ever more triumphant. Russia now 
 boasts of 70,000,000 of men within 
 her dominions ; her territories embrace 
 an eighth of the habitable globe ; 
 her population doubles every seventy 
 years ; and her influence is paramount 
 from the wall of China to the banks of 
 the Rhine. 
 
 14. Great as the acquisitions of the 
 Muscovite power have been during the 
 last thirty years, they have almost 
 been rivalled by those of the British 
 in India. The latter have fairly out- 
 stripped everything in this age of won- 
 ders ; a parallel will in vain be sought 
 for them in the whole annals of the 
 world. They do not resemble the con- 
 quests of the Romans in ancient, or of 
 the Russians in modern times ; they 
 were not the result of the lust of con- 
 quest steadily and perseveringly ap- 
 plied to general subjugation, or the 
 passions of democracy finding their 
 natural vent in foreign conquest. As 
 little were they the offspring of a 
 vehement and turbulent spirit, similar 
 to that which carried the French eagles 
 to Vienna and the Kremlin. The dis- 
 position of the Anglo - Saxons, prac- 
 tical, gain-seeking, and shunning wars 
 as an interruption of their profits, was 
 a perpetual check to any such disposi- 
 tion — their immense distance from the 
 scene of action on the plains of Hiudo- 
 stan, an effectual bar to its indulgence. 
 India was not governed by a race of 
 warlike sovereigns eager for conquest, 
 covetous of glory ; but by a company 
 of pacific merchants, intent only on 
 the augmentation of their gains and 
 the diminution of their expense. Their 
 gi-eat cause of complaint against the 
 Governors-General, to whom was suc- 
 cessively intrusted the direction of 
 their vast dominions, has generally 
 been that they were too prone to de- 
 fensive preparations ; that they did not 
 sufficiently study the increase of these 
 profits, or the saving of that expendi- 
 ture. "War, when it did occur, was 
 constantly forced upon them as a 
 measure of necessity ; repeated coali- 
 tions of the native sovereigns com- 
 pelled them to di'aw the sword to 
 
 prevent their expulsion from the pe- 
 ninsula. Conquest was the condition of 
 existence, 
 
 15. Yet such was the vigour of the 
 Anglo-Saxon race, and the energy with 
 which the successive contests were 
 maintained by the diminutive force at 
 the disposal of the Company, that mar- 
 vellous beyond all example have been 
 the victories which they gained, and 
 the conquests which they achieved. 
 The long period of European peace 
 which followed the battle of Waterloo 
 was anything but one of repose in 
 India. It beheld successively the final 
 war with, and subjugation of, the ^lah- 
 rattas by the genius of Lord Hastings, 
 the overthrow of the Pindaree horse- 
 men, the difficult conquest of the 
 Ghoorka mountaineers ; the storming 
 of Bhurtpore, the taming of "the 
 giant strength of Ava;" the fleeting 
 seizure of Cabul, and fearful horrors of 
 the Coord Cabul retreat ; the subse- 
 quent gallant recovery of its capital ; 
 the reduction of Scinde and storming 
 of Gwalior ; the wars with the Sikhs, 
 the desperate passage of arms at Fero- 
 zeshah, and final triumphs of Sobraon 
 and Goojerat. ISI'or was it in the pe- 
 ninsula of Hindostan alone that the 
 strength of the British, at length fairly 
 aroused, was exerted ; the vast empire 
 of China was wn-estled with at the 
 very moment when the strength of the 
 East was engaged in the Affghanistan 
 expedition ; and the world, which was 
 anxiously expecting the fall of the 
 much-envied British empire in India, 
 beheld with astonishment, in the same 
 Dellii Gazette, the annoancement of 
 the second capture of Cabul in the 
 heart of Asia, and the dictating of a 
 glorious peace to the Chinese under 
 the walls of Nankin. 
 
 16. While successes so great and 
 bewildering were attendmg the arms 
 of civilisation in the remote parts of 
 the earth, a great and most disastrous 
 convidsion was preparing in its heart. 
 Paris, as in every age, was the centre 
 of impulsion to the whole civilised 
 world. Louis Philippe had a very 
 difficult game to play, and he long 
 played it with success ; but no human 
 ability could, without war, and with 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 9 
 
 the disposition of the people, perma- 
 nently maintain the government of the 
 countiy. He aimed at being the Na- 
 poleon of peace ; and his great prede- 
 cessor knew better than any one, and 
 has said oftener, that he himself would 
 have failed in the attempt. He owed 
 his elevation to revolution ; and he 
 had the difficult, if not impossible, 
 task to perform, ivWiout foreign rear, of 
 coercing its passions. Hardly was he 
 seated on the throne when he felt the 
 necessity in deeds, if not in words, of 
 disclaiming his origin. His whole 
 reign Avas a continued painful and 
 perilous conflict with the power which 
 had created him, and at length he 
 sank in the struggle. He had not the 
 means of maintaining the conflict. A 
 successful usurper, he could not appeal 
 to traditionary influences ; a revolu- 
 tionary monarch, he was compelled to 
 coerce the passions of revolution ; a 
 military chief, he was obliged to re- 
 strain the passions of the soldiers. 
 They demanded war, and he was con- 
 strained to preserve peace ; they sighed 
 for plunder, and he could only meet 
 them with economy ; they panted for 
 glory, and his policy retained them in 
 obscurity. 
 
 17. Political influence — in other 
 words, corruption — was the only 
 means left of carrying on the govern- 
 ment ; and that state engine was 
 worked, under his management, with 
 great industry, and for a time with 
 remarkable success. But although 
 gratification to the selfish passions 
 must always, in the long run, be the 
 main foundation of government, men 
 are not entirely, and for ever, gov- 
 erned by their influence. ' ' C'est Vim- 
 agination," said Napoleon, "quidom- 
 ine le monde." All nations, and most 
 of all the French, occasionally require 
 aliment to the passions ; and no dy- 
 nasty will long maintain its sway over 
 them Avhich does not frequently gra- 
 tify their ruling dispositions. Nap- 
 oleon was so popular because he at 
 once consulted their interests and gra- 
 tified their passions ; Louis Philippe 
 the reverse, because he attended only 
 to their interests. Great as was his 
 influence, unbounded his patronage. 
 
 immense his revenue, it yet fell short 
 of the wants of his needy supporters ; 
 he experienced ere long the truth of the 
 well-known saying, that every office 
 given away makes one ungrateful and 
 three discontented. The inmiediate 
 cause of his fall, in February 1848, 
 was the pusillanimity of his family, who 
 declined to head his troops, ancl the 
 weakness of his advisers, who counsel- 
 led submission in presence of danger ; 
 but its remote causes were of much 
 older date ancl wider extent. Govern- 
 ment, to be lasting, must be founded 
 either on traditionary influences, the 
 gratification of new interests and pas- 
 sions, or the force of arms ; and that 
 one which has not the first will do well 
 to rest, as soon as possible, on the two 
 last. 
 
 18. Disastrous beyond all precedent, 
 or what even could have been conceiv- 
 ed, were the efl'ects of this new revo- 
 lution in Paris on the whole Continent ; 
 and a very long period must elapse 
 before they are obviated. The spec- 
 tacle of a government esteemed one of 
 the strongest in Europe, and a dynasty 
 which promised to be of lasting dura- 
 tion, overturned almost without resist- 
 ance by an urban tumult, roused the 
 revolutionary party everywhere to a 
 perfect pitch of frenzy. A universal 
 liberation from government and re- 
 straint of any kind, was expected, and 
 for a time attainecl, by the people in 
 the principal Continental states, when 
 a republic was again proclaimed in 
 France ; and the multitude, strong in 
 their neAvly-acquired rights of universal 
 sufi"rage, were seen electing a National 
 Assembly, to whom the destinies of 
 the country were to be intrusted. The 
 effect was instantaneous and universal ; 
 the shock of the moral earthquake was 
 felt in every part of Europe. Italy 
 was immediately in a blaze ; Piedmont 
 joined the revolutionary crusade ; and 
 the Austrian forces, expelled from Mi- 
 lan, were glad to seek an asylum behind 
 the Mincio. Venice threw off" the Ger- 
 man yoke, and proclaimed again the in- 
 dependence of St Mark ; the Pope was 
 driven from Rome ; the Bourbons in 
 Naples were saved from destruction only 
 by the fidelity of their Swiss Guards ; 
 
10 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 — Sicil)^ was severed from their domin- 
 ion ; and all Italy, from the extremity 
 of Calabria to the foot of the Alps, was 
 arraying its forces against constituted 
 authorit}^ and in opposition to the 
 sway of the Tramontane governments. 
 The ardent and enthusiastic were every- 
 Avhere in transports, and predicted the 
 resm-rection of a great and united Ro- 
 man republic from the courage of mod- 
 ern patriotism ; the learned and ex- 
 perienced anticipated nothing but ruin 
 to the cause of freedom from the tran- 
 sports of a people incapable of exercis- 
 ing its powers, and unable to defend 
 its rights. Already the anticipations 
 of the latter have been too truly real- 
 ised. After fifteen years of turmoil, 
 bloodshed, and suffering, Italy still sees 
 its two capitals in the hands of foreign 
 and rival powers ; her people ground 
 do%vn by enormous taxes and a gigantic 
 military establishment ; her united 
 proWnces can aspire only to the honour 
 of French vassalage ; and the first year 
 of so-called independence has been 
 marked by the contracting of a foreign 
 loan of £16,000,000 sterling. 
 
 19. Still more serious and formidable 
 were the convulsions in Germany ; for 
 there were men inspired with the Teu- 
 tonic love of freedom, and wielding the 
 arms which so long had been \'ictorious 
 in the fields of European fame. So 
 violent were the shocks of the I'evolu- 
 tionary earthquake in the Fatherland, 
 that the entire disruption of society 
 and ruin of the national independence 
 seemed to be threatened by its effects. 
 Government was overturned after a 
 violent contest in Berlin. It fell al- 
 most without a struggle, from the pu- 
 sillanimity of its members, in Vienna. 
 The Prussians, especially in the great 
 towns, entered, with the characteristic 
 ardour of their disposition, into the 
 career of revolution ; universal suffrage 
 was everyAvhere proclaimed — national 
 guards established. The lesser states 
 on the Rhine all followed the example 
 of Berlin ; and an assembly of delegates 
 from every part of the Fatherland, at 
 Frankfort, seemed to realise for a brief 
 period the dream of German unity and 
 independence. But while the patriots 
 on the Rhine were speculating on the 
 
 [chap. I. 
 
 independence of their country, the en- 
 thusiasts in Vienna and Hungary were 
 taking the most effectual steps to de- 
 stroy it. A frightful civil war ensued 
 in all the Austrian pro\ances, and soon 
 acquired such strength as threatened 
 to tear in pieces the whole of its vast 
 dominions, No sooner was the central 
 authority in Vienna overturned, than 
 rebellion broke out in all the provinces. 
 The Sclavonians revolted in Bohemia, 
 the Lombards in Italy, tlie ]\Iagyars in 
 Hungary ; the close Wcinity of a pow- 
 erful Russian force alone restrained the 
 Poles in Gallicia. "Worse, even, because 
 more widely felt than the passions of 
 democracy, the animosities of Race 
 burst forth with fearful violence in 
 Eastern Europe. The standard of 
 Georgey in Hungary — whom the Austri- 
 ans, distracted by civil war in all their 
 prov^inces, were unable to subdue — soon 
 attracted a large part of the indignant 
 Poles, and nearly the whole of the war- 
 like jMagyars, to the field of battle on 
 the banks of the Danube. Not a hope 
 seemed to remain for the great and dis- 
 tracted Austrian Empire. Chaos had 
 returned ; society seemed resolved into 
 its original elements ; and the chief 
 bulwark of Europe against Muscovite 
 domination appeared on the point of 
 being broken up into several separate 
 states, actuated by the most Aiolent 
 hatred of each other, and alike inca- 
 pable, singly or together, of making 
 head against the vast and centralised 
 power of Russia. 
 
 20. The first successful stand against 
 the deluge of revolution was made in 
 Great Britain ; and there it Avas with- 
 stood, not by the bayonets of the sol- 
 diers, but by the batons of the citizens. 
 The 10th of April was the "Waterloo of 
 Chartist rebellion in England; — a mem- 
 orable proof that the institutions of a 
 free people, suited to their wants, and 
 in harmony with their dispositions, 
 can, in such felicitous circumstances, 
 oppose a more successful barrier to 
 social dangers than the most powerful 
 military force at the commancl of a de- 
 spotic chief. Rebellion, as usual Avhen 
 England is in distress, broke out in 
 Ireland ; but it terminated in ridicule, 
 and revealed at once the ingratitude 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 11 
 
 and impotence of the Celtic race in the 
 Emerald Isle. But a far more serious 
 and bloody conflict awaited the cause 
 of order in the streets of Paris ; and 
 society there narrowly escaped the re- 
 storation of the Reign of Terror and 
 the government of Robespierre. As 
 usual in civil convulsions, the leaders 
 of the first successful revolt soon be- 
 came insupportable to their infuriated 
 folio Avers ; a second tenth of August fol- 
 lowed, and that much more quickly 
 than on the first occasion; — but it 
 was met by very different opponents. 
 Cavaignac and the army were not so 
 easily beat down as Louis, deserted by 
 all the world but his faithful Swiss 
 Guards. The contest was long and 
 bloody, and for a time it seemed more 
 than doubtful to which side victory 
 would incline ; but at length the 
 cause of order prevailed. The author- 
 ity of the Assembly, however, was not 
 established till above a hundred barri- 
 cades had been carried at the point 
 of the bayonet, several thousands of 
 the insurgents slain, and eleven thou- 
 sand sentenced to transportation by the 
 courts-martial of the victorious soldiers. 
 21. Less violent in the outset, but 
 more disastrous far in the end, were the 
 means by which Austria was brought 
 through the throes of her revolutionary 
 convulsion. It was the army, and the 
 army alone, which in the last extrem- 
 ity saved the state ; but, unhappily, 
 it was not the national army ; alone 
 which achieved the deliverance. So 
 violent were the passions by which the 
 country was torn, so great the power 
 of the rival races and nations which 
 contended for its mastery, that the 
 unaided strength of the monarchy was 
 unequal to the task of subduing them. 
 In Prague, indeed, the firmness of 
 Windischgratz extinguished the re- 
 volt ; in Italy the consummate talents 
 of Radetsky restored victory to the 
 Imperial standards, and drove the 
 Piedmontese to a disgraceful peace ; and 
 in the heart of the monarchy, Vienna, 
 after a fierce struggle, was regained by 
 the united arms of the Bohemians and 
 Croatians. But in Hungary the JSIag- 
 yars were not so easily overcome. Such 
 was the valour of that warlike race, and 
 
 such the military talents of their chiefs, 
 that, although not numbering more 
 than a third of the population of Hun - 
 garj^, and an eighth of that of the whole 
 monarchy, it was found impracticable 
 to subdue them without external aid. 
 The Russians, as a matter of necessity, 
 were called in to prevent the second 
 capture of Vienna ; a hundred and 
 sixty thousand Muscovites ere long 
 appeared on the Hungarian plains ; — 
 numbers triumphed over valour, and 
 Austria was saved by the sacrifice of its 
 independence. Incalculable have been 
 the consequences of this great and de- 
 cisive movement on the part of the 
 Czar. N'ot less than the capture of 
 Paris, it has fascinated and subdued 
 the minds of men. It has rendered 
 liim the undisputed master of the east 
 of Europe, and led to a secret alliance, 
 off"ensive and defensive, which at the 
 convenient season will open to the Rus- 
 sians the road to Constantinople. 
 
 22. At length the moment of reac-! 
 tion arrived in France itself ; and the 
 country, whose vehement convulsions 
 had overturned the institutions of so 
 many other states, was itself doomed 
 to undergo the stern but just law of 
 retribution. The undisguised designs 
 of the Socialists against property of 
 every kind, the frequent revolts, the 
 notorious imbecility and trifling of the 
 National Assembly, had so discredited 
 republican institutions, that the nation 
 was fully prepared for a change of any 
 kind from democratic to monarchical 
 institutions. Louis Napoleon had the 
 advantage of a gi'eat name, and of his- 
 torical associations, which raised him 
 by a large majority to the Presidency ; 
 and of able counsellors, who steered 
 him through its difiiculties ; — but the 
 decisive success of the coup d'etat of 
 December 2 was mainly owing to the 
 universal contempt into which the re- 
 publican rulers had fallen, and the 
 general terror which the designs of the 
 Socialists had excited. The nation 
 would, though perhaps not so willingly, 
 have ranged itself under the banners of 
 any militaiy chief who promised to shel- 
 ter them from the evident dangers with, 
 which society was menaced ; and the 
 vigour and fidelity of the army insured 
 
12 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. I, 
 
 its success. The restoration of mili- 
 tary despotism in France in 1851, after 
 the brief and fearful reign of " liberty, 
 equality, and fraternity" in that ever- 
 changing country, adds another to the 
 numerous proofs which history affords, 
 that successful revolution, by whom- 
 soever effected, and under all imagin- 
 able diversity of nation, race, and cir- 
 cumstances, can end only in the empu'e 
 of the sword. 
 
 23. But although the dangers of 
 revolutionary convulsion have been 
 adjourned, at least, if not entirely 
 removed, by the general triumph of 
 military power on the Continent, and 
 its entire re-establishment in France, 
 other dangers, of an equally formid- 
 able, and perhaps still more pressing 
 kind, have arisen from its very success. 
 Since the battle of Waterloo, all the 
 contests in Europe have been interiial 
 only. There have been many desper- 
 ate an^ bloody struggles, tjut they 
 liave not been those of nation with 
 nation, but of class with class, or race 
 with race. ISTo foreign wars have deso- 
 lated Europe ; and the whole efforts of 
 government in every country have 
 been directed to moderating the war- 
 like propensities of their subjects, and 
 preventing the fierce animosities of 
 nationality and race from involving 
 the world in general conflagration. 
 So decisively was this the character- 
 istic of the period, and so great was 
 the difficulty in moderating the war- 
 like dispositions of their subjects, that 
 it seemed that the sentiment of the 
 poet should be reversed, and it might 
 with truth be said — 
 "War is a game, which, were f/ieirrwZers wise, 
 
 Mcii should not play at. " 
 
 But this has been materially changed 
 by the consequences of the great Euro- 
 pean revolution of 1818 ; and it may 
 now be doubted whether the greatest 
 dangers which threaten society are not 
 those of foreign subjugation and the 
 loss of national independence. By the 
 natural effects of the general con\Til- 
 sions of 1848, the armies of the Conti- 
 nental states have been prodigiously 
 augmented ; and such are the dangers 
 of their respective positions, from the 
 turbulent disposition of their own 
 
 subjects, that they cannot be materially 
 reduced. In France there are 420,000 
 men in arms ; in Austria as manv ; in 
 Prussia, 200,000; in Russia, 600", 000. 
 Fifteen hundred thousand regular 
 soldiers are arrayed on the Continent 
 ready for mutual slaughter, and await- 
 ing only a signal from their respective 
 cabinets to direct their united hostility 
 against any country which may hav( 
 provoked their resentment. Such 
 have been the results of the French 
 Revolution of 1848, and the rise of 
 ' ' liberty, equalit)^, and fraternity " in 
 the centre of European civilisation. 
 
 24. Ruinous, indeed, have been the 
 effects of this revolutionary cou\Tilsion, 
 from which so much was expected by 
 the ardent and enthusiastic in every 
 country, upon the cause of freedom 
 throughout the world. Kot only has 
 the reign of representative institutions, 
 and the sway of constitutional ideas, 
 been arrested on the Continent, but 
 the absolute government of the sword 
 has been for the time, at least, estab- 
 lished in its principal monarchies. 
 Austria repudiated all the liberal in- 
 stitutions forced upon her during the 
 first throes of the convulsion, and 
 avowedly based the government upon 
 the army, and the army alone ; but 
 when the danger was passed she, with 
 cautious wisdom, entered on the career 
 of practical improvement. Prussia is 
 more covertly, but not less assiduousty, 
 following out the same system ; — and 
 in France, the real Council of State, 
 servile Senate, and mock Assembly of 
 Deputies of Kapoleon, have been re- 
 established : the IsTational Guard gene- 
 rally dissolved ; and the centralised 
 despotism of Louis Xapoleon promises 
 to rival in efficiency and general sup- 
 port the centralised despotism of Augus- 
 tus in ancient days. Parties have be- 
 come so exasperated at each other, 
 that no accommodation or compromise 
 is longer possible ; injuries that never 
 can be forgiven have been mutually 
 inflicted ; the despotism of the Prre- 
 torians, and a Jacquerie of the Red 
 Republicans, are the onlj' alternatives 
 left to contmental Europe ; and the 
 fair form of real freedom, which grows 
 and flourishes in peace, but melts away 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 13 
 
 before tlie first breath of war, has dis- 
 appeared from the earth. In Spain, 
 after several years of fierce and desolat- 
 ing civil warfare, the Government has 
 fallen into the hands of a succession of 
 military chiefs, who, under the name 
 of ministers, ruled the kingdom with 
 absolute sway ; while the political im- 
 portance of this once powerful empire 
 has been so completely nullified, that 
 she has become absolutely without 
 weight in the balance of European 
 power. Even the desperate passage of 
 arms in the Crimea failed in drawing 
 her into action ; and though she has en- 
 joyed thirty years of unbroken peace, 
 and greatly, inconsequence, augmented 
 in material resources, she has not yet 
 ventured to fit out an expedition to 
 recover even the least considerable of 
 her Transatlantic possessions. Such 
 is the invariable and inevitable result 
 of unchaining the passions of the 
 people, and of a successful revolt on 
 their part against the government of 
 knowledge and property, 
 
 25. Still more pressing, and to our- 
 selves formidable, are the dangers 
 which now threaten this country, from 
 the consequences of that revolt against 
 established institutions, from which the 
 reign of universal peace was anticipated 
 four years ago. Our position has been 
 rendered insecure by the very eff'ects 
 of our former triumphs ; we are threat- 
 ened with perils, not so much from 
 our enemies as from ourselves ; it is 
 our weakness which is their strength ; 
 and we owe our present critical posi- 
 tion infinitely more to our own blind- 
 ness than to their foresight. Insensi- 
 bility to future and contingent dangers 
 has in every age been the characteristic 
 of the English people, and is the real 
 cause why the long wars, in which we 
 have been engaged for the last century 
 and a half, have been deeply checkered 
 in the outset with disaster. To this 
 is to be ascribed three-fourths of the 
 debt which now oppresses the energies 
 and cramps the exertions of our people. 
 But several causes, springing from the 
 very magnitude of our former tri- 
 umphs, have rendered these disposi- 
 tions in an especial manner powerful 
 during the last thirty years ; and it is 
 
 the consequence of their united influ- 
 ence which now renders the condition, 
 of this country so precarious. 
 
 26. The contraction of the Currency 
 introduced in 1819, and rendered still 
 more stringent by the acts of 1844 and 
 1845, changed the value of money fifty 
 per cent ; coupled with Free Trade in 
 all the branches of industry, it doubled 
 it. In other words, it has doubled 
 the weight of taxes, debts, and encum- 
 brances of every description, and at 
 the same time halved the resources of 
 those who are to pay them. This was 
 exactly the state of the country prior 
 to the gold discoveries in 1852, which 
 in the next ten years raised prices fifty 
 per cent again, and has been the cause of 
 all the prosperity which has since pre- 
 vailed. But prior to this great change, 
 the distress produced by the long-con- 
 tinued fall of prices had been extreme. 
 Fifty millions a-year raised for the 
 public revenue are as great a burden 
 now as a hundred millions a-year were 
 during the war ; the nation, at the 
 close of thirty-five years of unbroken 
 peace, is in reality more heavily taxed 
 than it was at the end of twenty years 
 of uninterrupted hostility. It is true, 
 the cheapness of provisions and other 
 necessaries, which has ensued from 
 this enhancing of the value of money, 
 has gi'eatly increased the real riches 
 and consequent powers of consumption 
 in all the classes which depend on 
 fixed money incomes, and their in- 
 creased purchases have, in a certain 
 degree, compensated the eflects of the 
 general fall. But the wages of labour 
 soon fell in proportion to the change in 
 the value of money, so that the bene- 
 fit, ere long, ceased to be general. The 
 only prosperous years, during the last 
 thirty, have been those when prices 
 were high ; the most miserable, those 
 when they were low. The necessary 
 consequence of this has been, that it 
 has become impossible to maintain the 
 national armaments on a scale at all 
 proportionate to the national extension 
 and necessities ; and it has been ex- 
 posed, on the first rupture, to the 
 most serious dangers from the attacks 
 of artless and contemptible enemies. 
 ; Our Indian empire, numbering a hun- 
 
14 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 dred millions of men among its subjects, 
 has been brought to the verge of ruin by 
 the assault of the Sikhs, who had only 
 six millions to feed their armies ; and 
 the military strength of Great Britain 
 has been strained to the uttermost to 
 withstand the hostility at the Cape of 
 Good Hope of the Catfres, who never 
 could bring six thousand armed men 
 into the held. In proportion to the 
 extension of our colonial empire, and 
 the necessity of increased forces to de- 
 fend it, our armaments have been re- 
 duced iDoth by sea and land. Every 
 gleam of colonial peace has been inva- 
 riably followed by profuse demands at 
 home for a reduction of the establish- 
 ments and a diminution of the national 
 expenses, until they have been brought 
 do^vll to so low a point that the nation, 
 which, during the war, had a million 
 of men in arms, two hundred and forty 
 ships of the line bearing the royal 
 flag, and a hundred in commission, 
 could not now (1851) muster above 
 twenty thousand men and ten ships of 
 the line to guard Great Britain from 
 invasion, London from capture, and 
 the British Empire from destruction.* 
 
 27. Still more serious, because more 
 irremediable, in its origin, and disas- 
 trous in its effects, has been the change 
 which has come over the public mind 
 in the most powerful and influential 
 part of the nation. This has mainly 
 arisen from the very magnitude of our 
 former triumphs, and the long-contin- 
 ued peace to Avhich it has given rise. 
 
 * This was too true in December 1851, when 
 these lines were written, and none were more 
 aware of the danger than Lord John Russell 
 and Lord Palmerston, then at the head of her 
 Majesty's Government. But since that time, 
 by the great defensive armaments provided 
 in the militia, 80,000 strong, raised imder 
 Lord Derby's administration, and the great 
 additions made to the field-artillery by the 
 ceaseless exertions of Lord Hardinge, which 
 is now raised to 300 guns, the national de- 
 fences have been materially strengthened, 
 and it is to be hoped will never again be per- 
 mitted to fall into their former dilapidated 
 state. The change then made may in the end 
 prove the salvation of the empire. The mili- 
 tary spirit of the nation also has greatly re- 
 vived, as was evinced by the enthusiasm ex- 
 cited by the splendid reviews at Chobham in 
 June 1853, the finest military spectacles which 
 it was possible to conceive, and Avhich sjioke 
 volumes as to the efficient state of the British 
 army, uotwitlistanding the long peace. 
 
 [chap. I. 
 
 The nation had gained such extraor- 
 dinary successes during the war, and 
 vanquished so formidale an opponent, 
 that it had come to regard itself, not 
 without a show of reason, as invinci- 
 ble ; hostilities had been so long inter- 
 mitted that the younger and more ac- 
 tive, and therefore influential part of 
 the people, had generally embraced the 
 idea that tliey would never be renewed. 
 Here, as elsewhere, the wish became 
 the father to the thought ; the imme- 
 diate interests of men determined their 
 opinions and regulated their conduct. 
 The pacific interests of the empire had 
 increased so immensely during the long 
 peace ; so many fortunes and establish- 
 ments had become dependent on its con- 
 tinuance ; exports, imports, and man- 
 ufactures, had been so enormously aug- 
 mented by the growi;h of our colonial 
 empire, and the preservation of peace 
 Avitli the rest of the world, that all per- 
 sons interested in those branches of in- 
 dustry turned with a shudder from the 
 very thought of its interruption. To 
 this class the Reform Bill, by gi\n.ng a 
 majority in the House of Commons, had 
 yielded the government of the State. 
 To the astonishment of every thinking 
 or well-informed man in the world, the 
 doctrine was openly promulgated, to 
 admiring and assenting audiences in 
 Manchester and Glasgow, by the most 
 popular orators of the day, that the 
 era of war had passed away ; that it 
 was to be classed hereafter Anth the age 
 of the mammoth and the mastodon ; and 
 that, in contemplation of the speedy 
 arrival of the much - desired Millen- 
 nium, our Avisdom would be to disband 
 our troops, sell our ships of the line, 
 and trust to pacific interests in future 
 to adjust or avert the differences of na- 
 tions. A considerable part of the mem- 
 bers for the boroughs — three-fifths of 
 the House of Commons — openly era- 
 braced or in secret inclined to these 
 doctrines ; and liow clearly soever the 
 superior information of our rulers might 
 detect their fallacy, the influence of 
 their adlierents was paramount in the 
 legislature, and Government was com- 
 pelled, as the price of existence, in 
 part at least, to yield to their sugges- 
 tions. 
 
HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 15 
 
 28. The clanger of acting upon such 
 Utopian ideas has been much augment- 
 ed, in the case of this country, by the 
 commercial policy at the same time 
 pursued by the dominant class who 
 had come to entertain them. If it be 
 true, as the A\4sest of men have affirm- 
 ed in every age, and as universal ex- 
 perience has proved, that the real 
 source of riches, as well as indepen- 
 dence, is to be found in the cultivation 
 of the soil, and that a nation which 
 has come to dei:)end for a considerable 
 part of its subsistence on foreign states 
 has made the first step to subjugation, 
 the real patriot will find ample subject 
 of regret and alarm in the present con- 
 dition of Great Britain. Not only are 
 from twelve to fifteen millions of quar- 
 ters of grain, being a full moiety of the 
 national consumption, now imported 
 from abroad, but nearly the half of this 
 immense importation is of wheat, the 
 staple food of the people, of which a 
 third comes from fbreign parts. Not 
 only is the price of this great quantity 
 of grain — certainly not less than from 
 fifteen to twenty-five millions sterling 
 — lost to the nation, but so large a 
 portion of its food has come to be de- 
 rived from foreign nations, that the 
 mere threat of closing their harbours 
 may render it a matter of necessity for 
 Great Britain, at some future period, 
 to submit to any terms which they 
 may choose to exact. Our colonies, 
 once so loyal, and so great a support to 
 the mother country, have been so tho- 
 roughly alienated by the commercial 
 policy of the last few years, which has 
 deprived them of the chief advantages 
 which they enjoyed from their connec- 
 tion with it, that they have become a 
 burden rather than a benefit. One- 
 half of our diminutive army is absorb- 
 ed in garrisoning their forts to guard 
 against revolt. Lastly, the royal navy, 
 once our pride and glory, and the only 
 certain safeguard either against the 
 dangers of foreign invasion or the block- 
 ade of our harbours and ruin of our com- 
 merce, is fast becoming inadequate to 
 the national defence ; and the commer- 
 cial na\y, its true nursery, is every day 
 less to be relied on : for the reciprocity 
 gystem established in 1823, and the 
 
 repeal of the Navigation Laws in 1849, 
 have given such encouragement to for- 
 eign shipping in preference to our own, 
 that in a few years, if the same sys- 
 tem continue, more than half of our 
 whole commerce will have passed into 
 the hands of foreign states, which may 
 any day become hostile ones.* 
 
 29. To complete the perils of Great 
 Britain, arising out of the very magni- 
 tude of its former triumphs and extent 
 of its empii-e, while so many causes 
 were conspiring to weaken its internal 
 strength, and disqualify it for with- 
 standing the assault of a formidable 
 enemy, others, perhaps more pressing, 
 were alienating foreign nations, break- 
 ing w-p old alliances, and tending more 
 and more to isolate England in the 
 midst of European hostility. The tri- 
 umph of the democratic principle, by 
 the Revolution of 1830 in France, was 
 the cause of this ; for it at once induc- 
 ed an entire change of government and 
 foreign policy in England, and substi- 
 tuted new revolutionary for the old 
 conservative alliances. Great Britain 
 
 * Proportion of Foreign and British 
 Tonnage in British Ports. 
 
 Yearj. 
 
 Tons, British. 
 
 Tons.Foreign. 
 
 Imports, Official. | 
 
 1 
 
 1820 
 
 100 
 
 27 
 
 £32,000,000 
 
 1825 
 
 100 
 
 45 
 
 4-1,000,000 
 
 1830 
 
 100 
 
 35 
 
 46,000,000 
 
 1835 
 
 100 
 
 35 
 
 49,000,000 
 
 1840 
 
 100 
 
 46 
 
 67,000,000 
 
 1845 
 
 100 
 
 46 
 
 85,000,000 
 
 1847 
 
 100 
 
 45 
 
 90,000,000 
 
 1848 
 
 100 
 
 43 
 
 94,000,000 
 
 1849 
 
 100 
 
 42 
 
 106,000,000 
 
 1850 
 
 100 
 
 51 
 
 95,000,000 
 
 1851 
 
 100 
 
 59 
 
 104,000,000 
 
 Thns, while the growth of foreign shipping 
 over British has been, since the recipi'ocity 
 system was introduced in 1823, from twenty- 
 seven to fifty -nine, the imports during the 
 same period have increased from thirty-one 
 to one hundred. — See £di.n6itror/tjRei'(e?/j, April 
 1853, p. 295, the unfriendly, and therefore un- 
 suspected, work of a critic wlio adduces these 
 figures to disprove the assertion in the text. 
 The rapid increase of foreign tonnage, in car- 
 rying on our trade, over British, appears from 
 the following table, which shows that, since 
 1822, when the reciprocity system began, 
 our exports have doubled, our own shipping 
 tripled; but the foreign shipping employed 
 in conducting our trade has augmented nearly 
 SEVENFOLD, OT twicc as fast as our own. 
 Since the repeal of the Navigation Laws in 
 1S49, nearly 2,000,000 has been added to for- 
 
IC 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. I. 
 
 no longer appeared as the champion of 
 order, but as the friend of rebellion ; 
 revolutionary dynasties were, by her 
 influence, joined with that of France, 
 established in Belgium, Spain, and Por- 
 tugal ; and the policy of our Cabinet 
 avowedly was to establish an alliance 
 of constitutional sovereigns in Western, 
 which might counterbalance the coali- 
 tion of despots in Eastern Europe. This 
 system has been constantly pursued, 
 and for long with ability and success, 
 by our Government. Strong in the 
 support of France, whether under a 
 "throne surrounded by republican in- 
 stitutions," or those institutions them- 
 selves, England became indiflerent to 
 the jealous}^ of the other Continental 
 powers ; and in the attempt to extend 
 tlie spread of liberal institutions, or 
 the sympathy openly expressed for 
 foreign rebels, irritated beyond forgive- 
 
 eign tons, and only less than 200,000 to our 
 own. — Shipping Returns, 1S51. 
 
 Foreign and British Tonnage in British 
 Ports. 
 
 
 
 Total Tonnage out and in— 
 
 Years. 
 
 Declared value 
 of Exports. 
 
 Clearances and Entries. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 British. 
 
 Foreign. 
 
 1S22 
 
 £36,966,023 
 
 3,202,887 
 
 926,693 
 
 1S23 
 
 35,357,041 
 
 3,287,835 
 
 1,146,567 
 
 1824 
 
 38,422,404 
 
 3,454,359 
 
 1,506,401 
 
 1S25 
 
 38,870,945 
 
 3,937,159 
 
 1,865,378 
 
 1S26 
 
 31,536,723 
 
 3,688,055 
 
 1,386,556 
 
 1827 
 
 37,181,335 
 
 3,974,580 
 
 1,519,685 
 
 1828 
 
 36,812,757 
 
 4,100,754 
 
 1.242,738 
 
 1829 
 
 35,842,623 
 
 4,247,714 
 
 1,440,553 
 
 1830 
 
 38,271,597 
 
 4,282,189 
 
 1,517,196 
 
 1S31 
 
 37,164,372 
 
 4,668,053 
 
 1,770,656 
 
 1832 
 
 36,450,594 
 
 4,415,249 
 
 1,291,202 
 
 1833 
 
 39,667,348 
 
 4,428,088 
 
 1,520,686 
 
 1834 
 
 41,649,191 
 
 4,594,588 
 
 1,686,732 
 
 1835 
 
 47,372,270 
 
 4,862,675 
 
 1,772,260 
 
 1836 
 
 53,293,979 
 
 5,037,050 
 
 2,024,019 
 
 1837 
 
 42,069,245 
 
 5,164,393 
 
 2,042,678 
 
 1838 
 
 50,061,737 
 
 5,661,623 
 
 2,434,469 
 
 1839 
 
 53,233,580 
 
 6,198,261 
 
 2,729,461 
 
 18-40 
 
 51,466,430 
 
 6,490,485 
 
 2,949,182 
 
 1S41 
 
 51,634,623 
 
 6,790,490 
 
 2,628,057 
 
 1842 
 
 47,381,023 
 
 6,669,995 
 
 2,457,479 
 
 1843 
 
 52,279,709 
 
 7,181,179 
 
 2,643,383 
 
 1844 
 
 58,584,292 
 
 7,500,285 
 
 2,846,484 
 
 1845 
 
 60,111,082 
 
 8,546,090 
 
 3,531,215 
 
 1846 
 
 57,786.876 
 
 8,688,148 
 
 3,727,438 
 
 1847 
 
 58,842,377 
 
 9,712,464 
 
 4,566,732 
 
 1848 
 
 52,849,445 
 
 9,289,560 
 
 4,017,066 
 
 1840 
 
 63,596,025 
 
 9,669,638 
 
 4,-334,750 
 
 1850 
 
 71,367,885 
 
 9,442,544 
 
 5.062.520 
 
 1351 
 
 74,448,722 
 
 9,820,876 
 
 6,159,322 
 
 -Shipping Eelurns, 1S51, 1S52. 
 
 ness the cabinets of St Petersburg, 
 Vienna, and Berlin. While the French 
 alliance continued, these powers were 
 constrained to devour their indignation 
 in silence : they did not venture, with 
 the embers of revolt slumbering in 
 their own dominions, to brave the com- 
 bined hostility of France and England. 
 But all alliances formed on identity 
 of feeling, not interest, are ephemeral 
 in their duration. A single day de- 
 stroyed the whole fabric on which we 
 rested for our security. Revolutionary 
 violence progressively worked out its 
 natural and unavoidable result in the 
 principal Continental states. A mili- 
 tary despotism was, after a sanguinary 
 struggle, established in Austria and 
 Prussia ; the 2d December arrived in 
 France, and that power in an instant 
 was turned over to the ranks of those 
 who may one day prove our enemies. 
 Our eff"orts to revolutionise Europe 
 have ended in the establishment of mi- 
 litary despotisms in all its principal 
 states, supported by fifteen hundred 
 thousand armed men ; our alliance with 
 France, in the placing of it in the very 
 front rank of what may at some future 
 time become the league of our enemies, 
 30. When so many causes for serious 
 apprehension exist, from the effect of 
 the changes which are now going on, 
 or have been in operation for the last 
 quarter of a centiuy in European so- 
 ciety, it is consolatoiy to think that 
 there are some influences of an oppo- 
 site tendency, and which tend obvious- 
 ly and immediately to the increase of 
 hinnan happiness, or the elevation of the 
 general mind. In the very front rank 
 of this category we must place the dis- 
 covery of the gold mmes of California 
 and Australia, which promise, in their 
 ultimate efl'ects, not only to obviate 
 many of the greatest evils under which 
 society has long laboured, but to bring 
 about a new balance of power in every 
 state, and relieve industry from the 
 worst part of the load which has hither- 
 to oppressed it. This subject is neither 
 so generally appreciated or understood 
 as its paramount importance deserves ; 
 but it is every day forcing itself more 
 and more on the attention of the think- 
 ing part of mankind, and through them 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 17 
 
 it •will, ere long, reacli the vast and 
 unthinking multitude. 
 
 31. Whoever has studied with atten- 
 tion the stnicture or tendencies of so- 
 ciety, either as they are portrayed in the 
 annals of ancient story, or exist in the 
 complicated relations of men around 
 us, must have become aware, that the 
 greatest evils which in the latter stages 
 of national progress came to afflict 
 mankind, arose from the undue in- 
 fluence and paramount importance of 
 realised riches. That the rich in the 
 later stages of national progress are 
 constantly getting richer, and the poor 
 poorer, is a common observation, which 
 has been repeated in every age, from 
 the days of Solon to those of Sir Ro- 
 bert Peel ; and many of the greatest 
 changes which have occurred in the 
 world — in particular, the fall of the 
 Roman Empire — may be distinctly 
 traced to the long-continued operation 
 of this pernicious tendency. The great- 
 est benefactors of their species have 
 always been regarded as those who de- 
 vised and carried into execution some 
 remedy for this great and growing evil ; 
 but none of them have proved lasting 
 in their operation, and the frequent 
 renewal of fresh enactments to check 
 it sufficiently proves that those which 
 had preceded them had proved nuga- 
 tory. It is no wonder that it was so ; 
 for the evils complained of arose from 
 the unavoidable result of a stationary 
 cun-ency, coexisting with a rapid in- 
 crease in the numbers and transactions 
 of mankind ; and these were only 
 aggravated by every addition made to 
 the energies and productive powers of 
 society. 
 
 32. To perceive how this comes about, 
 we have only to reflect, that money, 
 whether in the form of gold, silver, or 
 paper, is a commodity, and an article 
 of commerce ; and that, like all similar 
 articles, it varies in value and price 
 with its plenty or cheapness in the 
 market. As certainly and inevitably 
 as a plentiful harvest renders grain 
 cheap, and an abundant vintage wine 
 low-priced, does an increased supply 
 of the currency, whether in specie or 
 paper, render money cheap, as com- 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 pared with the price of other com- 
 modities. But as money is itself the 
 standard by which the value of every- 
 thing else is measured, and in which 
 its price is paid, this change in its price 
 cannot be seen in any change in itself, 
 because it is the standard : it appears 
 in the price of everything else against 
 which it is bartered. If a flxed mea- 
 sure is applied to the figure of a growing 
 man, the change that takes place will 
 appear, not in the dimensions of the 
 measure, Imt of the man. Thus an 
 increase in the currency, when the num- 
 bers and transactions are stationary, or 
 nearly so, is immediately followed by 
 a rise in the money price of all other 
 commodities; and a contraction of it 
 is as quickly succeeded ])y a fall in the 
 money price of all articles of commerce, 
 and the money remuneration of every 
 species of industry. The first change 
 is favourable to the producing classes, 
 whether in land or jnanufactures, and 
 unfavourable to the holders of realised 
 capital, or fixed annuities; the last 
 augments tlie real wealth of the monied 
 and wealthy classes, and proportionally 
 depresses the dealers in commodities, 
 and persons engaged in industrial oc- 
 cupations. But if an increase in the 
 numbers and industry of man coexist 
 with a diminution in the circulating 
 medium by which their transactions 
 are carried on, the most serious evils 
 await society, and the whole relations 
 of its diff"erent classes to each other will 
 be speedily changed ; and it is in that 
 state of things that the saying proves 
 true, that the rich are every day grow- 
 ing richer, and the poor poorer. 
 
 33. The two greatest events which 
 have occurred in the history of man- 
 kind have been directly brought about 
 by a successive contraction and ex- 
 pansion of the circulating medium of 
 society. The fall of the Roman Em- 
 pire, so long ascribed, in ignorance, to 
 slavery, heathenism, and moral corrup- 
 tion, Avas in reality brought about by 
 a decline in the gold and silver mines 
 of Spain and Greece, from which the 
 precious metals for the circulation of 
 the world were drawn, at the very time 
 when the victories of the legions, and 
 
13 
 
 HISTOEY OF EUROPE. 
 
 the wisdom of the Antonines, had given 
 peace and security, and, with it, an 
 increase in numbers and necessary mer- 
 cantile transactions, to the Roman Em- 
 pire. The treasure which formed the 
 sole circulating medium of the Empire, 
 which in the time of Augustus had 
 been £380, 000, 000, had sunk, in that of 
 Justinian, to no more than £80, 000, 000 
 sterling. This growing disproportion, 
 which all the efforts of man to obviate 
 its effects only tended to aggravate, 
 coupled with the simultaneous impor- 
 tation of grain from Egypt and Libya 
 at prices below what it could be raised 
 at in the Italian fields, produced that 
 constant decay of agriculture and rural 
 population, and increase in the weight 
 of debts and taxes, to which all the 
 contemporary annalists ascribe the ruin 
 of the Empire. And as if Providence 
 had intended to reveal in the clearest 
 manner the influence of this mighty 
 agent on human aftairs, the resurrec- 
 tion of mankind from the ruin which 
 these causes had produced was owing 
 to the directly opposite set of agencies 
 being put in operation. Columbus led 
 the way in the career of renovation ; 
 when he spread his sails across the 
 Atlantic, he bore mankind and their 
 fortunes in his bark. The mines of ]\Iex- 
 ico and Peru were opened to Eui'opean 
 enterprise : the real riches of those 
 regions were augmented bv fabulous 
 invention ; and the fancied El Dorado 
 of the New World attracted the enter- 
 ]n-ising and ambitious from every coun- 
 try to its shores. Vast numbers of the 
 European, as well as the Indian race, 
 perished in the perilous attempt, but 
 the ends of Nature were accomplished. 
 The annual supply of the precious me- 
 tals for the use of the globe was tripled ; 
 before a century had expired, the prices 
 of every species of produce were quad- 
 rupled. The weight of debt and taxes 
 insensibly wore off under the influence 
 of that prodigious increase in the re- 
 novation of industry ; the relations of 
 society were changed; the weight of 
 feudalism cast off; the rights of man 
 established. Among the many con- 
 curring causes which conspired to bring 
 about this mighty consummation, the 
 most important, though hitherto the 
 
 [chap. I. 
 
 least observed, was the discovery of the 
 mines of Mexico and Peru.* 
 
 34. The niinous effects which would 
 inevitably have ensued from the simul- 
 taneous increase in the transactions and 
 expenditure of all nations, and abstrac- 
 tion of the precious metals for the use 
 of the contending armies during the 
 Revolutionary war, were entirely pre- 
 vented, in this country, by the intro- 
 duction of a paper currency in 1797, 
 not convertible into gold, and there- 
 fore not liable to be Avithdra\\Ti, and 
 yet issued in such moderate quantities 
 as satisfied the wants of man without 
 exceeding them. It cannot vrith. truth 
 be afiirmed that this admirable sj^stem 
 was o^\'ing to the \\'isdom and foresight 
 of Mr Pitt, or any other man. Like 
 many other of the greatest and most 
 salutary changes in society, it arose 
 from absolute necessity ; it was the last 
 resource of a State, which, after its specie 
 had all been drained away by the neces- 
 sities of Continental warfare, had no 
 other means of carrying on the contest. 
 Such as it was, however, it proved the 
 most important and decisive measure 
 ever adopted by this or perhaps any 
 other country. Like a sunilar step 
 taken by the Roman government dur- 
 ing the necessities of the second Punic 
 war, t it brought England Aactorious 
 through the contest; and in the vast 
 
 * See "The Fall of B.omG," Alison's Essays, 
 iii. 440, where the author has endeavoured to 
 trace out in detail, and from authentic ma- 
 terials, this most momentous subject. 
 
 t " Neminem nisi bello confecto pecuniam 
 ab serario petiturum esse."— Liv. lib. xxvi. c. 
 19. The Author's attention was first turned 
 to this remarkable passage, from ha\ing learn- 
 ed from a valued friend who was present, that 
 on one occasion in a Whig party, when the 
 late Lord Melbourne was present, that aecom- 
 Xilished statesman, when the conversation 
 turned on Mr Pitt's suspension of cash pay- 
 ments in 1797, quoted from memory these 
 words. Dr Arnold gives the same account of 
 the vital importance of this measure to the 
 fortunes of Rome. "The censors found the 
 treasury unable to supply the public neces- 
 sities. Upon this, trust-monies belonging to 
 widows and minors were deposited in the 
 Treasury, and whatever sums the trustees 
 had to draw for were paid by bills on the 
 banking commissioners.or triumvirs meyisarii. 
 It is probable that these bills were actually a, 
 paper currency, and that they circulated as 
 money on the security of the public faith. In 
 the same way the government contractors 
 
;IIAP. I.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 19 
 
 stimulus given to every branch of in- 
 dustry, it laid the foundation of those 
 changes in the relations of society, and 
 the ruling power in the State, which, 
 in their ultimate effects, are destined 
 not only to determine the future fate 
 of England, but of the whole civilised 
 ■world. 
 
 35. That Great Britain, and every 
 state largely concerned in industria] 
 enterprises, has sufl"ered grievous and 
 long-continued distress since the peace, 
 is unhappily too well known to all Avho 
 have lived through that period, and 
 will be abundantly proved in the course 
 of this History. It is hard to say 
 ■whether England, France, or America 
 has, in their industrial classes, suffered 
 the most. In this country, indeed, 
 this long period of peace has been no- 
 thing but a protracted one of sufi'ering, 
 interrupted only by fitful and transient 
 gleams of prosperity. In France the 
 condition of the working-classes, and 
 the ceaseless exactions made from them 
 by the monied, have been so incessant, 
 that they -^vere the main cause of the 
 Revolution of 1830, and have produced 
 that tendency to Socialist and Commu- 
 nist doctrines w^hich has subsequently 
 taken such deep root, and produced 
 such disastrous consequences, in that 
 country. In America, so great has been, 
 during the same period, the distress 
 produced by the alternate expansion 
 and contraction of the currency, that 
 it has exceeded anything recorded in 
 history, swept four-fifths of the realised 
 capital of the country away, and at one 
 period reduced its imports from this 
 country from twelve to three millions 
 and a half annually. The thoughtful 
 in all countries had their attention for- 
 cibly arrested by this long succession 
 of disasters, so diff'erent from what had 
 been anticipated during the smiling 
 days of universal peace, and many and 
 various were the theories put forward 
 to account for such distressing pheno- 
 mena. The real explanation of them 
 is to be found in a cause of paramount 
 importance, and universal operation, 
 
 were also paid in paper ; for th6 contractors 
 came forward in a body, promising not to 
 demand payment till the end of the war." — 
 Arnold's Rome, ii. 207, 208. 
 
 though at the time unobserved— and 
 that ■was the simultaneous contrac- 
 tion of the monetary circulation of the 
 globe, from the effects of the South 
 American revolution, and of the paper 
 circulation of Great Britain, from the 
 results of the act imposing the resump- 
 tion of cash payments on the Bank of 
 England. 
 
 36. The first of these causes, in the 
 course of a few years, reduced the an- 
 nual supply of the precious metals 
 from the Mexican and South American 
 mines, which, anterior to the com- 
 mencement of the troubles in that 
 quarter of the glolie, had been, on an 
 average, about £10,000,000 sterling, 
 to considerably less than half that 
 amount ; and at this reduced rate the 
 supply continued for a great many 
 years.* The second, at the very same 
 time, reduced the paper circulation 
 of the British empire, whicli, includ- 
 ing Ireland and Scotland, had been, 
 during the last years of the war, above 
 £60,000,000 annually, to little more 
 than half that amount. Tlie eff"ect of 
 this prodigious contraction in the cir- 
 culating medium of the world in gene- 
 ral, anfl of this country in particular, 
 was much enhanced by the state of 
 affairs, and the circumstances of so- 
 ciety in all the principal countries of 
 the earth, at the time when it took 
 place. Universal repose prevailed al- 
 most unbroken during tlie whole pe- 
 riod ; and the energies of men in all 
 nations, violently aroused by the ex- 
 citement and passions of the contest, 
 were generally turned into the chan- 
 nels of pacific industry. As a neces- 
 sary consequence, population increas- 
 ed, and the transactions of men were 
 immensely multiplied ; and as this 
 occurred at the very time when the 
 circulation by which tliey were to be 
 carried on -was reduced to less than a 
 half of its former amount, the neces- 
 sary result was a great and imiversal 
 reduction of prices of every branch of 
 produce, whether agi-icultural or manu- 
 factured, Avhich, before the lapse of 
 thirty years, had everywhere sunk to 
 little more than half of their fonner 
 
 * See Humboldt's Nouvelle Espagne, Ui. 393. 
 
20 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. I. 
 
 amount.* The only sensible mitiga- 
 tion of these evils was found in the 
 produce of the Ural mines of Russia, 
 ■which gradually rose from £40,000 in 
 1838, to £3,500,000 in 1846, and is 
 still increasing. But the greater part 
 of this treasure was locked up in the 
 Russian exchequer, and such of it as 
 did get out and spread to foreign 
 States, gave only a trifling relief. For 
 as the exports of England had doubled 
 and its imports tripled during the 
 same period, to have averted a dearth 
 of currency, wlxieh was wanted, was 
 not the partial sup})lying of a defici- 
 ency, but a vast increase beyond what 
 it had been at the beginning of the 
 period, commensurate to the extended 
 wants and necessities of the rapidly- 
 increasing commercial intercourse of 
 men. 
 
 37. Great Britain, as the richest 
 country in the globe, and the one in 
 which the largest amoant of industry 
 was carried on, w^as the one of course 
 in which this reduction of prices was 
 most sorely felt ; and it came to affect 
 the well-being of the largest portion of 
 the people. It was not merely the 
 reduction of prices on an average of 
 years which was felt as so grievous an 
 evil, but this vacillation from year to 
 year, with the fluctuations of a cur- 
 rency since 1819 rendered mainly de- 
 pendent on the retention of gold. The 
 parliamentary proceedings during the 
 whole period are filled with petitions 
 complaining alternately of agricultu- 
 ral and manufacturing distress, which 
 were regularly referred to committees, 
 and as regularly followed by no alle- 
 
 ^^ating measures. In truth, the e^^l 
 had got beyond the reach of human 
 remedy ; for it arose from the confirm- 
 ed ascendancy in the legislature of a 
 class which had gained, and was gain- 
 ing, immensely by the general suffer- 
 ing with w^hich it was suiTOunded. 
 It was difficult to say whether the 
 manufacturing aristocracy engaged iu 
 the export trade gained most by the 
 general reduction in the price of com- 
 modities, and, as a necessary conse- 
 quence, in the wages of labour ; or 
 the monied, from the commercial ca- 
 tastrophes which brought interest up 
 to a usurious rate, and enabled them 
 to accumulate colossal fortunes in a 
 few years. Everytliing turned to the 
 profit of capital and the depression of 
 industry ; and so strongly were the 
 interests magnified by these changes 
 intrenched in the legislature, that the 
 cause of humanity seemed hopeless. 
 Every effort of industry, eveiy triumph 
 of art, every increase of population, 
 tended only to augment the general 
 distress, because it enhanced the dis- 
 proportion between the decreasing cir- 
 culation and increasing numbers and 
 transactions of mankind ; and pro- 
 phetic wisdom, resting on the past, 
 and musing on the future, could anti- 
 cipate nothing but a decline and fall, 
 precisely similar to that of ancient 
 Rome, for modern Europe. 
 
 38. But Providence is Aviser than 
 man ; and often when human effort is 
 inadequate to arrest the current of 
 misfortune, and nothing but disaster 
 can be anticipated for the future of 
 I mankind, a cause is suddenly brought 
 
 * Money Circulation and Prices of Wheat during the following Years :— 
 
 
 Year. 
 
 Money raised in 
 
 Year. 
 
 Bank and Bankers- 
 
 Year. 
 
 Average Price of 
 
 South America. 
 
 
 Notes, England. 
 
 
 Wheat per 
 
 Quarter. 
 
 1S03 
 
 £5,032,000 
 
 1812 
 
 £43,500,000 
 
 1812 
 
 s. 
 
 122 
 
 d. 
 8 
 
 1804 
 
 5,058,000 
 
 1818 
 
 45,680,000 
 
 ! 1813 
 
 106 
 
 6 
 
 1805 
 
 7,104,436 
 
 1814 
 
 47,501,080 
 
 ' 1814 
 
 72 
 
 1 
 
 1806 
 
 6,502,142 
 
 1815 
 
 46,272,650 
 
 1815 
 
 63 
 
 8 
 
 1807 
 
 5,356,152 
 
 , 1816 
 
 42,109,620 
 
 1816 
 
 76 
 
 2 
 
 1803 
 
 6,169,038 
 
 ' 1819 
 
 40,928,428 
 
 1819 
 
 72 
 
 3 
 
 1809 
 
 6,997,853 
 
 ! 1820 
 
 34,145,395 
 
 1820 
 
 65 
 
 10 
 
 1819 
 
 3,838,3.50 
 
 : 1821 
 
 30,727,630 
 
 1821 
 
 54 
 
 5 
 
 1820 
 
 3,557,236 
 
 ' 1829 
 
 28,394,437 
 
 1829 
 
 66 
 
 3 
 
 1821 
 
 2,887,487 
 
 1830 
 
 28,501,454 
 
 ' 1830 
 
 64 
 
 3 
 
 1822 
 
 2,560,000 
 
 1831 
 
 26,965,094 
 
 i 1831 
 
 66 
 
 4 
 
 — Auson's Europe, chap, xcvi., Appendix; and Porter's Progress ojihe Nation, 148. 
 
HAP. 1.] 
 
 HISTOEY OF EUROPE. 
 
 21 
 
 into operation -which entirely alters 
 the destinies of the species, and educes 
 future and unlimited good out of pre- 
 sent and crushing evil. At the close 
 of the fifteenth century the working 
 classes over all Europe were sunk in a 
 state of debasement, from which ex- 
 trication seemed hopeless, from the 
 strength of the position occupied by 
 the feudal aristocracy by which they 
 w-ere oppressed. Providence revealed 
 the compass to mankind, the Almighty 
 breathed the spirit of pro})hetic hero- 
 ism into one man — Columbus spread 
 his sails across the Atlantic, the mines 
 of Mexico and Pern were discovered, 
 and the destinies of the world were 
 changed. Less oppressed in appear- 
 ance, but not less depressed in real- 
 ity, the labouring poor were generally 
 struggling with difficulties in every 
 part of the civilised world, after the 
 termination of the great strife of the 
 French Kevolution ; the monied had 
 come instead of the feudal aristocracy ; 
 and so strongly was the commercial 
 class, which had grown up into im- 
 portance during its continuance, in- 
 trenched in the citadels of power, that 
 relief or emancipation from evil seemed 
 alike out of the question. Even the 
 terrible monetary'- crash of 1848 failed 
 in drawing general attention to the 
 subject, or making the suffering classes 
 aware of the source from whicdi their 
 difficulties proceeded. Financial diffi- 
 culties induced by that very monetary 
 pressure drove the Americans into the 
 career of conquest ; repudiation ol' 
 debts was succeeded by aggression on 
 territory, in the hope of extracting 
 payment of their debts by the sale of 
 foreign lands ; Texas was overran by 
 squatters, Califokxia conquered by 
 armies, the reserve treasures of nature 
 opened up, and the face of the Avorld 
 was changed. 
 
 39. To appreciate the immense and 
 blessed influence of this event upon 
 the happiness and prospects of man- 
 kind, we have only to suppose that it 
 had not taken place, and consider what 
 would, in that event, have been the des- 
 tinies of the species ? America, Avith 
 twenty -four millions of inliabitants, 
 is now doubling its numbers every 
 
 twenty-five years ; Russia, with seventy 
 millions, every seventy years ; twenty- 
 five millions are every two years added 
 to the inhabitants of Europe, west of 
 the Vistula ; and the British colonies, 
 in Australia, are rising at a rate which 
 promises ere long to outstrip the far- 
 famed rapidity of Transatlantic in- 
 crease. Great and unprecedented as is 
 this simultaneous growth of mankind 
 in so many different parts of the world, 
 it is yet outstripped by the increase of 
 their industry and transactions. The 
 enhanced activity and energy, spring- 
 ing from the development of the demo- 
 cratic passions in Western Europe ; the 
 multiplied wants and luxuries of man, 
 arising from the long continuance of 
 peace, and growth of realised wealth ; 
 the prodigious change effected by steam, 
 at sea and land, in their means of com - 
 nmnication, have all conspired to mul- 
 tiply their transactions in a still greater 
 ratio than their numbers. In these 
 circumstances, if the circulating me- 
 dium of the globe had remained sta- 
 tionary, or declining, as it was from 
 1815 to 1849 from the effects of South 
 American revolution and Englisli legis- 
 lation, the necessary result must have 
 been that it would have become alto- 
 gether inadequate to the wants of men ; 
 and not only would industry have been 
 everywhere cramped, but the price of 
 produce would have universally and 
 constantly fallen. Money would everj' 
 day have become more valuable — all 
 other articles measured in money, less 
 so ; debts and taxes Avould have been 
 constantly increasing in Aveight and 
 oppression : the fate which crushed 
 Rome in ancient, and lias all but 
 crushed Great Britain in modern times, 
 would have been that of the whole 
 family of mankind. The extension 
 and general use of a x)aper currency 
 might have alleviated, but it could 
 not have removed, these evils ; for no 
 such currency, common to all man- 
 kind, has ever yet been found practi- 
 cable ; and such is the weiglit of capi- 
 tal, and the strength of the influences 
 which, in an artificial state of society, 
 it comes to exercise on the measures of 
 government, that experience gives no 
 countenance to the belief that any ne- 
 
22 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. I. 
 
 cessities of mankind, however urgent, 
 would lead to the adoj^tion of mea- 
 sures by which its realised value might 
 be lessened. 
 
 40. All these evils have been entirely 
 obviated, and the opposite set of bless- 
 ings introduced, by the opening of the 
 great reserve treasures of nature in 
 California, New Columbia, and Aus- 
 tralia. As clearly as the basin of the 
 Mississippi was prepared by the hand 
 of nature to receive the surplus popu- 
 lation of the Western World, were 
 the gold mines of California provided 
 to meet the wants of the Western, 
 those of Australia of the Eastern 
 Hemisphere. We can now contem- 
 plate with complacency any given in- 
 crease in mankind ; the growth of 
 their numbers will not lead to the 
 aggravation of their sufferings. Ten 
 years only have elapsed since Califor- 
 nian gold was discovered by Anglo- 
 Saxon enterprise, and the annual 
 supply thence derived for the use of 
 the world, has already come to exceed 
 £25,000,000 sterling. Coupled wdth 
 the mines of Australia and the Ural 
 mountains, it will soon exceed thirty, 
 perhaps reach forty millions ! Before 
 half a century has elapsed, prices of 
 every article of commerce will be 
 tripled, enterprise proportionally en- 
 couraged, industry vivified, debts and 
 taxes lessened. A fate the precise re- 
 verse of that which destroyed Rome in 
 ancient, and so sorely distressed Eng- 
 land in modern times, is reserved for 
 the great family of mankind. When 
 the discovery of the compass, of the 
 art of printing, and of the New World, 
 had given an extraordinary impulse to 
 human activity in the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, the silver mines of ^lexico and 
 Peru were opened by Providence, and 
 the means of conducting industry in 
 consistence \dt\\ human happiness was 
 afforded to mankind. When, by the 
 consequences of the French Revolu- 
 tion, the discovery of steam convey- 
 ance, the improvement of machinery, 
 and the vast extension of European 
 emigration, a still greater impulse was 
 given to the human species in the 
 nineteenth century, the gold mines of 
 California and Australia were brouf^lit 
 
 into operation, and the increase in 
 human numbers and transactions wa.s 
 even exceeded by the means provided 
 for conducting them ! If ever the 
 benevolence of the Almighty was 
 clearly revealed in human afiairs, it 
 was in these two decisive discoveries 
 made at such periods ; and he wdio, 
 on considering them, is not persuaded 
 of the superintendence of an ever- 
 watchful Providence, would not be 
 convinced though one rose from the 
 dead. 
 
 41. Coexistent with this boundless 
 capability of increase afforded to the 
 circulating medium of the globe, are 
 the vast additions which the powers 
 of art have made to the resources of 
 industry and the means of human 
 communication. It is hard to say 
 whether the application of steam has 
 acted most powerfully, by the almost 
 miraculous multiplication it has pro- 
 duced of the powers of mechanical in- 
 vention, or the facilities it has afforded 
 to the communication of mankind with 
 each other, and the mutual interchange 
 of the produce of their labour. When 
 we contemplate the effect of the steam- 
 engine on machiner}^ and the conduct- 
 ing of nearly all the branches of manu- 
 facturing industr}^, as it has been 
 exemplified in Great Britain for the 
 last eighty years, we seem to have 
 been entering on a career to which 
 imagination itself can assign no limit. 
 All that is told of the wonders of 
 ancient art, all that is imagined of the 
 fabled powers of genii or magicians, 
 has been exceeded by the simple ex- 
 perience of the capabilities of that 
 marvellous agent. It has multiplied 
 above a hundredfold the powers of in- 
 dustry ; it has penetrated every branch 
 of art, and carried its vast capabilities 
 into the most hidden recesses of me- 
 chanical labour. The steam-engine, 
 as Jeffrey has beautifully said, is so 
 fine an instrument that it can raise a 
 sixpence from the ground— so power- 
 ful, that it can raise a seventy-four in 
 the air. It has overturned constitu- 
 tions, changed the class in which the 
 ruling power was vested, saved and 
 conquered nations. It outstrips the 
 wonders figured by the fancy of Ariosto ; 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 23 
 
 it almost equals the marvels of Alad- 
 din's lamp ; it seems to realise all that 
 the genius of iEschylus had prophesied 
 for mankind, when Prometheus stole 
 the fire from heaven. 
 
 42. Great as are the things which 
 the steam-engine has done for man- 
 kind, it may be doubted whether what 
 it has left undone are not still more 
 important to human happiness and 
 the moral purity of the species. Its 
 marvels are confined to manufacturing 
 industry ; it is incapable of application, 
 on any extended scale, to the cultiva- 
 tion of the soil. It enables one man 
 to do the work of two hundred men, 
 in providing dress or luxuries for man- 
 kind ; but it has not superseded even 
 the arm of infancy or old age in fur- 
 nishing them with the means of sub- 
 sistence. Behold that boy who tends 
 his flocks on the turf-clad mountain's 
 brow : he is as ignorant of art as his 
 predecessors were in the valleys of 
 Arcadia ; but will the steam-engine 
 ever encroach on his blessed domain ? 
 Listen to the song of the milkmaid, as 
 she trips along yon grassy mead ; is 
 that gladsome note to become silent in 
 the progress of civilisation \ Observe 
 that old man who is delving the garden 
 behind his cottage ; the feebleness of 
 age marks his steps, the weakness of 
 time has all but paralysed his arms- 
 yet art, in all its glory, will not equal 
 his labour in the production of food 
 for man. Cast your eyes on that 
 orchard, which is loaded with the 
 choicest fruits of autumn — on that 
 sunny slope, which seems to groan 
 under the riches of the "vintage — on 
 that garden, which realises all that 
 the soul of JMilton has figured of the 
 charms of Paradise—and say, will 
 these primeval and delightful scenes 
 ever, in the march of improvement, 
 be lost to mankind ? The powers of 
 steam, the inventions of mechanism, 
 the division of labour, have done 
 wonders in all the branches of handi- 
 craft and art ; but they have left un- 
 touched the marriage of industry with 
 nature in the fields ; and in the last 
 days of mankind, as in the first, it is 
 in the garden of Eden that man is to 
 find his earthly paradise. 
 
 43. The proof of this is decisive ; it 
 is to be found not less in the figures of 
 the statist than in the dreams of the 
 poet. The old state can always under- 
 sell the young one in manufactures, 
 but it is as uniformly undersold by it 
 in subsistence. England can produce 
 cotton goods cheaper than any other 
 nation, from a material grown on tlie 
 banks of the Mississippi, and it is the 
 consciousness of that ability which 
 makes her now advocate the doctrines 
 of Free Trade ; but she is unable to 
 compete Avith the harvests of Poland, 
 the Ukraine, and America, in that of 
 food, just as ancient Italy was with 
 those of Libya and Eg}7)t. At this 
 moment (1862) she exports one hun- 
 dred and twenty millions' worth of 
 manufactures ; but she imports fifteen 
 millions of quarters of grain, of which 
 nearly the half are of wheat, being a 
 full third of that staple food of our 
 whole people. Grain is never raised 
 so cheap as in those places where the 
 soil is rich, the people poor, and civi- 
 lisation, comparatively speaking, in a 
 state of infancy. The reason is, tliat 
 in the old state, being the richer of 
 the two, money is more abundant, the 
 wages of labour higher, and the conse- 
 quent cost of raising food greater than 
 in the poorer state, where wages are 
 low because money is scarce. Machi- 
 nery obviates, and more than obviates, 
 this monied inequality iw the produc- 
 tion of manufactures, but it has no in- 
 fluence in cheapening that of food. 
 This is a fixed, eternal, and unchange- 
 able law of nature — the same in the 
 last stages of society, and ages of the 
 world, as in the first — against which 
 the genius, the inventions, and the 
 industry of man are alike unable to 
 strive. As such, it exercises a great 
 and lasting influence u])on the fortunes 
 of the species. It was the main cause 
 of the overthrow of Rome in ancient, 
 as it will prove of the decline of 
 Great Britain in modern times : it im- 
 poses, at one time, an impassable bar 
 to the progress of a particular nation ; 
 and prevents, at another, the undue 
 multiplication of mankind in a particu- 
 lar locality. It is the great means 
 provided by Providence for arresting 
 
24 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 the corruption and consequent suffer- 
 ing of aged societies, and securing, 
 when the appointed time arrives, the 
 general dispersion of the species. 
 
 44. To be convinced of this, and of 
 the vast intlnence of this law of nature 
 upon the destinies of mankind, we 
 have only to consider what would have 
 been their situation if the case had 
 been otherwise — if subsistence, like 
 manufactures or minerals, could be 
 raised by huge factories in particular 
 places, and hre had been capable of 
 working the same prodigies in the pro- 
 duction of food for man, as it is in 
 that of cotton or iron goods. Would 
 the world, in such circumstances, have 
 been Avorth living in ? Could any hu- 
 man power have prevented the univer- 
 sal corruption of the species ; could the 
 progress, even, and increase of man- 
 kind, have been secured, when it is re- 
 collected that manufacturing districts, 
 or great towns, so far from increasing, 
 are never able to maintain their own 
 numbers ; and that, but for a steady 
 immigration from rural localities, they 
 would constantly decline in popula- 
 tion ? * If the husbandmen of the 
 fields, the shepherds of the mountains, 
 had become daily, in the progress of 
 society, more and more collected in 
 
 * The Author is well aware that there is 
 often an. apparent increase of births over 
 deaths in manufacturing districts and great 
 towns ; and during the ten years from 1S41 
 to 1851, the proportion was 57 iier cent in 
 three agricultural counties, and 49 per cent in 
 nine manufacturing towns. But tin's arises 
 entirely from the vast immigration of young 
 and healthy persons, of both sexes, from the 
 country, which is constantly going forward 
 into great manufacturing towns while they 
 continue prosperous. To all tlie great manu- 
 facturing towns of Great Britain this immi- 
 gration is never less than 20,000 or 30,000 
 annually ; to the metropolis, four or five times 
 as great. This vast increment of persons in 
 search of work, for the most part in the prime 
 of life, both adds to tlie number of town 
 births, and diminishes the proportion to ex- 
 isting numbers of the annual deaths. If the 
 real urban popvlation — that is, the persons 
 iorn and hred in towns — were left to their 
 own powers of increase, it would everywhere 
 be stationary or decline. It is the great mor- 
 tality of children under five years of age, in 
 town-hrcd c/u7(?rcft— generally about 50 per 
 cent of the entire deaths— which is the chief 
 cause of this.— See Edinburgh Review, April 
 1S53, p. 201, to which the Author is indebted 
 for many facts supporting his views. 
 
 huge manufactories, where subsistence 
 was rolled out of mills like cotton goods 
 from the steam-power looms, or iron 
 from the furnaces, what would have 
 become of the human race ? If, in 
 the progress of society, the growth of 
 wealth and the extension of mechani- 
 cal invention, one man became capable 
 in these immense food-mills of produc- 
 ing subsistence for two hundred men, 
 what could stand in infant states 
 against such competition with the 
 more advanced ones? And would not 
 the inevitable result have been, that 
 the human 'species, instead of follow- 
 ing out the precept of the Almighty, 
 extending over the earth and subduing 
 it, would have been all collected to- 
 gether round a few early-peopled dis- 
 tricts, where manners were corrupted, 
 happiness blighted, and the multipli- 
 cation of the race rendered impossible ? 
 45. The influence which this law of 
 nature exercises upon the fate of par- 
 ticular nations is great and decisive. 
 It has for ever rendered impossible 
 that pressure of population upon the 
 limits of subsistence, which, in the 
 beginning of the present century, was 
 so much the object of dread among 
 political economists. When a coun- 
 try becomes rich and densely peo- 
 pled, a considerable part of its inha- 
 bitants invariably take to manufac- 
 turing pursuits ; and when this is the 
 case, not only is the increase of that 
 section of the community from its own 
 resources immediately arrested, but the 
 passions and desires which arise in the 
 urban population and manufacturing 
 districts lead to the stoppage of all in- 
 crease in the agricultural. The cry 
 for cheap bread is heard ; and as it can 
 never be raised as cheap in the old 
 state as the young one, the conse- 
 quence is, that free importation is first 
 called for, and at last admitted. The 
 moment this takes place to any great 
 extent, the lindts of national progress 
 have been reached ; population first 
 is retarded, then becomes stationarj^ 
 because the labour of the fields, its 
 true nursery, is transferred to foreign 
 states ; emigration from the country to 
 the town or distant lands in quest of 
 employment increases, till it imposes 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 HISTOKY OF EUROPE. 
 
 25 
 
 an absolute bar to tlie growth of tlio 
 people. How clearly is the operation 
 of tliis law of nature exemplified in the 
 recent history of Great Britain, where 
 the nation has been convulsed with tlie 
 fierce demand for free trade in corn, 
 first raised in the manufacturing towns ; 
 and, as a consequence of its concession, 
 it now finds fifteen millions of quarters 
 of foreign grain annually imported, 
 above a hundred thousand cultivators 
 annually exported, and the chief mar- 
 ket for its manufactures in the inhabit- 
 ants of its own fields daily declining. 
 
 46. But if this law of nature, acting 
 as it does upon the selfish dispositions 
 and grasping propensities of mankind, 
 has thus affixed an everlasting bar to 
 the progress of particular nations, it 
 is attended with very diff'erent results 
 upon the general fortunes of the species. 
 If the first leads to melancholy, the 
 last inspires the most consolatory re- 
 flections. It is constantly to be recol- 
 lected that the designs of Providence 
 are not limited to the growth of any 
 particular people, but embrace the 
 general extension and dispersion of the 
 species. To people the earth and sub- 
 due it is the first duty, as it was the 
 fir.st command to mankind, in the last 
 ages of the world as in the first. When, 
 from the causes Avhich have been men- 
 tioned, the progress of a particular 
 state is arrested by the indulgence of 
 the selfish passions of its own people, 
 the sinews of its strength, the seeds of 
 its greatness, 'are not lost ; they are only 
 transferred to distant realms, where 
 a wider field is prepared for their 
 reception, and the means of safe and 
 unbounded multiplication are aff"orded. 
 Sometimes this great migration of man- 
 kind takes place from the lust of for- 
 eign conquest, sometimes from the im- 
 patience of internal passion. In one 
 age it appears in the fierce tempest of 
 Scythian conquest ; in another* in the 
 ceaseless inroad of pacific immigration ; 
 at one time it implants the Gothic 
 swarm in the destined fields of Euro- 
 pean enterprise ; at another, spreads the 
 Anglo-Saxon race over the boundless 
 regions of Transatlantic or Australian 
 freedom. 
 
 47. "Knowledge," it is often said, 
 
 * ' is Poiccr." IsTo one has yet ventured 
 to say it is either wisdom or virtue. 
 Bulwer was nearer the truth when he 
 said it is a tricst which may be used or 
 abused. In this respect a capital mis- 
 take has been committed, both by the 
 speculative and active part of mankind 
 of late years ; and, what is very re- 
 markable, by the religious teachers, 
 whose principles should have led them 
 most to distrust the efficacy of intel- 
 lectual cultivation in arresting the cor- 
 ruption of the species. They forgot 
 that it was eating of the fruit of the 
 tree of knowledge which expelled our 
 first parents from Paradise — that the 
 precept of our Saviour was to preach 
 the gospel to all nations, not to edu- 
 cate all nations ; that its propagation 
 was intrusted to ignorant fishermen, 
 not the sages of Egj^pt, Greece, or India. 
 Experience has now abundantly veri- 
 fied the melancholy truth so often en- 
 forced in Scripture, so constantly for- 
 gotten by mankind, that intellectual 
 cultivation has no eff'ect in arresting 
 the sources of evil in the human heart ; 
 that it alters the direction of crime, 
 but does not diminish its amount. 
 The poet has said — 
 
 •' Didioisse fideliter artes, 
 Emollit mores, nee sinit esse feios ; " 
 
 and that is undoubtedly true. But 
 observe, he has not said, "nee sinit 
 esse malos." Education and civilisa- 
 tion, generally difliised, have a power- 
 ful effect in softening the savage pas- 
 sions of the human breast, and check- 
 ing the crimes of violence which ori- 
 ginate in their indulgence ; but they 
 tend rather to increase than diminish 
 those of fraud and gain, because they 
 add strength to the desires, by multi- 
 plying the pleasures Avhich can be at- 
 tained only by the acquisition of pro- 
 perty. Then is indeed experienced the 
 truth of the saying of the wise man, 
 that " the love of money is the root of 
 all evil." In the Avhole of the New 
 Testament there is not to be found one 
 word in favour of learning as a puri- 
 fier of morals, or a passport to heaven, 
 though there is much on self-denial 
 and love of our neighbour as likely to 
 open its gates. In the beatitudes in 
 the Sermon on the Mount, the learned 
 
26 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. I. 
 
 are not included among the blessed : it 
 is the pure in heart, not the instructed, 
 that sliall see God.* 
 
 48. This is a melancholy truth : so 
 melancholy, indeed, that it is far from 
 being generally acknowledged, even by 
 the best-informed j^ersons ; and it is so 
 mortifying to the pride of human in- 
 tellect that it is probably the last one 
 which will be generally admitted by 
 mankind. ISTevertheless, there is none 
 which is supported by a more Avide- 
 spread and unvarying mass of proofs, or 
 which, when rightly considered, might 
 more naturally be anticipated from the 
 structure of the human mind. The 
 utmost efforts have, for a quarter of a 
 century, been made in various coun- 
 tries to extend the blessings of educa- 
 tion to the labouring classes ; but not 
 only has no diminution in consequence 
 been perceptible in the amount of crime 
 and the turbulence of mankind, but 
 the effect has been just the reverse; they 
 have both signally and alarmingly in- 
 creased. Education has been made a 
 matter of state policy in Prussia, and 
 every child is, b}'- the compulsion of 
 government, sent to school ; but so far 
 has this universal spread of instruction 
 been from eradicating the seeds of evil,- 
 that serious crime is fourteen times as 
 prevalent, in proportion to the popu- 
 lation in Prussia, as it is in France, 
 where about two -thirds of the whole 
 * " So Hir," says Balwer, " from considering 
 that we do all tliat is needful to accomplish 
 ourselves as men when we cultivate only the 
 intellect, we should remember that we thereby 
 continually increase the range of our desires, 
 and therefore of our temptations. We should 
 endeavour, therefore, simultaneouslv to cul- 
 tivate both those affections of the heart which 
 prove the ignorant to be God's children no less 
 than the wise, and those moral qualities which 
 have made men great and good when read- 
 ing and writing were scarcely known— viz., 
 patience and fortitude under poverty and 
 distress; humility and beneficence amidst 
 grandeur and wealth; Justice, the father of 
 all the more solid virtues, softened by Charity, 
 their loving mother. Thus accompanied, 
 knowledge becomes indeed the magniticent 
 crown of humanity; not the imperious desjiot, 
 bat the checked and tempered sovereign of 
 the soul." This is true wisdom, which comes 
 with peculiar grace from one whose imagi- 
 native writings constitute one of the great 
 attractions of English literature. — Bulwer, 
 My Novel, i. 353, ;i5i; — the most varied in 
 character, and profound in thought, of all this 
 gifted author's productions. 
 
 inhabitants can neither read nor A\Tite.* 
 In France itself, it has been ascertained, 
 from the returns collected in the Sta- 
 tistique Morale de la France, of commit- 
 ments for crimes tried at the assizes, 
 and the number of children at school, 
 that the amount of crime in all the 
 eighty -three Departments is, without 
 one single exception, in proportion to 
 the amount of instruction received; 
 and accordingly, in the very curious 
 and interesting tables constructed by 
 M. Guerrj', the lightest Departments 
 in the map showing the amount of 
 education are the darkest in that show- 
 ing the amount of crime, f By far the 
 greater proportion of the abandoned 
 women in Paris come from the districts 
 to the north of the Loire, the most 
 highly -educated in France. In Scot- 
 land, the educated criminals are to the 
 uneducated as 44 to 1 ; in England, 
 as 2 to 1 nearly; in Ireland they are 
 about equal; J but of 10,361 inmates 
 in our principal penitentiaries, 6572 
 have received instruction in the Sab- 
 bath schools, § or other places of reli- 
 gious instruction. In America, the 
 educated criminals are in most of the 
 States of the Union three times the un- 
 educated, and some double only ; in all, 
 
 * Proportion of Crime in France and 
 Prussia in 1826. 
 
 Prusaa. . France. 
 
 Crimes against \ ^ .^ 3^ joa 1 m 32.411 
 
 the person, ) 
 Crimes against I ^j 597 ^ ^^ 9390 
 
 property, ) 
 Onthewliole, 1 in .587 1 in 7.285 
 
 — MALTE-BRrN, V. 277. VicJe infra, chap, 
 xxvii. § 10, where the entire passage is quoted 
 from the great geographer and statistician. 
 
 t See Siatistique Morale de la France, par 
 M. Guerry, Paris, 1834 — a most interesting 
 work, tlie results of which are well abridged 
 in Bulwer's France, vol. i. p. 173-178. 
 
 J 1S41— 
 
 Enpland. Scotland. Ireland. 
 
 Uneducated, 9.'2'.'0 .696 8.735 
 
 Educated, 18.111 2.834 7.153 
 
 Criminal Offenders in Scotland in 1852. 
 
 Total Neitlicr Read, or Read Superior 
 
 number read read and and educa- 
 
 of nor write im- write tiou. 
 
 offenders, write. perfectly. welL 
 
 Jfales, 2949 576 1660 602 76 
 
 Females, 1073 312 GGi SS 4 
 
 — Porter's Progress of the Nation, and Par- 
 liaincrttory Tables, 1841. 
 
 § Blackwood's MagazUie, No. CCCCL., April 
 1853. 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 27 
 
 greatly superior in number.* These 
 facts, to all persons capable of yielding 
 assent to evidence in opposition to pre- 
 judice, completely settle the question ; 
 but the conclusion to which they lead 
 is so adverse to general opinion, that 
 probably more than one generation 
 must descend to their graves before 
 they are generally admitted. 
 
 49. And yet, although the pride of 
 intellect is so reluctant to admit this 
 all -important truth, there is none 
 which in reality is so entirely conform- 
 able to the known dispositions of the 
 human mind, or which is so frequently 
 and loudly announced in Scripture. 
 That the heart is " deceitful above all 
 things, and desperately wicked," we 
 know from the very highest authority ; 
 and probably there is no man whose 
 experience of himself, as well as others, 
 will not confirm the truth of the say- 
 ing. But education has no tendency 
 to weaken the influence of these secret 
 tempters which every one finds in his 
 own bosom ; on the contrary, it has 
 often a tendency to increase their power, 
 by inflammg the imagination with pic- 
 tures of enjo}Tnent, which is not to be 
 attained, at least in any short -hand 
 method, but by crime or injustice. 
 Education is the puberty of nations; 
 it comes on unavoidably at a certain 
 age, and renders them more vigorous, 
 active, and powerfnl ; but at the same 
 time more impassioned, ardent, and 
 licentious. Discontent with our pre- 
 sent lot is too often the result of highly 
 Avrought, and often exaggerated, pic- 
 tures of the lot of others ; thence the 
 experienced and increasing difficulty of 
 maintaining government, restraining 
 turbulence, and preserving property 
 from spoliation in the states and cities 
 where instruction is most generally 
 diffused. The common idea, that edu- 
 cation, by rendering the pleasures of 
 intellect accessible to the multitude, 
 will provide an antidote and counter- 
 poise to the seductions of sense, though 
 plausible, is entirely fallacious. The 
 powers of intellect — the capacity of 
 feeling its enjoyments — are given to a 
 small fraction only of the human race : 
 
 * BucKi^TGHAii's Travels, vol. i. pp. 472, 
 516. 
 
 the vast majority of men in every rank 
 are, and ever will be, hewers of wood and 
 drawers of water. Physical excitement, 
 animal pleasure, the thirst for gain to 
 be able to enjoy them, constitute the 
 active principles of nine - tenths of 
 mankind, in all ages and ranks of life. 
 Increase their material well - being, 
 multiply their means of obtaining these 
 enjoyments, render them so far as pos- 
 sible easy and comfortable in their cir- 
 cumstances, and you make a mighty 
 step in adding to the sum of human 
 felicity, because you open avenues to it 
 from which none are excluded. Aug- 
 ment to any conceivable extent their 
 means of instruction ; establish schools 
 in every street, libraries in every vil- 
 lage, and you do infinite things, indeed, 
 for the thinking few, but little for the 
 unthinking many. The inference to be 
 drawn from this is, not that education 
 should be discouraged — it is just the 
 reverse. It is that it should be regarded 
 in its true light, as a vast addition to 
 human power, but no safeguard, taken 
 by itself, against human wickedness : 
 on the contrary, a great increase both 
 to the desires which prompt to mis- 
 deeds, and the powers by which they 
 are to be carried into effect. Where 
 that safeguard is to be found, we know 
 from a higher source than either human 
 wisdom or human experience ; and trhy 
 it is necessary, we know from the same 
 source : " The carnal man is at enmity 
 with God."* 
 
 50. But this very circumstance of 
 
 * The great proportion of criminals in all 
 civilised countries, who belong to the edu- 
 cated class, is no doiibt mainly brought out 
 by the number— generally fully a half— who 
 are "imperfectly educated." But that is the 
 great difficulty of the Education Question. 
 Can it ever be otherwise ? Are not the children 
 of the poor in general compelled to abandon 
 education the moment they leave school, and 
 often before it, from the necessity of daily 
 labour? They can all get enough of education 
 to enable them to read demoralising publica- 
 tions, but not enough to give them a taste for 
 a better style of literature. Many, doubtless, 
 do acquire such a taste; but with the majority 
 it is not to be expected. If any one could 
 give the poor the means of giving their chil- 
 dren a superior education, he doubtless would 
 achieve a mighty step in social improvement; 
 but it is not by merely establishing schools 
 that this is to be done. The propoitions 
 which the several classes of criminals bear to 
 
28 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. I. 
 
 the extreme narrowness of the circle 
 to which literary pleasures can by pos- 
 sibility be extended, and of the limited 
 sphere over which its direct enjoyments 
 spread, only renders the greater and 
 the more enduring the sway of intelli- 
 gence and intellect over mankind, and 
 the permanent direction of human des- 
 tinies by the power of thought. How- 
 ever much men, in troubled times, may 
 aspire to self - government — however 
 long and fiercely they may contend for 
 it^there is nothing more certain than 
 that they can never enjoy it, not even 
 for an hour. They are disqualified for 
 it by the decided inferiority of the ge- 
 neral mind. The first and most urgent 
 necessity of mankind is to be governed. 
 Man can exist for days together with- 
 out food, for months without shelter ; 
 but not for an hour without a govern- 
 ment. The first act of successful in- 
 surrection, as of victorious mutiny, 
 invariably is to appoint a new set of 
 rulers, who shall discharge the duties, 
 and who never fail to render more 
 stringent the powers, of the old ones. 
 Mankind does not by revolution escape 
 from the government of a few ; it only 
 changes its governors. Monarchy was 
 as really established in France under 
 Piobespierre, Napoleon, Louis Philippe, 
 and Louis Napoleon, as ever it was 
 under Louis XIV. ; the only difference 
 was in the person or party who wielded 
 the sovereign powers. The English 
 soon discovered whether the executive 
 was less stringent or costly under the 
 Long Parliament, Cromwell, or Wil- 
 liam III., than it had been under the 
 princes of the Stuart line. Rousseau 
 
 each other in England may he judged of by 
 the following table : — 
 
 Tears. 
 
 Could 
 not 
 read. 
 
 febt. 
 
 1836 
 
 33:52 
 
 57.53 
 
 1S37 
 
 35.85 
 
 52.08 
 
 1S3S 
 
 34.42 
 
 53.41 
 
 1839 
 
 3353 
 
 53.48 
 
 1840 
 
 33.52 
 
 55.57 
 
 1841 
 
 33.32 
 
 .56.67 
 
 1842 
 
 33.33 
 
 58.52 
 
 10.36 I 0.91 ! 2.68 
 
 9.45 0.42 2.18 
 
 9.77 0.34 2.08 
 
 10.07 ! 0.32 2.60 
 
 8.29 ' 0.37 2.45 
 
 7.10 0.43 2.27 
 
 6.77 j 0.22 2.34 
 
 — M'Culloch's Statistics of Great Britain, i. 
 476. 
 
 has aflBrmed that the origin of govern- 
 ment is to be looked for in the social 
 contract ; other political dreamers have 
 sought it in the ruthless power of pri- 
 meval conquests ; but its real source is 
 to be found in a cause of more general 
 and lasting operation than either: it 
 consists in the exjMrienced inahility of 
 inanTcind to govern themselves. 
 
 51. It is this circumstance which 
 has so immensely extended the influ- 
 ence of mind, and augmented in so 
 fearful a degree the responsibility of 
 those who direct its powers. The 
 thinking few govern the unthinking 
 many; and they are themselves di- 
 rected by the still smaller number to 
 whom Providence has unlocked the 
 fountains of original thought. If we 
 would discover the real rulers of man- 
 kind in civilised states, and in this 
 age, we must look for them, not in the 
 cabinets of princes, but in the closets 
 of the wise. There is only this diff'er- 
 ence between them, that the sway of 
 the latter does not rise till long after 
 be has been mouldering in his grave. 
 It does not commence till the third or 
 fourth generation. That time is re- 
 quhed for thought to descend from the 
 pinnacles where its light first strikes, 
 to the inferior regions, where it must 
 spread before it is carried into effect. 
 But though slow, the eftect is not the 
 less certain. "Who brought about the 
 French Revolution, and all the count- 
 less changes and con^oilsions to which 
 it has given rise ? It was neither Ca- 
 lonne nor Brienne, Necker nor Mira- 
 beau ; they only moved with the stream 
 when put in motion : it Avas Yoltaire 
 and Rousseau that opened the original 
 fountains ; it is genius alone that can 
 unlock the cavern of the Avinds. "Who 
 was the real author of Free Trade, and 
 of a change of policy, the effects of 
 which are incalculable upon the Brit- 
 ish empire ? It was neither Sir Robert 
 Peel nor Mr Huskisson; it was not 
 Cobden nor Bright : it is Adam Smith 
 and Quesnay \d\o stand forth as the 
 authors of this mighty innovation. 
 All that the subsequent statesmen did 
 was to elaborate and carry into execu- 
 tion what they had announced and re- 
 commended. Even the reaction ae-aiust 
 
CHAP. 1.] 
 
 innovation, and the frequent return, 
 after an experience of the storms of 
 revolution, to the stillness of despot- 
 ism or the sternness of military power, 
 is o-\^-ing to the powers of thought. It 
 is they which enforce the lessons of 
 experience, because they point out to 
 what cause prior suffering had been 
 owing. "What a veil dropped from be- 
 fore the British eyes when the Icon 
 Basilike appeared ! And even the 
 arms of the Allies w^ere less efficacious 
 than the genius of Chateaubriand in 
 procuring the restoration of the Bour- 
 bons. 
 
 52. It is generally supposed that the 
 powers of thought, if allowed free ex- 
 pression, are the best guarantee against 
 the encroachments of despotism, and 
 that the loss of freedom is never to be 
 apprehended as long as the liberty of 
 the press is preserved. But though 
 that is often, it is by no means always 
 true ; on the contrary, the selfish mea- 
 sures of class government, and the de- 
 struction of free privileges by military 
 power, are never so effectually secured 
 as by the support of a corrupted or 
 hireling press. ■ Beyond all question, 
 the rude despotism of Cromwell in 
 England, the nicely-constructed chains 
 of imperial power in the hands of Na- 
 poleon in France, never could have ex- 
 isted but for the cordial and interested 
 support of an impassioned press in both 
 countries. The utter ruin of the West 
 India colonies — the deep and long-con- 
 tinued depression of agricultural in- 
 dustry in Great Britain and Ireland, 
 in consequence of the Free -trade sys- 
 tem — the general and oft-recurring dis- 
 tress of the whole class of producers in 
 both countries from the monetary laws 
 — never could have been eflFected, if 
 these measures had not been advocated 
 by able and indefatigable journals in 
 the interest of the moneyed class and 
 the consumers. Those who lay the 
 flattering unction to their souls that 
 genius is the eternal enemy of oppres- 
 sion, and that liberty is safe if its ex- 
 pression is secured, w-ould do well to 
 look at the condition of Rome, when 
 evQTj successive emperor was lauded 
 in the eloquent strains of servile pane- 
 gyrists ; of England, when the mighty 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 29 
 
 genius of Milton was devoted to de« 
 fending the measures of tlie regicide 
 and Long Parliament; or of France, 
 Avhcn the sonorous periods of Fontanes 
 celebrated, in graceful flattery, the des- 
 potism of Napoleon. 
 
 53. The communication of thought 
 over the whole world, and the conse- 
 quent interchange of ideas and feelings 
 between nations, have become infinitely 
 more rapid since the powers of steam 
 were applied to the means of convey- 
 ance by sea and land. That man^el- 
 lous discovery, which has quadrupled 
 the powers of industry and halved the 
 distance of empires, has been greatly 
 enhanced by the still more wonderful 
 poAvers of the electric telegi-aph, which 
 mil soon, to all appearance, render all 
 the ci'\dlised world one great commun- 
 ity, over which the communication of 
 intelligence and thought will be as 
 rapid as over the streets of a single 
 capital. With what important effects 
 these great discoveries will be hereafter 
 attended, may be judged of by the 
 rapidity .■with which the electric shock, 
 communicated from Paris, spread over 
 Europe in 1848. Great consequences 
 must inevitably result from this pro- 
 digiously enhanced rapidity of com- 
 munication; but it is hard to say 
 whether the consequences will be for 
 good or for evil. Vigour of thought, 
 spread of ideas, interchange of know- 
 ledge, have been immensely enhanced ; 
 but is it quite certain that these powers 
 will be exclusively applied to good 
 ends ? Are the powers of evil not ca- 
 pable of taking advantage of the means 
 of enhanced rapidity of communica- 
 tion thus put into their hands? Is 
 not the spread of evil, and falsehood, 
 and exaggeration, in the first instance 
 at least, more rapid and certain than 
 that of reason and truth, just in pro- 
 portion as works of imagination are 
 more eagerly sought after than those 
 which depict reality ? And is not the 
 unexampled rapidity with which Eu- 
 rope took fire in 1848, a decisive proof 
 that the increased rapidity in the com- 
 munication of thought among nations 
 tends to convert society into a huge 
 powder-magazine, liable to blow up on 
 the first spark falling into it ? 
 
30 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap, I. 
 
 54. That there is much truth in these 
 apprehensions, it is in vain to deny; 
 but, happily for mankind, the remedy 
 is as swift as the disease. "Experi- 
 ence," saj's Dr Johnson, "is the great 
 tost of truth, and is perpetually con- 
 tradicting the theories of men." Suf- 
 fering, Ave may add, is the great, and 
 perhaps the only eiTectual monitor of 
 nations. In vain do men seek to elude 
 its admonitions, to forget its lessons ; 
 it comes with unerring certainty when 
 the paths of evil have been trod ; and 
 not now, as of old, on the thu-d and 
 fourth generation, but upon the very 
 generation which has committed the 
 forfeit. So swift has become the com- 
 munication of thought, that changes 
 produce their inevitable results with 
 unheard-of rapidity ; and the old cycle 
 of excitement, folly, crime, and pun- 
 ishment, is run out in a few years. 
 Decisive proof of this has been afforded 
 within the memory of many of the pre- 
 sent generation ; if the records of the 
 past are referred to, the illustrations 
 of it are innumerable. Eighty years 
 elapsed, in ancient Rome, from the 
 time when democratic ambition was 
 first excited by the proposals of Tibe- 
 rius Gracchus, till the period when the 
 wounds of the Republic were stanched, 
 and its peace restored, by the despot- 
 ism of Augustus Ctesar; eleven years 
 passed away, in modern times, before 
 the passions of France, in 1789, were 
 stifled by the sword of Napoleon ; ten 
 years marked the interval between the 
 commencement of the troubles in Eng- 
 land, and the confirmed military gov- 
 ernment of Cromwell. But in France, 
 in recent times, before four years had 
 elapsed, the dreams of "LibeVte, Egal- 
 it6, Fraternite" were superseded by the 
 general demand for a strong govern- 
 ment, and the establishment of the 
 rude but eff'ective military despotism 
 of Louis Napoleon ; and before the 
 cry for Italian nationality, German un- 
 ity, and Hungarian independence had 
 ceased to resound on the banks of the 
 Rhine, the Po, and the Danube, the 
 ominous sounds were hushed by the 
 force of arms on the Hungarian plains. 
 
 55. The reason of this superior rapid- 
 ity, both in the transmission of danger 
 
 and the extrication of its remedies, in 
 modern times, is very apparent. The 
 laws of nature, in all ages and under 
 all circumstances, are adverse to crime, 
 iniquity, and injustice ; they are cal- 
 culated to foster only justice, industry, 
 charity. But there is now no special 
 interposition of Divine power to en- 
 force the laws of the Divine adminis- 
 tration ; the agents in this mighty sys- 
 tem of wisdom, folly, crime, retribu- 
 tion, and punishment, are men them- 
 selves. The extension of the power of 
 reading, the enhanced rapidity in the 
 communication of thought, bring the 
 lessons of experience more swiftly home 
 to mankind ; they cause both the seeds 
 of evil, and the principles of good, to 
 bring earlier forth their appropriate 
 fruits. Such is the rapidity with which 
 ideas are now communicated, that it 
 resembles rather an electric shock than 
 any of the ordinary means by which 
 thought was. formerly diff'used ; and as 
 opinion is directed by experience and 
 suff"ering, not less than by passion and 
 desire, the eradication or limitation of 
 evil has become as rapid as its exten- 
 sion. 
 
 56. The wish of all civilised nations 
 during the last half-century has been 
 for representative institutions ; ever}' 
 attempted con\-ulsion has had this 
 object — every successful revolution has 
 immediately been followed by its ac- 
 complishment. The examples of Eng- 
 land and America, where they have 
 been found to have been attended by 
 rapid increase of wealth and popula- 
 tion, a vast development of intellec- 
 tual power, and a projiortional exten- 
 sion of political influence, have been 
 deemed decisive ; and other nations 
 considered themselves secure of the 
 same advantages, if they obtained the 
 same form of government. At diff'er- 
 ent periods— in 1820, 1830, 1834, and 
 1848 — their efl"orts proved successful, 
 their desires were accomplished. Pied- 
 mont, Naples, Spain, Portugal, Belgi- 
 um, France, Austria, Prussia, have suc- 
 cessively obtained this much -coveted 
 blessing ; and the sequel of this history 
 will show whether it has immediate- 
 ly, or generally, been followed by the 
 advantages which were anticipated. 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 81 
 
 Certain it is, that at this moment 
 (February 1862) representative institu- 
 tions are, with a few trifling excei)tions, 
 ■virtually extinguished on the Conti- 
 nent, and the despotic power of sove- 
 reigns re - established and supported 
 by 1,500,000 armed men. In South 
 America, where royalty has been every- 
 where abolished, and republics estab- 
 lished in its stead, the consequences 
 have been so dreadful that population 
 has generally declined a third, in some 
 places a half, during the last thirty 
 years ; and a series of revolutions have 
 succeeded each other, so rapid and des- 
 tructive that history, in despair, has 
 ceased to attempt to record their thread. 
 And in North America, the garden of 
 nature, where men w^ere surrounded by 
 every blessing, physical, moral, and 
 political, which they can enjoy, a civil 
 war has broken out, of unheard-of mag- 
 nitude and atrocity, and the people wlio 
 liad no external enemy to contend with, 
 have begun to lacerate each other with 
 a fury unparalleled since the siege of 
 Troy. 
 
 57. These disastrous results, so dif- 
 ferent from what were anticipated from 
 the spread of institiitions under which 
 England and America have risen to 
 such an unexampled pitch of prospe- 
 rity and glory, have difiused a very 
 general doubt among thoughtful men, 
 whether the whole representative sys- 
 tem is not a delusion, and whether its 
 general establishment would not be one 
 of the greatest curses which could be 
 inflicted on mankind. They have 
 been weighed in the balance, it is said, 
 and found wanting. Men do not 
 everyAvhere concur in abolishing insti- 
 tutions which are really beneficial in 
 their tendency, or in recurring to those 
 Avhich are pernicious. The example 
 of Spain and Portugal, reduced to 
 political nullity by the action of repre- 
 sentative institutions ; of Piedmont, 
 driven into unjust and ruinous aggres- 
 sion by tlie same cause ; of France, after 
 sixty years' experience of their effects, 
 entlmsiastically and generally calling 
 for their abolition; of the splendid 
 regions of South America, rendered 
 desolate by the contests they have 
 produced ; of the United States of 
 
 North America, convulsed by a civil 
 war costly and cmel beyond all for- 
 mer precedent — are sutiicient to de- 
 monstrate to wdiat they lead in states 
 not fitted for their reception, and the 
 wisdom of the effort so generally made 
 in continental Europe by military 
 power to counteract their tendency. 
 It is in vain to say that this reaction 
 has been owing to the interposition of 
 an armed force, which has stifled the 
 expression of the public voice, and 
 arrested the march of human improve- 
 ment. Armed men are but the exe- 
 cutors of the national will ; in all ages, 
 but more especially in civilised and 
 enlightened, they do not control, but 
 express it. The stifling of the revolu- 
 tion of 1848, in France, was accom- 
 plished in the first instance by the 
 soldiers, and by as rude an exercise of 
 power as the dispersion of the Council 
 of Five Hundred by the bayonets of 
 Napoleon ; but the deed was approved 
 by seven millions and a half of French- 
 men ; and the forces of the Czar never 
 could have re-established despotic pow- 
 er in Austria, if the brief experience of 
 revolutionary anarchy had not made it 
 generally felt that it was preferable to 
 the storms of faction. 
 
 58. In truth, the present effects of 
 representative governments in the two 
 countries where they have been longest 
 established, and been most successful, 
 may well suggest a serious doubt whe- 
 ther, in their pure and unmixed form, 
 they do not induce more evil than they 
 remove. "VVe must not confound wdtli 
 such governments the nile of a pa- 
 trician senate watched by a plebeian 
 democracy, as in ancient Rome ; or of 
 an aristocracy of land and commercial 
 wealth controlled by an energetic com- 
 monalty, such as obtained under the 
 old constitution of Great Britain, when 
 all classes were adequately represented, 
 and the House of Commons was equally 
 the guardian of colonial industry and 
 British manufactures, of English land 
 and native shipping, of territorial in- 
 fluence and urban ambition. Proba- 
 bly no candid inquirer into human 
 affairs will ever hesitate in the opinion 
 that, during the period, probably brief, 
 when such a system of government en- 
 
32 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. I. 
 
 dures, it affords tlie best guarantee for 
 social felicity and national progress 
 that human wisdom has ever devised. 
 But though that is the representative 
 system, as it grew up in most of the 
 states of modern Europe, and as it has 
 produced the wonders of British great- 
 ness, it is not tlie representative system 
 as it is now understood by the popular 
 jiarty all over the world. That system 
 consists in the representation of mere 
 numbers; in the vesting supreme pow- 
 er in the delegates of a simple majority 
 of the whole population. The near 
 approach made to such a system by the 
 Reform Bill of Great Britain, gives, in 
 its practical result, no countenance to 
 the idea that such a system of govern- 
 ment affords the best guarantee either 
 for national security or social progress ; 
 on the contrary, it leads to the conclu- 
 sion that its probable result is the sel- 
 fishness and injustice of class govern- 
 ment. Some one interest gets the 
 majority, and it instantly makes use 
 of the power it has acquired to gain a 
 profit to itself at the expense of every 
 other class. Corporations, it is well 
 known, have no consciences, for which 
 proverbial fact an English Lord-Chan- 
 cellor has assigned a very sufficient 
 reason ;* and the experience of the last 
 twenty years of English legislation, af- 
 fords too clear evidence that an interest 
 vested with political power is not like- 
 ly to be behind its neighbours in selfish 
 aggrandisement. Certain it is, that 
 the ruin of industry and destruction 
 of property effected in Great Britain, 
 since the manufacturing school obtain- 
 ed the ascendancy in Parliament, nuich 
 exceeds anything recorded in the his- 
 tory of pacific legislation, or that could 
 have been effected by the most violent 
 exertions of despotic power ; and the 
 melancholy fact stands proved by the 
 records of the Census, that the popula- 
 tion of the empire, which had advanced 
 without intermission during five cen- 
 
 * In a case pleaded before Lord Thurlow, 
 on the Woolsack, one of the counsel, who 
 was stating the case against an incorporation, 
 said that his client's opponents had no con- 
 science. " Conscience ! " said Thnrlow ; " did 
 you ever expect a corporation to have a con- 
 science, when it has no soul to be damned, 
 and no body to be kicked?" 
 
 turies, for the first time declined dur- 
 ing the first five years of Free -trade 
 legislation.* 
 
 59. America, where republican in- 
 stitutions and universal suffrage have 
 from the foundation of the state been 
 established, affords an equally decisive 
 proof of the tendency of such institu- 
 tions to produce class government and 
 unjust external measures. The prin- 
 cipal States of the Union have, by com- 
 mon consent, repudiated their State 
 debts as soon as the stonns of adver- 
 sity blew ; and tliej^ have, in some in- 
 stances, resumed the payment of their 
 interest only Avhen the sale of lands 
 they had wrested from the Indians 
 afforded them the means of doing so, 
 without recurring to the dreaded hor- 
 rors of direct taxation. The measures 
 of Congress have been so generally di- 
 rected by self-interest that they have, 
 in more than one instance, brought 
 the confederacy to the verge of disso- 
 lution ; and the threatened seimration 
 of South Carolina was only prevented 
 from breaking it up by the quiet con- 
 cession of the central legislature. Sub- 
 sequently, the selfish career of unbri- 
 dled democracy has been still more 
 * Population of Great Britain and Ireland in 
 
 1841 26,831,105 
 
 Increase to 1S46, one -half of 
 
 tea preceding years, . . 1,210,333 
 
 Total population in 1S46, 28,041,443 
 Actual population by census 
 
 of 1851, ..... 27,425,315 
 
 Decrease in five years, . (506,128 
 —Census, 1851 
 
 This is not the place to give the statistics 
 on which the above statement as to the ijn- 
 mense destruction of property iu Great Bri- 
 tain during the last thirty years is founded. 
 Ample proof of it ■will appear in the sequel 
 of this work. Suffice it to say, that the losses 
 occasioned by the monetary crises of 1825, 
 1839, and 1847 are most moderately estimated 
 at £100,000,000 each; the depreciation of 
 West India property by the Act of 1834 and 
 Free Trade at a like sum ; and the deprecia- 
 tion of British asxricultural produce since 
 
 1846 at least £40,000,000 a-year. This, from 
 
 1847 to 1852, would amount to no less than 
 £200,000,000. It is true, as a set-off in some 
 degree to this, must be considered the dimi- 
 nished cost of articles of subsistence to the 
 people : but still that is enriching one class 
 by the ruin of another; and it is difficult to 
 see how the manufacturing classes are in the 
 long run to be benefited by the impoverish- 
 ing of their customers. 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 33 
 
 clearly evinced. "^IV^ithoiit the vestige 
 of a title they have seized on Texas, 
 and annexed it to their vast dominions ; 
 by concealing the plan referred to in 
 the treaty of 1784, Avhich negatived 
 their claims, they have obtained from 
 Great Britain the half of Maine ; they 
 have done their ntmost to revolution- 
 ise Canada ; they have only boon pre- 
 vented by a melancholy tragedy from 
 revolutionising Cuba ; and when the 
 Mexicans took up arms to avenge the 
 spoliation of their territory, they in- 
 vaded their dominions, and wrested 
 from them the half of all that remain- 
 ed to them, including the gold-laden 
 mountains of California. During the 
 last ten years they have, though at- 
 tacked by no one, made themselves 
 masters, by fraud or violence, of 
 1,300,000 additional square miles of 
 territory, being nine times the area of 
 France ; already the multis utile bcl- 
 lum has become so popular among them 
 that the very children in all parts of 
 the Union play at soldiers ; democratic 
 passions have found their usual and 
 natural vent in foreign aggression ; 
 and Amei-ica openly proclaims that she 
 can permit no fresh settlement of any 
 European power from Icy Cape to Cape 
 Horn, and that she cannot allow Cuba 
 to be in any other than the imbecile 
 hands of the Spaniards. When they 
 had conquered or annexed all their 
 neighbours, they have turnedtheir arms 
 against each other, and arrayed on the 
 two sides a million of men in arms, and 
 in two years contracted £200,000,000 
 of debt in an unnecessary and suicidal 
 domestic war. They have added an- 
 other to the many proofs which his- 
 tory affords, that republican, so far from 
 being the most pacific, are the most 
 warlike and dangerous of all states. 
 
 60. The last and memorable revo- 
 lution in Europe — that which broke 
 out in 1848 — has evolved a new ele- 
 ment in social troubles, hitherto but 
 little attended to, but which promises, 
 ere long, to equal the most violent 
 social passions in disturbing the peace 
 and agitating the minds of men. This 
 is the attachments and longings of 
 Race, which, even more than those of 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 democracy, arouse the strongest feel- 
 ings of our nature, and create di\asions 
 which the lapse even of the longest 
 time is unable to heal. Experience has 
 now abundantly proved in every age, 
 and in every part of the world, that 
 nature has imprinted an original and 
 distinctive character upon the differ- 
 ent families of mankind, alike in their 
 minds as their persons, which remains 
 the same from first to last, and which 
 change of climate, situation, occupa- 
 tions, and political institutions, is 
 alike unable to modify in any consid- 
 erable degree. The Arab is the same 
 now, and wherever he wanders, as 
 when it was first said of the children 
 of Ishmael, that "his hand is against 
 every man, and every man's hand 
 against him;" the Jew, albeit dis- 
 persed through every land, is alike 
 unchanged in feature and disposition, 
 from the time when the first was traced 
 on the tombs of the Egyptian kings, by 
 whom his fathers had been led captive ; 
 the Gaul has not varied since his dis- 
 tinctive features were drawn with gra- 
 phic power by the hand of the dictator ; 
 the Anglo-Saxon has carried into the 
 wilds of America the enduring energy 
 and patient perseverance which in Eu- 
 rope have produced the wonders of Brit- 
 ish greatness ; the Hun is fiery, proud, 
 and impetuous, as in the days when the 
 squadrons of Attila swept over the 
 earth ; and the Celt, gay, ardent, and 
 careless— incapable, when in pure de- 
 scent, of self- direction or social im- 
 provement — is the same in Ireland, 
 the Hebrides, Brittany, and America, 
 as when the dark -haired hordes of his 
 ancestors first approached the Atlantic 
 Ocean. 
 
 61. Immense is the effect which 
 this distinctive and indelible distinc- 
 tion of race has produced, and is pro- 
 ducing, upon the destinies of mankind. 
 More, perhaps, than any other cause, 
 it has tended to bring discredit upon 
 the principles of the French Revolu- 
 tion; because it has practically demon- 
 strated their inapplicability to nations 
 descended from a different stock from 
 those in which corresponding principles 
 first originated. The uniform doctrine 
 c 
 
34 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. I. 
 
 of philosophers, and, after them, of 
 statesmen and politicians, in the end 
 of the eighteenth century, was, that 
 institutions were everything, and the 
 character of nations nothing ; that men 
 were entirely formed by the govern- 
 ment under Avhich they lived ; and 
 that, if )'ou extended to all the same 
 institutions and civil jirivileges, you 
 would produce in all the same char- 
 acter, and secure the same social pro- 
 gress. It was on this principle that 
 the French republicans acted in sur- 
 rounding the great parent common- 
 wealth with the Batavian, Cisalpine, 
 Helvetian, and Parthenopeian repub- 
 lics ; it is the same desire that has 
 influenced Great Britain in supporting 
 revolutionary thrones in Spain, Portu- 
 gal, Belgium, and Piedmont, and en- 
 couraging, by all the means in their 
 power, the establishment of the South 
 American republics. It is not easy 
 to say Avhich of the two attempts has 
 proved the greatest failure, or has led 
 to the greatest confusion, disorder, 
 and suff"ering among mankind. The 
 result has conclusively demonstrated 
 that it is not institutions which form 
 men, but men which form institutions ; 
 and that no calamities are so long-con- 
 tinued and irremediable as those flow- 
 ing from the establishment in one 
 country of the form of government 
 suited to another, or the awakening 
 passions in a part of the people incon- 
 sistent -with the interests or wishes of 
 the remainder. 
 
 62. Out of the mingled passions of 
 Democracy and Race has arisen, espe- 
 cially in Eastern Europe, a strife more 
 widespread and terrible than has yet 
 desolated the face of nature in modern 
 times. The former is found chiefly in 
 towns ; it is felt with most intensity 
 in urban multitudes, among whom 
 numbers, closely aggregated together, 
 have awakened a feeling of strength, 
 and increasing wealth has engendered 
 the desire for independence. But the 
 last burns most fiercely in the rural 
 population ; it acts with the greatest 
 force in the solitude and seclusion of 
 country life. It is there that heredi- 
 tary characteristics are most strongly 
 marked; that ancient traditions are 
 
 religiously preserved ; and that the 
 past stands forth in the brightest col- 
 ours, from being undisturbed by any 
 countervailing influences of the pre- 
 sent. The war of races is often com- 
 menced by the impulse communicated 
 by urban revolt ; because it is that which 
 first disturbs the peace of society, vio- 
 lently excites the public mind, and 
 awakens the idea of provincial inde- 
 pendence, by weakening the power of 
 the central government. But the con- 
 test which begins with the ambition of 
 towns does not expire with their short- 
 lived fervour ; the passions of the tent are 
 more durable than those of the forum. 
 When the shepherds of the hills, the 
 cultivators of the plains, assemble in 
 arms, it may in general be concluded 
 that a serious struggle, a prolonged 
 contest, is at hand. The fervour of the 
 French Revolution excited the revolt 
 of 1793 in Warsaw ; but the storming 
 of Praga has not extinguished the hopes 
 of Polish nationality; — it burns with 
 undiminished force in the breasts of the 
 peasantry ; it has burst forth unweak- 
 ened in subsequent wars, and crippled 
 even the colossal strength of the Mus- 
 covite Empire. The animosity of the 
 Celt against the Saxon is undiminished 
 by five centuries of forced amalgama- 
 tion ; and when independence in Ire- 
 land had become visibly hopeless, the 
 bulk of the race fled across the Atlantic, 
 and sought in the wilds of the Far 
 West that independence of which they 
 despaired amidst European civilisa- 
 tion. The revolution in Paris, in 
 1848, spread the seeds of revolt to the 
 Austrian capital ; but the wars of 
 races did not expire with the capture 
 of Vienna ; the Magyar continued in 
 arms against the Sclave, the German 
 against the Italian ; and the dominion 
 of the house of Hapsburg would have 
 been torn in pieces by the passions of 
 its o^nl subjects, if it had not been 
 rescued from ruin by the arms of the 
 united Sclavonic race. 
 
 63. These facts, which have been so 
 clearly brought forth by the events 
 of late years, have awakened a very 
 general doubt among reflecting men, 
 in every part of Europe, whether re- 
 presentative institutions are the form 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 35 
 
 of government best calculated to insure 
 general felicity, or -whether, at any 
 rate, they can exist for any length of 
 time among any people, hut one of a 
 homogeneous race and temperate prac- 
 tical character. Certain it is, that, 
 though generally established in Europe 
 hy its northern conquerors, amidst the 
 ruins of the Roman empire they have 
 everywhere fallen into decay, except 
 where they have been sustained by the 
 mingled energy and slowness of the 
 Norman and Anglo-Saxon race ; and 
 that, when re-established in our times 
 by the influence of English Anglo- 
 mania, or the united force of French 
 and English arms, they have either 
 speedily perished, or produced such 
 disastrous results that, by common 
 consent, they were very soon abolished, 
 or so crippled by artifice or corruption 
 as to be nearly impotent for good or 
 for evil. It would seem that they are 
 inapplicable to any nation in which, 
 like the Austrian, several distinct and 
 hostile races are mingled together in 
 not very unequal proportions ; and 
 jjrobably the most enthusiastic sup- 
 porter of representative institutions 
 would hesitate before he would affirm 
 they could have flourished in the Brit- 
 ish empire, if the Celtic and Saxon 
 race in both islands had existed in 
 nearly equal numbers. If the recent 
 annual migration of above two hundred 
 thousand from Ireland should continue 
 a few years longer, and there is any 
 truth in the assertions now generally 
 made, that there are two millions of 
 native-born Irish in the United States, 
 and four millions of Irish descent, the 
 Celtic race may acquire such a pre- 
 ponderance there as may ultimately 
 render the maintenance of domestic 
 peace and representative institutions 
 impossible in some parts of the Union. 
 64. That the constitutional form of 
 government is now on its trial, both 
 in the Old and New World, is a com- 
 mon observation on both sides of the 
 Atlantic ; and it will be not the least 
 important part of this History to trace 
 its working in the diff'erent countries 
 where it has been established. Such 
 a survey wall probably damp many 
 ardent aspirations and hopes on the 
 
 one side, and demonstrate the fallacy 
 of many gloomy predictions on the 
 other. That many evils have been 
 found to flow from the representative 
 system when it is really, and not in 
 form merely, established — that selfish- 
 ness often directs its measures, and 
 corruption stains its members, is no 
 real rej)roach to that form of govern- 
 ment, — it is only a proof that its 
 powers are -wielded by the sons of 
 Adam. No one need to be told that 
 the same -vices and weaknesses attach 
 to other institutions : the page of his- 
 tory unhappily teems with too many 
 proofs that sovereigns often rule only 
 for the gratification of their passions 
 and pleasures ; and aristocracies, to 
 farm out the industry of the people for 
 their own profit or advantage. The 
 real question is, whether greater scope 
 is not given for the indulgence of these 
 selfish propensities under the repre- 
 sentative form of government than any 
 other ; whether it does not end in the 
 establishment of a class government, 
 more unscrupulous in its measures, and 
 oppressive in its eff'ects, than the rule 
 of a single sovereign could possibly be ; 
 and whether the hope of checking in- 
 iquity in the administration, by ad- 
 mitting members to participate in it, 
 is not, in fact, expecting to extinguish 
 sin by multiplying the number of sin- 
 ners. Perhaps future ages may arrive 
 at- the conclusion that it is the repre- 
 sentation of interests, not numbers^ 
 which is the true principle ; that the 
 former, if duly balanced, is always safe, 
 the latter always perilous ; and that it 
 is the extreme difficulty of preserving 
 the equilibrium for any length of time 
 which justifies the observation of the 
 Roman annalist, that it is slow to 
 come, swift to perish.* 
 
 65. But whatever ideas may be en- 
 tertained on this speculative point, 
 upon which experience has not yet 
 warranted the forming of a decided 
 opinion, one thing is perfectly clear, 
 that the contending passions of the 
 Old "World, the mingled hopes and 
 fears, wants and desires, expectations 
 and disappointments, of ancient civiii- 
 
 * " Tarde veniens; cito peritura." — Taci- 
 tus. 
 
S6 
 
 HISTORY OF EUKOPE. 
 
 [chap. I. 
 
 Bation, all tend powerfully to promote 
 the settlement and peopling of the 
 New. Already the emigrants who land 
 at New York alone, from Europe, have 
 come to approach 300,000, of whom 
 163,000 are from Ireland, and 69,000 
 from Germany — the two countries j)er- 
 liaps most violently agitated by politi- 
 cal and social passions of any in the 
 Eastern Hemisphere.* The total emi- 
 grants from Europe to America now 
 exceed 500, 000 annually. In ten years, 
 if the present rate continues, they will 
 amount to 5,000,000, and, with their 
 descendants, more than double the 
 already far-famed marvels of Trans- 
 atlantic increase. f It is doubtful, 
 in this wonderful transposition of the 
 human race, whether the spread of 
 knowledge or the passions of demo- 
 cracy exercise the most powerful sway 
 over the minds of men, or are the most 
 powerful and visible agents in carrying 
 into effect the objects of Divine admin- 
 istration ; for the last is perpetually 
 leading to the mdulgence of visionary 
 and chimerical expectations of social 
 felicity, from political change and the 
 extension of popular power ; while the 
 former is as generally diffusing better- 
 founded expectations as to the real 
 felicity and wellbeing to be attained 
 by a settlement in the distant colonies 
 
 * Number of Emigrants who landed 
 AT New York in 1851. 
 Irish, .... 163,256 
 
 English and Welsh, . . 30,742 
 Scotch, . . . . 7,302 
 
 Germans, .... 69,833 
 Other nations, . . . 18,478 
 
 Total, . . 289,611 
 • — Emigration Comviissioners' Report, 1851 — 
 Kew Yorlv. 
 
 t It was stated by Mr Everett, in his de- 
 spatch to Lord Mahnesbury, regarding Cuba, 
 of December 1, 1852, that 500,000 emigrants 
 from Europe were annually landed in the 
 United States, of whom about a half came 
 from Ireland ; and that for the three preced- 
 ing years, the sums remitted by these Irish 
 emigrants amounted to the enormous total of 
 5,000,000 dollars (£1,250,000) yearly to their 
 relations in Ireland, to give them the means 
 of coming out — a marvellous fact, bespeak- 
 ing alike the vast resources which the United 
 States afforded, even in the outset, to the 
 most needy class of emigrants, and the praise- 
 worthy affection with which they were ani- 
 mated to their relations on this side of the 
 Atlantic. 
 
 of the world. The perpetual disap- 
 pointment of the first, and the as uni- 
 form realisation of the last, are the 
 great means by which the immovable 
 character of civilised man is overcome ; 
 and the human race is as powerfully 
 impelled into distant countries in the 
 old age of civilisation, by political 
 passions, and the disappointment of 
 hope, as it is in its infancy by the rov- 
 ing disposition of pastoral, or the lust 
 of conquest in warlike tribes. No 
 human foresight can foretell whether 
 the passions which now so violently 
 agitate Europe Avill terminate in the 
 general establishment, for a time, of 
 republican institutions, or their entire 
 extinction by the rude arm of military 
 power. But this much may with con- 
 fidence be predicted, that in either 
 case a vast jH-opelling of the Eiu'opean 
 race into the wilds of America or Aus- 
 tralia will infallibly take place ; — in 
 the first, by the disappointment ex- 
 perienced by the partisans of political 
 change ; in the last, by the extinction 
 of their hopes. 
 
 66. In this point of view, the in- 
 fluence is great of the discovery of 
 the gold mines of California and Aus- 
 tralia, not merely upon the general 
 industry and wellbeing of the whole 
 earth, but upon the attraction exercised 
 by those richly-endowed regions upon 
 its inhabitants. When gold is found 
 scattered broadcast over whole coun- 
 tries, when valleys are discovered in 
 which the whole allu\aal deposit is im- 
 pregnated with auriferous fragments, 
 and mountains where the coveted trea- 
 sure is discovered in great quantities 
 enclosed in veins of quartz, or imbed- 
 ded in fields of clay, it is impossible to 
 over-estimate the influence which this 
 exercises upon the desires and ambition 
 of men. The idea of independence — 
 it may be fortune — brought ^^-ithin 
 the reach of mere manual labour, and 
 falling to the lot, not so much of the 
 most diligent as the most fortunate, 
 is irresistible. The golden magnet 
 draws votaries from all epiarters ; mul- 
 titudes hasten to take their chance in 
 the rich lottery, where every one trusts 
 that he himself will draw a prize and 
 his neighbours the blank. Many 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 HISTOEY OF EUROPE. 
 
 S7 
 
 doubtless perish, or are disappointed 
 in the exciting chase : but some suc- 
 ceed ; and their success, like the hon- 
 ours of war or the fortunes of com- 
 merce, are sufficient permanently to 
 attract mankind into the dazzling and 
 perilous career. When thirty or forty 
 millions sterling are annually raised by 
 human hands, and those in the hands 
 oi freemen, who are themselves enrich- 
 ed by their toil, there is enough to 
 rouse everywhere the spirit of the ad- 
 venturous, to tempt the cupidity of 
 the covetous. Californian gold has only 
 been worked toany extent fortwo years, 
 and already that State boasts 250,000 
 inhabitants ; and a regular passage for 
 European emigrants has been openeil 
 both over the Eocky Mountains and 
 the Isthm.us of Panama. Among the 
 means employed by Providence to in- 
 sure, at the appointed season, the dis- 
 persion of mankind, one of the most 
 powerful is the mineral treasures, 
 which, long hid in distant regions in 
 the womb of nature, are at length 
 brought forth when the minds of men 
 are prepared for then' attraction, when 
 the utmost facilities are afforded for the 
 migration of the species, and when the 
 influences of home are alike overcome 
 by the disappointments of the Old 
 World and 'the hopes of the New. 
 
 67. To appreciate justly the un- 
 bounded influence of these concurring 
 moving powers — political passions in 
 the Old World, and gold regions in the 
 New — we have only to suppose tliat it 
 had been otherwise arranged, and con- 
 sider whether in such a case mankind 
 would ever have left their native seats. 
 It might have been that the progress of 
 civilisation and the spread of know- 
 ledge were not to be the destined agents 
 in moving mankind : that the attrac- 
 tions of wealth and the comforts of 
 home were to become daily more power- 
 ful with the growth of nations, and 
 that their roving propensities Avere to 
 be conflned to the earliest ages, when 
 the first settlements of the human race 
 were formed. It might have been that 
 the gold treasures of California and 
 Australia were to be found in the 
 mountains of Switzerland or Bohemia, 
 in the centre of Europe, and amidst 
 
 the multitudes of aged civilisation. 
 In such an event, could the European 
 race, and Avith it the blessings of free- 
 dom, of knowledge, and of Cliiistian- 
 ity, ever have been diflused among 
 mankind? Would not the inhabitants 
 of Europe, under such circumstances, 
 have clung for ever to their homes, 
 and the bones of their fathers, and 
 left the distant parts of the earth alike 
 unknown, unheeded, and uncultivated ? 
 We* are not driven to speculation to 
 figure to ourselves the consequences of 
 such a state of things. China and 
 Hindostan, wdth their civilisation of 
 four thousand years, exist to inform 
 us what they would have been. They 
 have had for thousands of years tlio 
 knowledge, the education, and the me- 
 chanical arts of Europe, and teemed 
 with a population of 500,000,000 
 souls ; but they had none of its poli- 
 tical passions. Society, in their vast 
 regions, from the earliest ages to tlie 
 present time, has existed always under 
 a pure and unmitigated despotism, — 
 and what has been the result ? That 
 mankind in those aged communities 
 have an invincible repugnance to mi- 
 gration, an unconquerable attachment 
 to their native seats, and have ne^'er 
 spread beyond them. Everything an- 
 nounces that Japhet will one day dwell 
 in the tents of Shem, but nothing that 
 Shem will ever dwell in the tents of 
 Japhet. To the European race, en- 
 dowed with intellect, and gifted with 
 energy beyond the other families of 
 mankind, has been predestined the 
 duty of peopling the earth and subdu- 
 ing it : it is in the midst of the pas- 
 sions which lead to its accomplishment 
 that Ave are noAV placed. In the last 
 ages of the AA'orld, as in the first, the 
 Avords of primeval jirophecy shall prove 
 true: "God shall enlarge Japhet, and 
 he shall dwell in the tents of Shem ; 
 and Canaan shall be his servant." 
 
 68. But it is not to these agents 
 alone that the great designs of Provi- 
 dence for the dispersion of the species 
 have been intrusted. The original mov- 
 ing powers are still in full and undis- 
 turbed operation. The roving passions 
 of pastoral life, the lustof barbarian con- 
 quest, are as active in impelling man- 
 
38 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. I. 
 
 kind from the wilds of Scythia, as 
 ever they were in the days of Alaric 
 or Attila : the Tartar horse have lost 
 nothing of their formidable character 
 by being linked to the Russian horse- 
 artillery. Still the wines and women 
 of the south attract the brood of win- 
 ter to the regions of the sun ; still the 
 pressure of barbarian valour upon the 
 scenes of civilised o])ulence is felt 
 with undiminished force. 
 
 " Oft o'er the trembling nations from afar 
 Has Scythia breathed the living cloud of 
 
 war ; 
 And where the deluge burst with sweeping 
 
 sway, 
 Their arms, their kings, their gods, were 
 
 rolled away. 
 As oft have issued, host impelling host, 
 The blue - eyed myriads from the Baltic 
 
 coast : 
 The prostrate South to the destroyer yields 
 Her boasted titles and her golden fields ; 
 With grim delight the brood of winter views 
 A brighter day and heavens of azure hues, 
 Scent the new fragrance of the breathing 
 
 rose. 
 And quaff the pendant vintage as it 
 
 grows."* 
 
 It will be so to the end of the world ; 
 for in the north, and there alone, are 
 found the privations which insure har- 
 dihood, the poverty which impels to 
 conquest, the difficulties which rouse 
 to exertion. Irresistible to men so 
 actuated is the attraction which the 
 climate of the south, the riches of civ- 
 ilisation, exercise on the poverty and 
 energy of the native wilds. Slowly but 
 steadily, for two centuries, the Mus- 
 covite power has increased, devouring 
 everything which it approaches — ever 
 advancing, never receding. Seventy 
 millions of men, doubling every sev- 
 enty years, now (1862) obey the man- 
 dates of the Czar, Avhose \\dll is law, 
 and Avho leads a people whose passion 
 is conquest. Europe may well tremble 
 at the growth of a power possessed of 
 such resources, actuated by such de- 
 sires, united by such bonds, led by 
 such ability; but Europe alone does 
 not comprise the whole family of man- 
 kind. The great designs of Pro\idence 
 are working out their accomplishment 
 by the passions of the free agents to 
 which their execution has been in- 
 trusted. Turkey will yield, Persia be 
 * Gray ou Education and Government. 
 
 oven-un by the Muscovite battalions ; 
 the original birthplace of our religion 
 will be rescued by their devotion ; and 
 as certamly as the Transatlantic hemi- 
 sphere, and the islands of the Indian 
 Sea, will be peopled by the self-acting 
 passions of Western democracy, will 
 the plains of Asia be won to the Cross 
 by the resistless arms of Eastern des- 
 potism. 
 
 69. It would appear that, at stated 
 periods in the history of nations, the 
 passion for migration seizes upon the 
 minds of men ; and these periods are 
 at the opposite ends of their progress 
 — at its commencement and its termi- 
 nation. We read of the first in the 
 wandering habits of the Helvetii, of 
 whom Cfesar has left so graphic a pic- 
 ture ; in the iiTuption of the Cimbri 
 and Teutones, whom it required all 
 the vigour of Rome and all the talents 
 of Marius to repel ; in the successive 
 settlements of the Celts, the Franks, 
 the Saxons, and the Is'ormans, in the 
 decaying provinces of the Empire ; in 
 the perpetual inroads of the pastoral na- 
 tions of Central Asia into the adjoin- 
 ing plains of MuscoAy, Poland, Ger- 
 many, Persia, Hiudostan, and China. 
 We see proof of it at this time in the 
 ceaseless movement of the European 
 population of America towards the 
 Pacific, and the ardour with which 
 the semi-barbarous pioneers of ci\'ilisa- 
 tion plunge into the forests of the Far 
 West. It is by the force of these 
 passions that the first settlements of 
 mankind were elfected, and that the 
 human race has been impelled by a 
 blind instinct, of which it can neither 
 see the objects nor withstand the 
 effects, into the most distant parts of 
 the Old World. It was thus, too, that 
 the whole continent of America was 
 originally peopled by its savage in- 
 habitants ; and the tales of tradition, 
 as well as the more certain e"vidence of 
 language, point alike to the period 
 when the hunters of Kamtschatka, 
 cast by accident, or impelled by rest- 
 lessness, on the western slope of the 
 Rocky Mountains, spread over the ad- 
 joining forests, and their descendants 
 gradually penetrated the boundless 
 wilds of North and South America. 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 39 
 
 70. But an insurmountable diffi- 
 culty checks all these early migrations 
 of mankind : the ocean restrains their 
 incursions. The Tartar horse, as Gib- 
 bon tells, incapable of being resisted 
 by the whole forces of civilisation, 
 found an impassable barrier in the 
 narrow channel of the Hellespont. 
 The maritime incursions of the Saxons 
 and Danes were confined to the neigh- 
 bouring coasts of Britain and Gaul ; 
 no distant settlements beyond the 
 pathless deep were formed by the sea- 
 kings of the north. The Atlantic 
 can be bridged only by the powers of 
 civilisation ; but these powers are equal 
 to the undertaking, and they have 
 been called into action at the time 
 when the necessities and passions of 
 aged societies require their operation. 
 Multitudes, nursed by the industry and 
 opulence of former times, but now 
 crowded together, require a vent, and 
 eagerly look for new fields of settle- 
 ment : the i^owers of steam furnish 
 them with the means of migration ; 
 the passions of democracy, dissatisfied 
 with the results of domestic eff"ort, 
 render the transportation an object of 
 desire. As strongly and irresistibly 
 as the nomad tribes are impelled into 
 the regions of opulence, and the daring 
 hunter into the Avilds of nature, is the 
 civilised European urged to commit 
 himself and his family to the waves, 
 the aixlent republican to seek the real- 
 isation of his dreams on the other side 
 of the Atlantic. Insensibly, under 
 the influeuQe of those desires, the fron- 
 tiers of civilisation are extended, the 
 seats of mankind changed ; and a new 
 society is formed in regions unknown 
 to their fathers, in which the different 
 members of the European family find 
 a cradle for future generations of their 
 descendants. 
 
 " For here the exile met from every clime, 
 And spoke in friendship every distant 
 
 tongue : 
 Men from the blood of warring Europe 
 
 sprung 
 "Were but divided by the running brook ; 
 And happy where no Rhenish trumpet 
 
 sung, 
 On plains no sieging mine's volcano shook, 
 The blue-eyed German changed his sword 
 
 to pruning-hook. 
 
 And England sent her men, of men the 
 
 chief, 
 Who taught those sires of Empire yet to 
 
 be, 
 To plant the tree of life,— to plant fair 
 
 Freedom's tree ! " * 
 
 71. ISTot only is the democratic pas- 
 sion in this way the great moving power 
 which expels, as by the force of central 
 heat, civilised man into the distant 
 parts of the earth, but it is the most 
 efi'ective nurse of energy, progress, and 
 civilisation when he arrives there. 
 The pastoral tribes, Avliose passion is 
 conquest, recpiire a military chief to 
 direct their movements ; but the agri- 
 cultural colonists, whose warfare is 
 with Nature, invariably pant for de- 
 mocratic institutions, and can exist 
 only with self-direction. Left alone 
 in the woods, they early feel the 
 necessity of relying on their own 
 resources; self-government becomes 
 their jiassion, because self-direction 
 has been their habit. All colonies 
 which have flourished in the world, 
 and left dm-able traces of their exist- 
 ence to future times, have been nur- 
 tured under the shelter of republican 
 institutions ; those of Greeee and Rome 
 on the shores of the j\Iediterranean — 
 those of Holland and England, on the 
 A\ider margin of the ocean, attest this 
 important fact. The colonies of Great 
 Britain at this time, though nominally 
 ruled by Queen Victoria, are for the 
 most part, practically speaking, self- 
 directed ; and where the authority of 
 the central government has made itself 
 felt, it has generally been only to do 
 mischief, and weaken the bonds which 
 unite its numerous offspring to the 
 parent state. Wherever the demo- 
 cratic spirit is not in vigour, colonies 
 are unknoA\-n, or, if established, have 
 little success ; where democratic insti- 
 tutions do not prevail, colonial settle- 
 ments, after a time, have declined, and 
 at length expired. It seems to be 
 impossible to ingraft republican self- 
 direction upon original subjection to 
 monarchical institutions. It must be 
 bred in the bone, and nurtured with 
 the strength. The Portuguese settle- 
 ments in the East are almost extinct, 
 and exhibit no traces of the vigour 
 * Gertrude of Wyoning. 
 
40 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. I. 
 
 vrith which Yasco de Gama braA^ed the 
 perils of the stormy Cape ; the attempt 
 to introduce republican institutions, 
 after three centuries of servitude, into 
 the Spanish colonies of South America, 
 has led only to anarchy and suffering ; 
 and the decisive fact, that the repub- 
 lican states of North America, though 
 settled a century later, have now more 
 than double the European population 
 of the monarchical in the South, points 
 to the wide difference in the future 
 destinies of mankind of these opposite 
 forms of government. Certain it is 
 that, great as the British militarj'' 
 empire in India now is, it has formed 
 no settlements of pure Europeans be- 
 hind it among the sable multitudes of 
 Hindostan ; and possibly future times 
 may yet verify the saying of Burke, 
 that, if the Englishman left the East, 
 he would leave no more durable traces 
 of his existence than the jackal and 
 tlie tiger, 
 
 72. Observe, in this view, how the 
 character of the races to whom the de- 
 velopment of this mighty progress has 
 been intrusted, and of the institutions 
 which they have created for them- 
 selves, is adapted to the parts severally 
 destined for them in it. It might have 
 been otherwise. The character of the 
 two great families of the race of Ja- 
 phet might have been reversed, or the 
 place assigned them on the theatre 
 of existence different from what it is. 
 The Anglo-Saxon, impelled by a secret 
 impulse to effort, to commerce, to free- 
 dom, and to colonisation, might have 
 found himself in the plains of Muscovy 
 or Siberia ; the Sclavonian, with his 
 submissive habits, roving propensities, 
 lust of conquest, but aversion to the 
 sea, might have been located in Ger- 
 many and the British Isles. "What 
 would have been the result ? Could 
 the European family have spread the 
 European influence as it has done ? 
 Could the race of Japhet have per- 
 formed its destined mission, to replen- 
 ish the earth and subdue it ? No : by 
 this simple transposition of race, the 
 whole destinies of mankind would have 
 been changed ; the accomplishment 
 of prophecy rendered impossible ; the 
 spread of Christianity arrested. The 
 
 Anglo-Saxon, with his maritime in- 
 clinations, his aspirations after free- 
 dom, his industrious habits, would 
 have been swept away in Scythia by 
 the squadrons of the Crescent ; the 
 Sclavonian, with his roving propensi- 
 ties, his thirst for conquest, his aver- 
 sion to the ocean, would have been for 
 ever arrested by the waves of the 
 Atlantic. Crushed in all attempts at 
 colonisation or settlement beyond his 
 native seats, the Anglo-Saxon would 
 have pined in impotent obscurity in 
 the plains of Muscovy ; restrained by 
 the impassable barrier of the ocean, 
 the Russian would have been forgotten 
 in the forests of Britain. Placed as 
 they have been respectively by Provi- 
 dence on the theatre of existence, each 
 has been provided Avith a fitting 
 stage for the exercise of his peculiar 
 powers, and found around him the ele- 
 ments in nature adapted for their de- 
 velopment. The Anglo-Saxon found 
 in the forests of England the oak 
 which was to give to his descendants 
 the empire of the waves ; the coal 
 which was to move the powers of 
 steam ; the iron which, in a future 
 generation, was to renew and reveal 
 the age of gold. The Sclavonian 
 found in Central Asia the redoubtablo 
 horsemen who were to add strength 
 and speed to his battalions ; the naked 
 plains, where they could act with 
 resistless force ; the enamelled turf, 
 which everywhere provided them with 
 the means of subsistence and migration. 
 The free aspirations of tlie first im- 
 pelled him into the career of pacific 
 colonisation ; the ocean was Ms bridge 
 of communication : the despotic in- 
 clinations of the last prepared him to 
 follow the standards of contjuest ; the 
 steppe stretched out before him, to 
 facilitate the migration of his conquer- 
 ing squadrons. 
 
 73. When ProA^dence gave the bless- 
 ings of Christianity to mankind, their 
 diffusion at the appointed season was 
 intrusted to the acts of free agents; 
 but a particular race was selected, by 
 whose voluntary co-operation its design 
 might be carried into effect. Beyond 
 all question, the European race was the 
 one to ^yllich this mighty mission was 
 
I-] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUEOPE. 
 
 41 
 
 intrusted. The energy and vigour, the 
 intelligence and perseverance, which 
 have so long rendered it pre-eminent 
 among men, bespeak its fitness for the 
 undertaking; and it may be doubted 
 whether any other family of mankind 
 Avill, for a very long period, be fitted 
 for the reception of the faith which it 
 bears on its banners. Experience gives 
 little countenance to the belief that the 
 Asiatic or African races can be made 
 to any considerable extent, at least at 
 present, to embrace the tenets of a 
 spiritual faith. Christianity, as it exists 
 in some provinces of Asia, is not the 
 Christianity of Europe ; it is paganism 
 in another form ; it is the substitution 
 of the worship of the Virgin and images 
 for that of Jupiter and the heathen 
 deities. If Christianity had been adapt- 
 ed to man in his rude and primeval 
 state, it would have been revealed at 
 an earlier period ; it would have ap- 
 peared in the age of Moses, not in that 
 of Csesar. Great have been the efforts 
 made, both by the Protestant and 
 Roman Catholic churches, especially 
 of late years, to diffuse the tenets of 
 their respective faiths in heathen lands ; 
 but, with the exception of some of the 
 Catholic missions in South America, 
 without the success that was, in the 
 outset at least, anticipated. Sectarian 
 zeal has united with Christian philan- 
 thropy in forwarding the great under- 
 taking ; the British and Foreign Bible 
 Society has rivalled in activity the 
 Propaganda of Piome ; and the expen- 
 diture of £100,000 annually on the 
 enlightening of foreign lands has afford- 
 ed a magnificent proof of devout zeal 
 and British liberality. But no lasting 
 or decisive eflfects have as yet followed 
 these efforts — no new nations have been 
 converted to Christianity ; the conver- 
 sion of a few tribes, of which much has 
 been said, appears to be little more than 
 nominal ; and the durable spread of the 
 Gospel has been everywhere coexten- 
 sive only Avith that of the European 
 race. But that race has increased, and 
 is increasing, ^\ith unexampled rapi- 
 dity ; its universal gi'owth and wide 
 extension bespeak the evolutions of a 
 mighty destiny ; and it has now become 
 apparent that the Anglo-Saxon colonist 
 
 bears with his sails the blessings of 
 Christianity to mankind. 
 
 74. The influence of Christianity is 
 obviously increasing in all the nations 
 of Europe, and to nothing has this in- 
 crease been so much owing as to the 
 irreligious spirit which occasioned the 
 Fi'ench Revolution. Voltaire was the 
 author of the second great crusade — 
 he Avas the Peter the Hermit of the 
 eighteenth century ; without intending 
 it, he, in the end, roused all nations in 
 behalf of religion. He conferred one 
 blessing of inestimable importance on 
 mankind — he brought scepticism to 
 the test of experience. He for ever 
 revealed its tendencies, and demon- 
 strated its effects to the world. The 
 Reign of Terror is the everlasting com- 
 mentary on his doctrines ; Robespierre 
 is at once the disciple and the beacon 
 of those of Rousseau. ISTowhere has 
 this reaction been more apparent than 
 in France, the very country where 
 infidelity was first triumphant. The 
 increasing spirit of devotion in its rural 
 districts has long been a matter of 
 observation to all persons acquainted 
 with French society ; and the proof of 
 this is now decisive — universal suffrage 
 has brought it to light. Louis Napo- 
 leon has seized supreme power ; but he 
 seized it by the aid of the clergy. His 
 first step was a solemn service in ISTotre 
 Dame, the theatre of the orgies of the 
 Goddess of Reason ; his last, the coro- 
 nation by the hands of the Church. 
 The votes of seven millions of French- 
 men demonstrated that the vast majo- 
 rity of the people coincided with his 
 sentiments. In England, the influence 
 of religious opinion has increased to 
 such a degree as to become in some 
 measure alarming; it begets, in the 
 thoughtful mind, the di-ead of a re- 
 action. Christianity in Russia is the 
 mainspring both of government and 
 national action : the Cross is inscribed 
 on his banners ; it is as the representa- 
 tive of the Almighty that the Czar is 
 omnipotent. In no country in the 
 world is religious zeal warmer, reli- 
 gious impressions more general, than in 
 America, though unfortunately these 
 feelings have not had the effect of re- 
 straining the public actions of their 
 
42 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE." 
 
 [chap. I. 
 
 supporters. These appearances are de- 
 cisive as to the future progress of the 
 Christian faith, and its diffusion by the 
 spread of the European race. When 
 France and England, America and Rus- 
 sia, diCFering in almost everything else, 
 combine in this one impression, it 
 needs no prophet to announce the fu- 
 ture destinies of mankind. 
 
 75. Such are the views, of a general 
 kind, which occur to the reflecting 
 mind, from the contemplation of the 
 eventful period in the history of Europe 
 which it is proposed to embrace in this 
 work. Less dramatic and moving than 
 the animated era which terminated with 
 the fall of iS^apoleon, it is, perhaps, still 
 more important ; it reveals the lasting 
 socictl results which have flowed from 
 the preceding convulsion ; it contains 
 less of individual agency, and more of 
 general progress. There are some in- 
 'cidents in it second to none that ever 
 occurred, in tragic interest : the Greek 
 Revolution, the Polish war, the Carlist 
 struggle in Spain, the Aftghanistan 
 disaster, the passage of arms in the 
 Punjaub, the revolutions of 1S48 in 
 Europe, will for ever stand forth as 
 some of the most heart-stirring events 
 in the annals of mankind. But these 
 are the exceptions, not the rule. The 
 general character of the period is one 
 of repose, so far as relates to the trans- 
 actions of nations, but of the most 
 fearful activity so far as the thoiTghts 
 and social interests of the people are 
 concerned. The heroes of it are not the 
 commanders of armies, but the leaders 
 of thought ; the theatre of its combats 
 is not the tented field, but the peaceful 
 forum. It is there that the decisive 
 blows were struck, there that the last- 
 
 ing victories have been gained. The 
 volumes of this History, therefore, will 
 difi'er much from those of the one which 
 has preceded it ; they will be less dra- 
 matic, but more reflecting; they will 
 deal less ^\dth the actions of men, and 
 more with the progress of things. In 
 the former period, individual gi'eatness 
 determined the march of events, and 
 general history insensibly turned into 
 particular biography; in the present, 
 general causes overruled indi\adual 
 agency, and the lives even of the great- 
 est men are seen to have been mastered 
 by the stream of events. 
 
 76. It is a common complaint in 
 these times, that the age of great men 
 has departed ; that the giants of intel- 
 lect are no longer to be seen ; that no 
 one impresses his signet on the age, 
 but every one receives the impression 
 from it. But the truth is, that it is 
 the strength of the general current 
 which has swept away particular men ; 
 the torrent put in motion by greatness 
 in a former age, has become so powerful 
 that it is now impossible for indi\ddual 
 strength in this to withstand it ; it is 
 not that the age of great men has de- 
 parted, but that of general causes has 
 succeeded. But the ascendant of in- 
 tellect is not thereby diminished : its 
 triumphs are only postjioned to another 
 age ; its sway begins when the body to 
 which it was united is mouldering in 
 the grave. The prophet is even more 
 revered in future times than the law- 
 giver ; when time has placed its signet 
 on opinions, they carry conviction to 
 every breast ; and he who has had the 
 courage to defend the cause of tmth 
 against the prejudices of one age, is sure 
 of gaining the sufli-ages of the next. 
 
1815. 
 
 HISTOPtY OF EUROPE. 
 
 43 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ENGLAND FKOM THE PEACE OF PARIS IN 1815, TO THE END OP 
 THE YEAP. 1816. 
 
 1. So great had been the success, so 
 glorious the triumphs of England, in 
 the latter years of the war, that the 
 least sanguine M^ere led to entertain 
 the most unbounded hopes of the 
 future prosperity of the empire. Pro- 
 sperity unheard of, and universal, had, 
 with a few transient ]3eriods of distress, 
 when the contest was at the \vorst, per- 
 vaded every department of the state. 
 The colonial possessions of Great Bri- 
 tain encircled the earth ; the loss of 
 the North American settlements had 
 been more than compensated by the 
 acquisition of a splendid empire in In- 
 dia, where sixty millions of men were 
 already subject to her rule, and forty 
 millions more were in a state of alli- 
 ance; the Avhole West India islands 
 had fallen into her hands, and were in 
 the veiy highest state of prosperity ; 
 Java had been added to her Eastern 
 possessions, and had been only relin- 
 quished from the impulse of a perhaps 
 imprudent generosity; and the foun- 
 dation had been laid, in Australia, of 
 those flourishing colonies which are, 
 perhaps, destined one day to rival Eu- 
 rope itself in numbers, riches, and 
 splendour. How different was this 
 prospect from that which, a few years 
 before, the world had exhibited ! There 
 had been a time when, in the words of 
 exalted eloquence, "the Continent lay 
 flat before our rival ; when the Span- 
 iard, the Austrian, the Pnissian, had 
 retii-ed ; when the iron quality of Rus- 
 sia had dissolved ; when the domina- 
 tion of France had come to the water'* 
 edge ; and when, behold, from a misty 
 speck in the west the avenging genius 
 of these our countries issues forth, 
 grasping ten thousand thunderbolts, 
 breaks the spell of France, stops in 
 his own person the flying fortunes of 
 
 the world, sweeps the sea, rights the 
 globe, and retires in a flame of glory. " * 
 Nor had the domestic prosperity of this 
 memorable period been inferior to its 
 external renown. Agriculture, com- 
 merce, and manufactures at home had 
 gone on increasing, during the whole 
 struggle, in an unparalleled ratio ; the 
 landed proprietors were in affluence, 
 and for the most part enjoyed incomes 
 triple of what they had possessed at 
 its commencement ; wealth to an un- 
 heard - of extent had been created 
 among the farmers ; the soil, daily in- 
 creasing in fertility and breadth of 
 cultivated land, had become adequate 
 to the maintenance of a rapidly in- 
 creasing population; cultivation had 
 drained the morass and crept up the 
 mountain-side ; the waving corn-field, 
 the smiling pasture, had succeeded in 
 the domain of the heath-fowl and the 
 plover ; Great Britain, as the effect of 
 her long exclusion from the Continent, 
 had obtained the inestimable blessing 
 of being self-supporting as regards the 
 national subsistence. The exports, 
 imports, and tonnage had more than 
 doubled since the war began ; and 
 although severe distress, especially 
 during the years 1810 and 1811, had 
 pervaded the manufacturing districts, 
 yet their condition, upon the whole, 
 had been one of general and extraor- 
 dinary prosperitj''. 
 
 2. Facts proved by the parliamentaiy 
 records sufficiently demonstrate that 
 this description is not the high-flown 
 picture of imagination, but the sober 
 representation of truth. The revenue 
 raised by taxation within the year had 
 risen from £19,000,000 in 1792, to 
 £72,000,000 in 1815; the total ex- 
 penditure from taxes and loans had 
 * Grattan. 
 
44 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. II. 
 
 reached, in 1814 and 1815, the enor- 
 mous amount of £117,000,000 each 
 year. In the latter j'cars of the war. 
 Great Britain had above 1,000,000 of 
 men in arms in Europe and Asia ; and 
 besides paying the whole of these im- 
 mense armaments, she was able to lend 
 £11,000,000 yearly to the Continental 
 powers ; yet were these copious bleed- 
 ings so far from having exhausted the 
 capital or resources of the country, 
 that the loan of 1814, although of the 
 enormous amount of £35,000,000, was 
 obtained at the rate of £4, lis. Id. per 
 cent, being a lower rate of interest than 
 had been paid at the commencement 
 of the war. The exports, which in 
 1792 were £27,000,000, had swelled in 
 1815 to nearly £58,000,000, official 
 value ; the imports had advanced dur- 
 ing the same period from £19,000,000 
 to £32,000,000. The shipping had in- 
 creased from 1,000,000 to 2,500,000 
 tons. The population of England 
 had risen from 9,400,000 in 1792, to 
 13,400,000 in 1815 ; that of Great Bri- 
 tain and Ireland from 14,000,000 in 
 the former period, to 18,000,000 in 
 the latter. Yet, notwithstanding this 
 rapid increase, and the absorption of 
 nearly 500,000 pairs of robust arms in 
 the arm}'', militia, and navy of these 
 islands, the imports of grain had gone 
 on continually diminishing, and had 
 sunk in 1815 to less than 500,000 
 quarters. And so far was this prodi- 
 gious expenditure and rapid increase 
 of numbers from having exhausted 
 the resources of the State, that above 
 £6,000,000 annually was raised by the 
 voluntary efforts of the inhabitants, to 
 mitigate the distresses and assuage the 
 sufferings of the poor; and a noble 
 sinking-fund was in existence, and had 
 been kept sacred during all the vicis- 
 situdes of the struggle, which already 
 had reached £16,000,000 a-year, and 
 would certainly, if left to itself, have 
 extinguished the whole public debt by 
 the year 1845. 
 
 3. When such had been the pros- 
 perity and so great the progress of the 
 empire, during the continuance of a 
 long and bloody war, in the course of 
 which it had repeatedly been reduced 
 to the very greatest straits, and com- 
 
 pelled to iight for its very existence 
 against the forces of combined Europe, 
 there seemed to be no possible limits 
 which could be assigned to the pros- 
 perity of the State when the contest 
 was over, and the blessings of peace 
 had returned to gladden our own and 
 every other land. If the industry of 
 our people had been so sustained, their 
 progress so great, during a war in which 
 we were for a long period shut out from 
 the Continent, and for a time from Ame- 
 rica also, what might be expected when 
 universal peace prevailed, and the har- 
 bours of all nations, long famishing 
 for the luxuries of British produce and 
 manufactures, were everyAvhere thrown 
 open for their reception? Views of 
 this sort were so obviously supported 
 by the appearances of the social world, 
 that they were embraced not only by 
 the ardent and enthusiastic, but the 
 prudent and the sagacious, in every 
 part of the country. The landholders 
 borrowed, the capitalists lent money, 
 on the faith of their justice. The mer- 
 chant embarked his fortune in the sure 
 confidence that the present flattering 
 appearances would not prove fallaci- 
 ous ; and the eloquent preacher ex- 
 pressed no more than the general feel- 
 ing when he said — "The mighty are 
 fallen, and the weapons of war have 
 perished. The cry of freedom bursts 
 from the unfettered earth, and the 
 standards of victor}^ wave in all the 
 winds of heaven. Again in every cor- 
 ner of our own land the voice of joy 
 and gladness is heard. The cheerful 
 sounds of labour rise again in our 
 streets, and the dark ocean again be- 
 gins to whiten with our sails. Over 
 this busy scene of human joy the 
 genial influences of heaven have de- 
 scended. The unclouded sun of sum- 
 mer has ripened for us all the riches 
 of harvest. The God of nature hath 
 crowned the year Avith his goodness, 
 and all things li-vdng are filled with 
 plenteousness. Even the infant shares 
 in the general joy ; and the aged, when 
 he recollects the sufferings of former 
 years, is led to say, -vA-ith the good old 
 Simeon in the Gospel, ' Lord, now let 
 thy servant depart in peace, for mine 
 eyes have seen thy salvation.'" 
 
1815.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 45 
 
 4. Such were the expectations and 
 feelings of the people at the termina- 
 tion of the war. Never were hopes 
 more cruelly disappointed, never an- 
 ticipations more desperately crossed. 
 No sooner was the peace concluded 
 than distress, widespread and univer- 
 sal, was experienced in every part of 
 the country, and in every branch of 
 industry. It was felt as much by the 
 manufacturers as the figriculturists ; 
 by the merchants as the landlords ; 
 and, ere long, the general suffering rose 
 to such a pitch that, while the table of 
 the House of Commons gi-oaned under 
 j^etitions from the farmers, complain- 
 ing of agricultural distress, the Ga- 
 zette teemed with notices of the bank- 
 ruptcy of traders ; and disturbances 
 became so common and alarming in 
 the manufacturing districts, that spe- 
 cial commissions had to be sent down, 
 in this and the following year, to. Ely, 
 Derby, and the principal seats of the 
 outrages, by whom the law was admin - 
 isterecl with unsparing but necessary 
 rigour. The farmers, as usual Avitli 
 that class, bore their distresses with pa- 
 tience and resignation ; but the manu- 
 facturers, always more excitable and 
 tumultuous, were not so easily appeas- 
 ed. In the southern part of Stafford- 
 shire the distress was felt as peculiarly 
 severe, and the working people in the 
 populous village of Bilston were redu- 
 ced to such a degree that they all fell 
 upon the parish, the funds of which 
 were inadequate to preserve them from 
 absolute starvation. The iron trade 
 in particular was everywhere suffering 
 under great distress : large bodies of 
 workmen, dismissed from their forges, 
 paraded the country, demanding cha- 
 rity in a menacing manner ; and at 
 Merthyr-Tydvil, in South Wales, the 
 disorders were not appeased ^vithout 
 military interference. To excite pub- 
 lic commiseration, great numbers of 
 these dismissed workmen fell upon the 
 expedient of dJ•a^ving loaded waggons 
 of coals to distant towns ; and a divi- 
 sion of these wandering petitioners 
 approached the metropolis, and were 
 only turned aside by the resistance of 
 a powerful body of police. 
 
 5. It was with the merchants en- 
 
 gaged in the export trade that the dis- 
 tress, which soon became universal, 
 first began ; and in them it appeared 
 even before hostilities had ceased. 
 Possessed with the idea that the in- 
 habitants of the Continent were lan- 
 guishing for British colonial produce, 
 from which they had so long been ex- 
 cluded, and inilamed by the prospect 
 of the sudden opening of their ports to 
 our shipping, the English merchants 
 thought, and acted upon the opinion, 
 that nb limits could be assigned to the 
 profitable trade which might be carried 
 on with them, especially in that article 
 of merchandise. So largely was this 
 notion embraced, so generally was it 
 acted upon, that the exports of for- 
 eign and colonial produce from Great 
 Britain and Ireland, which in 1812 
 had been £9,533,000, rose in 1814 to 
 £19,365,000. The necessary effect of 
 so prodigious an increase of the supply 
 thrown into countries impoverished to 
 the very last degi-ee by the war, and 
 scarcely able to pa}^ for anything, was 
 that the consignments were, for the 
 most part, sold for little more than half 
 the original cost ; and ruin, widespread 
 and universal, overtook all the persons 
 engaged in the trafiic. The eastern 
 ports of the kingdom, in particular Lon- 
 don, Hull, and Leith, suffered dread- 
 fully by the extensive and disastrous 
 shipments to the north of Europe. 
 England then began to learn a lesson 
 which has been sufficiently often taught 
 since that time — namely, how fallaci- 
 ous a test the mere amount of exports 
 is of the flourishing condition of the 
 country in general, or even of the bran- 
 ches of trade in which the greatest in- 
 crease appears in particular. That in- 
 crease often arises from a failure of the 
 home market, which renders it neces- 
 sary to send the goods abroad, or from 
 absurd and ruinous speculation, which 
 terminates in nothing but disaster. 
 The year 1814,* during which foreign 
 and colonial produce to the extent of 
 
 * Exports (Official Value) of Foreign and 
 Colonial Produce from 1814 to 1817. 
 
 1814, . . . £19,365,061 
 
 1815, . . . 15,748,554 
 ISi'i, . . . 13,480,781 
 1817, . . . 10,-292.6S4 
 
 —Porter's Pro^jrcss of lie Nation, 336. 
 
46 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 £19, 500,000 was exported, was far more 
 disastrous to the persons engaged in 
 that trade than the three succeeding 
 years, in which the exports of that de- 
 scription sank to little more than a half 
 of that amount. 
 
 6. This distress, however, was not 
 long of spreading to the agriculturists, 
 and among them it assumed a more for- 
 midable, because settled and irremedi- 
 able form. Notwithstanding the pro- 
 tection to British agriculture which had 
 been aftbrded by the corn law passed in 
 1815, of which an account has already 
 teen given, it had already become ap- 
 parent that the opening the harbours 
 of America and Northern Europe for 
 supplies of grain, coupled with the ces- 
 sation of the lavish expenditure of the 
 war, would seriously affect the prices of 
 every species of agricultural produce. 
 Abeady these had fallen to little more 
 than two-thirds of what they had been 
 during the five last years of the war.* 
 Although the prices which they still 
 fetched may seem high to us, who have 
 been accustomed to the much greater 
 reduction which has since taken place, 
 yet the fall from 106s. in 1813 to 63s. 
 in 1815, and 57s. in the spring of 1816, 
 for the quarter of wheat, was sufficiently 
 alarming, and struck a prodigious panic 
 into the minds of all persons engaged 
 in agricultural pursuits. The rise in 
 the price of rural produce had been so 
 steady and long continued, and the af- 
 fluence in consequence arising to all 
 persons connected with land, or de- 
 pending either on the sale of its produce 
 or the purchases flowing from its j)ros- 
 perity,so great, that all classes had come 
 to regard it as permanent, and they 
 had all acted accordingly. The land- 
 owners had borrowed money or enter- 
 ed into marriage-contracts on the faith 
 of its continuance ; present expendi- 
 ture, provisions to children, had been 
 regulated by that standard. The ten- 
 antry in those parts of the country 
 
 * Average Price of Wheat per Quarter 
 
 FROM 1809 TO 1816. 
 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 
 s. 
 
 3809. 
 
 . 94 
 
 5 
 
 1813, 
 
 106 
 
 1810, 
 
 . 103 
 
 3 
 
 1814, 
 
 72 
 
 1811, 
 
 . 92 
 
 5 
 
 1815, 
 
 63 
 
 1812, 
 
 . 122 
 
 8 
 
 1816, 
 
 76 
 
 — Porter's Progress of the Nation, 148. 
 
 where leases were common had formed 
 lasting contracts, in the belief that the 
 high prices would continue ; and they 
 could now anticipate nothing but ruin 
 if they were held to their engagements. 
 A general despondency, in consequence, 
 seized upon the rural classes ; numbers 
 of farms were thrown up in despair ; 
 and the universal sufl"ering among that 
 important class not only spread a ge- 
 neral gloom over society, but seriously 
 affected the amount of manufactured 
 articles taken off by the home market 
 — by far the most important vent for 
 that species of industry. 
 
 7. Before the close of the year 1816 
 these causes of distress assumed a dif- 
 ferent, but a still more alarming form. 
 The summer of that year was uncom- 
 monly wet and stormy, insomuch that 
 not only was the quantity and quality 
 of the grain everywhere rendered de- 
 ficient, but in the higher and later 
 parts of the country the harvest never 
 ripened at all. So stormy, melancholy 
 a season had not been experienced 
 since 1799 ; the consequence of course 
 was, that the price of grain rapidly 
 rose, and the average for the year was 
 76s. a quarter. But it was much 
 higher than this average in the latter 
 months ; indeed, in some places in the 
 north of England, wheat in October 
 was at a guinea a bushel.* The effect 
 of this, of course, was to admit foreign 
 importations during most of the year 
 dutyfree — the prices ha^dng surmount- 
 ed that of 80s.,fixedby the sliding-scale 
 as the turning-point at which free for- 
 eign importation was to commence. 
 This happy circimistance had the ef- 
 fect of checking the rise in the price of 
 provisions, which, but for that circum- 
 stance, would doubtless have reached 
 
 * On 8th October 1816, the Earl of Darling- 
 ton -wrote to Lord Sidmouth, then Home Se- 
 cretary — •' The distress in Yorkshire is unpre- 
 cedented; there is a total stagnation of the 
 little trade we ever had; wheat is already 
 more than a guinea a bushel, and no old corn 
 in store; the potato crop has failed; the 
 harvest is only beginning, the corn being in 
 many parts still green ; and I fear a total de- 
 falcation of all grain this season, from the 
 deluge of rain which has fallen for several 
 weeks, and is still falling." — Earl of Darling- 
 ton to Lord SiDMouTU, Sth Oct. 1816. Life of 
 Sidmouth, iil 150. 
 
1816.' 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 47 
 
 the level of a famine. The importa- 
 tion of wheat in that year amounted to 
 225,000 quarters ; but in the next, 
 when the effect of the scarcity of 1816 
 was felt, it rose to 1,020,000 quarters, 
 and in 1818 to 1,593, 000. But from this 
 cu-cumstance sprang up a new cause of 
 distress to the farmers, which was felt 
 Avith the utmost severity in this and 
 the two succeeding years. The im- 
 portation kept down prices, but it did 
 not restore crops ; it deprived the far- 
 mer of a remunerating price for what 
 remained of his produce, without mak- 
 ing up to him what had been lost. 
 And the nation, on comparing its jjre- 
 sent condition with what it had been 
 during the last years of the war, began 
 to feel the truth of Adam Smith's re- 
 mark — "High prices and plenty are 
 prosperity ; low prices and want are 
 misery."* 
 
 8. When such general distress per- 
 vaded the whole classes depending up- 
 on land — then, as now, by far the 
 largest and most important part of the 
 communityt— it was not to be suppos- 
 ed that the manufacturing interests 
 were not also to be labouring under 
 difficulties. The distress among them, 
 accordingly, was universal, and equally 
 among those who toiled for the foreign 
 as with those who supplied the home 
 market. In some branches of industry 
 which went directly to the supplying 
 of arms and stores of war, the depres- 
 sion, on the cessation of hostilities, 
 was immediate and excessive. Eng- 
 land had for several years past been the 
 great armoury of the world, and could 
 not but suffer severely in several bran- 
 ches of its industry on the return of 
 peace. It is to this cause, chiefly, that 
 
 * " If we think -we are to go on smoothly 
 without the effectual means of repressing mis- 
 chief, and large means too, we shall be most 
 grievously mistaken. I look to the winter 
 with fear and trembling. In this island our 
 ■wheat is good for nothing; barley and oats 
 reasonably good. As a farmer I am ruined 
 here and in Durham. So much for peace and 
 plenty."— Lord Chancellor Eldon to Lord 
 SiDMOUTH, 8th Oct., 1816. Sidmouth's Life, 
 iii. 151. 
 
 t The classes directly or indirectly depen- 
 dent on land, in Great Britain and Ireland, 
 are now (1852), in round numbers, 18,000,000 ; 
 on manufactures and towns, 10,000,000.— 
 Spackman's Tables, 1852. 
 
 the rapid reduction in the price of cop- 
 per and iron was to be ascribed — the 
 former of which had fallen from £180 
 to £80, the latter from £20 to £8 per 
 ton. But the depression was not con- 
 fined to those branches of industry 
 which were directly employed on war- 
 like stores — it was universal, and felt as 
 severely in those which were devoted 
 to the supplying of pacific wants, as in. 
 those which Avere immediately connect- 
 ed with hostilities. All were suffer- 
 ing, and apparently with equal seve- 
 rity. Distress was as great among the 
 cotton-spinners of Manchester or Glas- 
 gow, the silk-weavers of Spitalfields, 
 or the glove -manufacturers of Notting- 
 ham, as among the hardware-men of 
 Birmingham, or the iron-moulders of 
 Merthyr-Tydvil. The home market 
 was soon found to be reduced to a half 
 of its former amount ; and the manu- 
 facturers, finding their usual vents for 
 their produce failing them from domes- 
 tic wants, sent them in despair abroad 
 — but with so little success that the 
 entire exports of British produce and 
 manufactures, which in 1815 had risen 
 to £42,875,000, sank in the succeeding 
 year to £35,717,000. 
 
 9. Depression so severe and wide- 
 spread could not be accounted for by 
 the mere transition from a state of 
 war to one of peace, to which the parti- 
 sans of Government at that period, and 
 for long after, constantly ascribed it. 
 Every impartial and thinking person 
 saw that, altliough that might ex- 
 plain the depression in some particular 
 branches of industry which had been 
 connected with hostilities, it could not 
 account for the universal depression in 
 «7^ branches of industry, alike agricul- 
 tural and manufacturing, for the home 
 trade and the export sale. Still less 
 could it explain the fact that the de- 
 pression was felt equally universal in 
 every market, and even greatest in 
 those connected with pacific employ- 
 ments, which might have been ex- 
 pected to have taken an extraordinary 
 start on the termination of war ex- 
 penditure. As little could the reduc- 
 tion be accounted for by the reduction 
 of taxation, and diminution of the ex- 
 penditure of Governments in general, 
 
43 
 
 IIISTOHY OF EUPtOPE. 
 
 [chap. II. 
 
 and that of Great Britain in particu- 
 lar ; for that only altered the direction 
 of expenditure, without lessening its 
 amount ; if it put less into the hands 
 of Government to spend for the people, 
 it left more in the hands of the people 
 to spend for themselves. The Whigs 
 and Radicals had a very clear solution 
 of the question; the difficulties all 
 arose from excessive taxation, and the 
 measures of a corrupt oligarchy ; and 
 the remedy for them was to be found 
 in parliamentary reform, and an un- 
 sparing retrenchment in all branches 
 of the public expenditure. A vehe- 
 ment outcry, accordingly, was raised 
 for these objects, which was supported 
 with equal eloquence and ability both 
 in and out of Parliament.* But ex- 
 perience very soon demonstrated the 
 fallacy of all hopes of a relief to the 
 public suffering from these appliances. 
 Retrenchment was, by the voice of the 
 country and the anguish of general suf- 
 
 * " From a struggle which appalled, I be- 
 lieve, the boldest amongst us, we have, by the 
 talents and firmness of our general, and the 
 intrepid and patient courage of our troops, 
 been blessed with glorious victory. By the 
 act of Ministers, we have, from a state of tri- 
 umph and exultation, from liopes of security 
 justified by success, been left to contemplate 
 the real result of all these things. Let us 
 look around us and see the state of our coun- 
 try ; let us go forth among our fields and 
 manufactories, and let us see what are the 
 tokens and indications of peace. Can we 
 trace them among a peasantry without work, 
 and consequently without bread? — among 
 farmers unable to pay their rents, and a for- 
 tiori unable to contribute to that parochial 
 relief on wliich the peasantry is rendered 
 dependent? — among landowners unable to 
 collect their rents, and yet obliged to main- 
 tain their rank and station as gentlemen in 
 society ? Let us listen to the cry of the coun- 
 try—it is poverty, from the proudest castle 
 to the meanest cottage ; poverty rings in our 
 ears — it lies in our patli whichever way we 
 turn. It is not the congratulations of the 
 noble lord opposite, it is not the song of vic- 
 tory that can drown this lamentable cry; it 
 is not in the power of the noble lord, it is not 
 in the power of this House or of Parliament, 
 to stifle the cry of want, nor to brave the 
 stroke of universal bankruptcy. There is but 
 one means left to satisfy the country, to avert 
 these evils, or to redeem the pledged faith of 
 Parliament — Retrenchment, rigorous and se- 
 vere retrenchment, in every branch and in 
 every article of the public expenditure." — 
 Lord Nugent"s Speech on Lord G. Caven- 
 dish's motion for reduction of expenditure, 
 April 25, 1S16. Pari. Del. xxsiii. 1-22-2. 
 
 fering, forced upon the Government : 
 the income and malt taxes, amounting 
 to £17,000, 000 a-year, were abolished ; 
 the public expenditure was reduced 
 from £102,000,000 to £82,000,000; 
 nearly 300,000 men were disbanded 
 in the army and na\'7 ; — and still the 
 distress went on constantly increasing, 
 and was greater than ever in the close 
 of the very year 1816, in the course of 
 which these immense reductions had 
 been carried into effect. It is evident, 
 therefore, that some more general and 
 lasting cause was in operation than 
 those to which the adherents of either 
 party at that period ascribed it ; and, 
 without denying altogether the influ- 
 ence of some of these subordinate ones, 
 it may now safely be affirmed that the 
 main cause was the following : — 
 
 10. The annual supply of the pre- 
 cious metals for the use of the globe, 
 derived from the South American 
 mines, had been, for some years prior 
 to 1808, about ten millions sterling; 
 and of this about a half was coined in 
 South America, and the remainder for 
 the most part found its way to Europe 
 in the form of bullion. The rapid rise 
 in the price of commodities all over 
 Europe, during the latter years of the 
 war, was in part owing to the increased 
 supply of the precious metals, obtained 
 in consequence of the great rise in their 
 value from the necessities of the belli- 
 gerent powers. Gold, in consequence 
 of this, had in 1813 and 1814 risen to 
 £5, 8s. an ounce, from £4, which it 
 had been in the beginning of the cen- 
 tury. But the long and desolating 
 wars in which the Avhole Spanish pro- 
 vinces of South America had been in- 
 volved since 1809, in consequence of 
 their calamitous revolution, soon put 
 an end to this auspicious state of 
 things. The capitalists who worked 
 the mines were ruined during these dis- 
 astrous con^^llsions ; the mines them- 
 selves ceased to be worked, the ma- 
 chinery in them went to destruction, 
 and they were in many places filled 
 with water. So complete did the ruin 
 become, that the population of the 
 city of Potosi, in Peru, from whence 
 the celebrated silver mines of the same 
 name were worked, which in 1805 con- 
 
1816.] 
 
 HISTOKY OF EUROPE. 
 
 49 
 
 tained 150,000 inhabitants, had sunk 
 in 1825 to 8000. The only supplies 
 of the precious metals which were ob- 
 tained during these disastrous years, 
 were from the melting down of their 
 gold and silver plate by the wealthy 
 proprietors of former days, who had 
 been reduced to rain, and from turn- 
 ing over the heaps of rubbish which 
 had been thrown out of the mines in 
 the days of their prosperity. But so 
 diminutive and precarious were the sup- 
 plies thus obtained that they rapidly 
 declined from year to year ; and in the 
 year 1816, the whole amount raised 
 and coined in South America was only 
 £2,500,000, just a quarter of what the 
 amount raised in all parts of the globe 
 had been ten years before, and only a 
 third of what had been raised and 
 coined in South America in 1805.* 
 
 11. This great diminution in the 
 supply of the precious metals for the 
 nse of the globe was necessarily at- 
 tended by a general fall of prices over 
 the whole world, and was one great 
 cause of the poverty and suffering 
 which everywhere prevailed in the 
 years following the close of the war. 
 But its effect was most seriously ag- 
 gravated, in the particular case of 
 Great Britain, by the simultaneous 
 and still more serious contraction in 
 its paper circulation, and the credit 
 afforded to its merchants, by the de- 
 clared intentions of Government in 
 regard to the resumption of cash pay- 
 ments by the Bank of England. By 
 the existing law under which that 
 establishment acted, it was provided 
 that the restriction on cash payments 
 should continue "for six months after 
 the conclusion of a general peace, and 
 no longer." As the time had now ar- 
 rived when it Avas necessary to come 
 to some resolution on the subject, be- 
 
 * Gold and Sil\ter Coin raised and coined 
 IN SovTH America. 
 
 1803, . £5,032,227 
 
 1810, 
 
 . £5,807,972 
 
 1804, . 5,058,211 
 
 1811, 
 
 4,718,584 
 
 1805, . 7,104,436 
 
 1812, 
 
 3,619,352 
 
 1806, . 6.502,142 
 
 1813, 
 
 . 3,784,700 
 
 1807, . 5,356,152 
 
 1814, 
 
 . 3,687,249 
 
 1808, . 6,169,038 
 
 1815, 
 
 . 3,104,565 
 
 1809, . 6,997,853 
 
 1816, 
 
 2,528,008 
 
 —Alison's Europe, Appendix, 
 
 chap. xcvi. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 
 
 cause the six months were on the point 
 of expiring. Ministers proposed that 
 the restriction should be continued till 
 the 5th July 1818, and the Opposition 
 strenuously contended for its being 
 continued only to 5th July 1817. The 
 former resolution was adopted; but 
 the discussion of the subject, and the 
 difficulty Government had in carrying 
 the prolonged period, spread .such a 
 panic among bankers, that the com- 
 mercial paper under discount at the 
 Bank of England, which in 1810 
 had been, on an average, £20,070,000, 
 sank in 1816 to £11,416,400, and. in 
 1817 to £3,960,600; and the country 
 bankers' notes in circulation, which in 
 1814 had amounted to £22,700,000, 
 had fallen in 1816 to £15,096,000. 
 ISTothing in so prodigious a contraction 
 at once of the precious metals for the 
 use of the globe, and of the paper ac- 
 commodation and circulation of Great 
 Britain in particular, saved the coun- 
 try from absolute ruin, but the con- 
 tinuation of the restriction on cash 
 payments by the Bank of England, 
 which enabled it to continue its circu- 
 lation of £27,000,000 of notes undi- 
 minished, ancl the rapid return of the 
 precious metals from the Continent, 
 which, in defiance of all the j)redic- 
 tions of the Bullion Committee, flowed 
 back in such quantities to the centre 
 of commerce, on the termination of 
 the demand for them in Germany and 
 Spain for the operations of war, that 
 the Earl of Liverpool said, in his place 
 in Parliament, that it had exceeded 
 his most sanguine expectations. The 
 price of gold in the English market 
 fell from £5, 8s. , which it had been in 
 1814, to £3, 19s. in 1816.* 
 
 * "Many of the speculations puWished in 
 the Report of the Bullion Committee liad 
 been completely falsified by events. The 
 restoration of peace in 1814, and last year, 
 had had the effect, by stopping the foreign 
 expenditure, of bringing back the specie even 
 more rapidly than ever he had contemplated. 
 But after so long a foreign expenditure aa 
 tliat since 1808, it was not a favourable ex- 
 change of a few months which would bring 
 things back to their former level. This would 
 require a considerable time." — Earl of Liver- 
 pool's Speech, May 17, 1816; Pari. Deb. 
 xxxiv. 574. 
 
50 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. it. 
 
 12. The general distress and de- 
 sponding feelings of the country, aris- 
 ing from the fearful contrast between 
 the sad realities that had ensued on 
 the return of peace and the sanguine 
 expectations of felicity which had so 
 generally been formed, naturally led, 
 as might have been expected, to im- 
 portant discussions in Parliament, and 
 material modifications on our military 
 and naval establishment, and the whole 
 system of British finance. These dis- 
 cussions and measui'es are the more 
 important, that they form the basis, 
 as it were, of the whole subsequent 
 monetary and financial policy of the 
 empire, and all the incalculable con- 
 sequences w^hich have flowed from it. 
 The year 1816, the first year of peace, 
 marks the transition from the old to 
 the new system in these respects, and 
 therefore its legislative measui-es are 
 in an especial manner worthy of at- 
 tention. Four subjects, each of para- 
 mount importance, were brought under 
 discussion — the continuance of the 
 Bank Restriction Act, the continuance 
 of the Property Tax, Agricultural Dis- 
 tress, and the Army and Navy Estab- 
 lishment. The priority, in point of 
 time, belongs to the debate on the 
 property tax ; but it is difficult to fix 
 upon any particular occasion on which 
 the discussion on it was brought to a 
 point, as it was renewed almost every 
 night, during two months, on the pre- 
 sentation of successive petitions from 
 all parts of the country on the subject. 
 But, without asserting that they were 
 contained in any one debate, the prin- 
 cipal arguments on the subject will be 
 found to be contained in the following 
 summary : — 
 
 13. On the one hand, it w^as con- 
 tended against the continuance of the 
 tax, by ]\Ir Ponsonby, Mr Baring, and 
 Mr Brougham : " The petitions against 
 this tax are innumerable, and all couch- 
 ed in the strongest possible language. 
 They state facts which are undeniable, 
 they advance arguments which are un- 
 answerable. They do not come from 
 any one class or section in the commu- 
 nity ; they come from all sections and 
 all classes, and complain of an oppres- 
 sion, from the operation of this tax, 
 
 which is universal and intolerable. 
 The farmers complain that they are 
 assessed, on an arbitrary rule, on pro- 
 perty which does not exist. To pay 
 it, they are consuming their capital ; 
 they can neither stock their farms, nor 
 maintain their families, but by en- 
 croaching on their substance. How 
 could it be other^^ise, when the price 
 of Avheat had fallen from 110s. a quar- 
 ter to 85s. in the last two years, and 
 every other species of agricultural pro- 
 duce in the same proportion ? The 
 merchants and bankers are equally 
 loud and emphatic in their denuncia- 
 tion of this iniquitous tax ; the peti- 
 tion from the merchants and bankers of 
 the city of London is perhaps the most 
 numerously signed and important that 
 ever w^as presented to Parliament from 
 that or any other city. The impost is 
 peculiarly vexatious and alarming to 
 that class, because it implies an inqui- 
 sition into their private afl'airs, at all 
 times hazardous, but doubly so in a 
 period of general gloom and contracted 
 credit such as the present. The land- 
 ed proprietors, over the whole length 
 and breadth of the land, are equally 
 unanimous on the subject ; and it is 
 no wonder it is so — for, from their in- 
 comes being universally known, and 
 the tax paid, in the first instance, by 
 their tenants, escape or evasion is alike 
 impossible ; while, from the weight of 
 their debts, and the rapid decline of 
 their rents, the tax, if longer continued, 
 will in all cases essentially diminish, 
 in some entirely sweep away, the resi- 
 due which may remain to maintain 
 their families, pay the jointures and 
 interest of mortgages Avith which they 
 are burdened, and enable them to main- 
 tain their position in society. . 
 
 14. "It is in vain to say that Par- 
 liament was bound, in keeping faith 
 with the public creditor, to continue 
 this tax longer. It never was impledg- 
 ed in security of loans ; it was the in- 
 direct taxes alone which Avere so im- 
 pledged. The property tax had been, 
 from first to last, a icar tax, and a war 
 tax alone ; it was so expressly denomi- 
 nated, both by Mr Pitt, on liis first 
 introduction of it in 1799, and by Lord 
 Henry Petty, on its being raised to ten 
 
1816.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 51 
 
 per cent in 1806 ; and the statute im- 
 posing it bears evidence of the same 
 understanding, for it is laid on till the 
 6th April next after the conclusion of 
 ' a general peace, and no longer.' * If 
 anything could add to the force of 
 these last words, it would be the cunning 
 device adopted of omitting them, in the 
 huiTied renewal of the statute, on tlie 
 return of Napoleon from Elba last j^ear. 
 It is true that the faj,th of Parliament 
 stands pledged to tlM country on this 
 subject, but it stands pledged to the 
 removal of the tax, not its continuance. 
 The country is now agitated from one 
 end to the other ; and it is universally 
 felt that any renewal of the tax, even at 
 the reduced rate of five per cent, and for 
 a single year, is a direct breach of the 
 public faith with the nation, which is 
 little deserved, after the patience with 
 which the tax was borne during tlie 
 years when it really was unavoidable. 
 
 15. " Equally vain is it to assert that 
 the continuance of the property tax is 
 necessary as a general measure of fin- 
 ance, and to uphold the credit of the 
 country. The Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer says, if it is not continued, 
 there \d\\ this year be a deficit of ten 
 millions, which will render it necessary 
 for him to go into the money market 
 and borrow to that amount, which 
 would depress the Funds, and raise the 
 interest of money. But supposing this 
 to be the case ; supposing that it is im- 
 possible, by economy, and reducing our 
 establishments, to avoid a considerable 
 loan, what is the inconvenience thence 
 arising to that which may be antici- 
 pated from the continuance, even for 
 a single year, of this most odious 
 and grinding tax ? Nothing whatever. 
 Ministers have told us of the prosper- 
 ous state of the finances of the country, 
 and adverted to the fact, which is un- 
 doubtedly very remarkable, that the 
 Sinking Fund, though trenched upon 
 since 1813, is still twelve millions. 
 What would it take from the efficiency 
 
 ■* " Be it enacted, that this Act shall com- 
 mence and take effect from the 5th April 1806, 
 and that the said Act, and the duties thereof, 
 shall continue in force during the present 
 war, and until the 6th April next after the 
 definitive signature'of a treaty of peace, and 
 no longer." — Property/ Tax Statute, § 247. 
 
 of this fund, to take the interest of tlie 
 whole loan which may be required, 
 which at the very utmost will not ex- 
 ceed £600,000 a-year, from that fund? 
 Is not such a measure better than con- 
 tinuing a burden on the country which 
 it is wholly unable to bear, and which 
 threatens, if longer continued, to drain 
 away the resources of the people, and 
 cripple government most seriously in 
 futm-e years, by preventing the ordin- 
 ary taxes from continuing productive ? 
 What would a loan of nine or ten mil- 
 lions be, which would perhaps be melt- 
 ed in one week into the general trans- 
 actions of the country ? Nothing what- 
 ever. And is the House, for so incon- 
 siderable an advantage as avoiding 
 placing the interest of such a loan on 
 the Sinking Fund, to turn a deaf ear 
 to the prayers, and shut their eyes to 
 the distresses of the countrj'-, and ruin 
 their character in the opinion of their 
 constituents ? " 
 
 16. On the other hand, it was con- 
 tended by Lord Liverpool, Lord Castle- 
 reagh, and the Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer : "The principle on which the 
 property tax was originally proposed 
 by Mr Pitt, and subsequently extended 
 by Lord Lansdowne, was not merely 
 to avoid the inconvenience of a large 
 loan. The principle was, that it is im- 
 portant to provide an adequate supply 
 within the year, in preference to the 
 indefinite extension of permanent taxa- 
 tion by the indefinite accumulation of 
 debt, as had been the case, and thereby 
 to provide for the vigorous prosecution 
 of the war, and for the future relief of 
 the nation in peace. These objects 
 have both been gained ; and by the 
 unswerving prosecution of this system, 
 and the patience with which it has 
 been borne by the nation, we have now 
 nine millions less of permanent taxes 
 to pay than we should have had if the 
 opposite system had been continued. 
 The burdens laid on during the war 
 have been, upon the Avhole, collected 
 with so much wisdom and success, that 
 now the Consolidated Fund has a great- 
 er surplus than in the year 1791, or 
 than was even hoped for by the Finance 
 Committee of that year. We have now 
 a surplus of £2,500,000, with a Sinking 
 
B2 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. II. 
 
 Fund of £11,000,000— in other words, 
 £13,500,000 annually applicable to 
 the reduction of debt. Could such a 
 favourable state of things have arisen, 
 had not the vigorous measure of a large 
 property tax been adopted? and now 
 that its fruits are beginning to be reap- 
 ed, is it to be abandoned? 
 
 17. "To show that there is no breach 
 of faith with the nation in proposing 
 the continuance of the proj^erty tax for 
 two years longer, it is only necessary 
 to recollect, that when the property 
 tax was raised to ten per cent by the 
 "Whig Administration in 1807, and 
 when a i)ermanent system of war ex- 
 penditure, estimated at £32,000,000, 
 was adopted, it was contemplated that 
 the loans which would be necessary 
 should be secured by mortgage of all 
 the war taxes, including the property 
 tax. It was no doubt said by the no- 
 ble Marquis (Lansdowne), then Chan- 
 cellor of the Exchequer, that if the war 
 continued only seven years, it would 
 not be necessary to mortgage the pro- 
 perty tax ; and it was also true, that 
 instead of the war expenditure being 
 on an average £32,000,000, ii had been 
 £52,000,000 since that time, and the 
 contest had lasted more than seven 
 years. But that only showed the more 
 clearly, that the mortgage of all the 
 war taxes was contemplated by those 
 who extended the property tax, and 
 that the outcry now raised as to a breach 
 of faith with the public, in proposing 
 its continuance, is entirely without 
 foundation, seeing the very event has 
 occurred which was always looked to 
 as rendering its prolongation necessary. 
 
 18. " Nothing but an imperious sense 
 of duty could have induced his Majes- 
 ty's Ministers to propose the continu- 
 ance, even for a short period, of a bur- 
 den in opposition to the general reluc- 
 tance which it was foreseen would be 
 felt to submit to heavy taxation after 
 the conclusion of the war, more especi- 
 ally when very severe distress was at 
 the same time experienced from ex- 
 traneous and temporaiy causes. But 
 Government would be shrinking from 
 its first duty, if it did not persevere in 
 the course they had adopted. The 
 utmost deference is due to the public 
 
 voice on the subject ; but, numerous 
 as the petitions against the tax have 
 been, they are not so expressive of gen- 
 eral opinion as might at first sight 
 appear. They are in all 400, of which 
 one-third come from the two counties 
 of Devon and Cornwall. ]\lanehester, 
 Liverpool, Glasgow, and all the great 
 commercial towns, are divided on the 
 subject. When this is considered, and 
 the great popularity of any reduction 
 of taxation is kept in view, it is not 
 going too far to assert, that the strength 
 of the demand for the remission of the 
 tax has been much overrated, and that 
 all that can be said is, that the nation 
 is strongly agitated, and much divided 
 on the subject. 
 
 19. " But supposing the popular 
 demand on the subject to be as strong 
 as is represented on the other side, 
 there are considerations connected with 
 the financial situation of the country 
 which render it the painful but ne- 
 cessary duty of Government to with- 
 stand it. In round numbers, the ex- 
 penses for the present year may be 
 calculated at £30,000,000, exclusive 
 of the permanent expenditure arising 
 from the interest of the debt. There 
 is good reason, however, to hope that 
 this large sum Avill be reduced next 
 year by a third, or to about £20, 000, 000. 
 All the retrenchments proposed by 
 the gentlemen opposite, even if carried 
 with unflinching rigour into full effect, 
 would not reduce this sum by more 
 than £2, 000, 000 annually. This, then, 
 being our necessary expenses, what are 
 our resources to meet them ? Much has 
 been said about borro^^ing on the credit 
 of the Sinking Fund, or even appl)dng 
 a large part of that fund at once to the 
 current expenses of the year. But as 
 that fund does not now much exceed 
 £11,000,000 a -year, after what has 
 been taken from it during the last three 
 years, if it is to be applied in whole or 
 in part to meet the current exigencies 
 of the year, the countr}- will soon be 
 in the situation of having a debt of 
 above £700,000,000, \Aitliout any fund 
 whatever to look to for its redemption. 
 It is upon that ground that Govern- 
 ment feel themselves imperatively call- 
 ed upon by the duty they owe to the 
 
HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 1816.] 
 
 country to resist tlie abolition of this 
 tax. If it is withdrawn, Government, 
 as a matter of necessity, must go into 
 the market and borrow this year twelve, 
 next year six or seven, millions : what 
 effect will this have upon the price of 
 the Funds, and, through it, on the rate 
 of interest in the country ? And if 
 capital is kept locked up, or advances 
 rendered costly by this cause, how are 
 country gentlemen, how are merchants 
 and traders, to obtain the accommoda- 
 tion necessary to carry on their un- 
 dertakings, or overcome the difficul- 
 ties with which they were surrounded ? 
 Would the British people, with the 
 good sense and spirit which animated 
 them, now shrink from the exertion 
 which was necessary for their own pre- 
 servation ?— would they, in fact, be so 
 infatuated as to turn their backs upon 
 themselves ?" 
 
 20. Notwithstanding the manliness 
 of this appeal, which came with so 
 much weight from the Ministers who 
 liad brought the contest to a triumph- 
 ant issue, and the cogent nature of 
 those arguments, such was the weight 
 of the public voice that it proved irre- 
 sistible. Upon a division, the motion 
 for the entire abolition of the tax was 
 carried by a majority of 37 — the num- 
 bers being 201 and 238. The division 
 was received with rapturous cheering 
 in the House, which continued for se- 
 veral minutes ; and the joyous sound 
 being heard in Palace Yard, the huz- 
 zas soon spread through the dense 
 crowd there assembled, and in a few 
 minutes over all London. Never, since 
 the battle of Waterloo, had such gene- 
 ral joy been felt through the nation as 
 was on this occasion ; nothing like it 
 occurred again till the second capture 
 of Cabul and the conclusion of the 
 Chinese war were announced in a sin- 
 gle Delhi gazette. We must not esti- 
 mate the universal transports felt on 
 this occasion by what would be felt if 
 the modified income tax of sevenpence 
 in the pound, introduced in 1842 by 
 Sir R. Peel, was now abolished — for his 
 was a light burden in comparison, and 
 it extended to persons enjoying an 
 income of £150 and upwards alone ; 
 vvhereas the former was a tax of two 
 
 shillings in the pound, and extended 
 to all incomes of £50 and upwards. 
 As the heavier tax, when it was taken 
 off", Avas producing at ten per cent 
 £15,000,000 a-year, the assessable in- 
 come of Great Britain must have been, 
 at that period, £150,000,000 a-year. 
 And when we take into consideration 
 the innumerable evasions generally 
 practised, especially among the manu- 
 facturing and trading classes — where 
 such were so easy, and difficult of de- 
 tection — it is within bounds to con- 
 clude, that the aggregate incomes of 
 persons in Great Britain above £50 
 must at that period have been at least 
 £200,000,000 ;— an astonishing fact, 
 when it is recollected that the whole 
 inhabitants of the island did not then 
 exceed thirteen millions ; and that the 
 nation had just concluded a war of 
 twenty years' duration, in the course 
 of which £600,000,000 had been added 
 to the public debt, and the sums an- 
 nually raised by taxation progres- 
 sively increased from £20,000,000 to 
 £72,000,000. 
 
 21. In considering this subject, which 
 has been of such moment in the sub- 
 sequent financial and social condition 
 of the British empire, it will probably 
 be found, as is generally the case in 
 such questions, that there was some 
 truth, and not a little error, in the 
 opinions advanced on both sides. Lord 
 Castlereagh was unc|Uestionably in the 
 right when he so strenuously contend- 
 ed for preserving inviolate the Sinking 
 Fund, and not, by the remission of 
 taxation, leaving the nation in the 
 situation of having £700,000,000 of 
 debt, without any provision for its re- 
 demption. The manly stand which he 
 made against a loud public clamour, on 
 this ground, is one of the most honour- 
 able, as, unhappily, it is one of the 
 LAST, recorded in British history. But 
 he seems as clearly to have erred in the 
 ground Avhich he selected for making 
 this stand. He should never have cho- 
 sen it on the question of upholding a 
 heavy and unpopular direct tax. The 
 great and wise principle of English 
 finance, so constantly acted upon by 
 Mr Pitt, was to provide for the interest 
 of debt and the Sinking Fund for its 
 
54 
 
 HISTOEY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. ir. 
 
 redemption by indirect taxes, and to 
 reserve direct taxes as an extraordinary 
 war resource, to continue only to its 
 termination. The emphatic declara- 
 tion in the Property Tax Act, that it 
 was to "continue till the 6th April 
 next after the conclusion of a definite 
 treaty of peace, aiul no longer,'^ proves 
 that this was in an especial manner 
 the case with that burden. In striv- 
 ing to uphold it after peace Avas con- 
 cluded. Government was not less \do- 
 lating the pledge given to the nation 
 on its imposition, than departing from 
 the true principles of finance on the 
 subject. If loans for a year or two 
 after the conclusion of the war were 
 necessary to wind up its expenses, they 
 should, without hesitation, have been 
 contracted in preference to continuing 
 an oppressive direct war tax. The real 
 error, and it was a most fatal one, was 
 the unnecessary and often uncalled-for 
 remission of indirect taxes in after 
 years, by successive administrations 
 bidding against each other in the race 
 for popularity, which at first crippled 
 and at length extinguished the Sink- 
 ing Fund; but that mournful topic 
 belongs to a subsequent part of this 
 History. 
 
 22. There is another observation on 
 this subject, suggested by the tenor of 
 these debates, which will frequently 
 recur to the mind in the discussion of 
 great and momentous questions in sub- 
 sequent years. This is, that the most 
 material parts of the argument, and the 
 most vital consequences likely to flow 
 from the measures under discussion, 
 were not alluded to on either side in 
 the course of the debate in Parliament. 
 They were either unseen, or, if seen, 
 were carefully concealed by both par- 
 ties. Thus the most material points 
 in any discussion upon the property 
 tax, and those upon which public at- 
 tention has been chiefly fixed when it 
 was brought forward in after times, 
 undoubtedly are — the injustice of tax- 
 ing income derived from precarious or 
 perishable resources at the same rate 
 as that derived from land, or fixed and 
 imperishable investment ; the extreme 
 severity of direct taxation, when it is 
 at all considerable, compared with in- 
 
 direct, when it is most productive ; 
 and the injustice of levjdng a heav)^ 
 direct tax upon a small class of society 
 — not above 300,000 in number, viz., 
 that jiossessing an income above a cer- 
 tain level — from which all the rest of 
 the people are exempt. Yet these 
 topics are never once alluded to, in the 
 course of the almost daily discussions 
 which took place on the subject, in 
 presenting petitions in this year, during 
 two months ! They are the topics, how- 
 ever, upon which most stress should 
 always be laid, when this subject is 
 again brought forward in future times, 
 for they lie at its very foundation. 
 They touch the all-important subject 
 of the ability of the people to bear 
 the burden — a topic far more momen- 
 tous to them than interesting to their 
 rulers. Yet, in reality, it is a topic 
 which eventually must touch their 
 rulers as much as themselves ; for no 
 taxes can long be levied by Govern- 
 ment which trenidi deep upon the re- 
 sources, and seriously abridge the com- 
 forts, of the people. Of these, how- 
 ever, direct taxes are, beyond all ques- 
 tion, the most oppressive, and felt as 
 most severe, for they always fall upon 
 a limited class, generally not more than 
 a thirtieth part of the communit}^, in 
 whose hands, however, they arrest the 
 funds which maintain the whole ; 
 and, being not mixed up with the price 
 of articles of consumption, their whole 
 weight is made palpable to the people. 
 Indirect taxes are so blended with the 
 cost of articles that their existence is 
 not perceived ; and they are spread over 
 so wide a surface that their burden is 
 not felt. No nation was ever seriously 
 injured by taxes on luxuries consumed, 
 because the very fact of their being 
 consumed proved that they could be 
 afforded, and had been paid for ; — but 
 many have been utterly destroyed by 
 direct taxation, because it seizes upon 
 income, or eats in on capital before it 
 is expended ; and ruins the poor, when 
 they imagine they do not pay the tax, 
 by checking the gro-\A-th of capital, and 
 draining away the funds wliich should 
 purchase the produce of their industry. 
 23. It was generally supposed at the 
 time that Ministers would have resifm- 
 
1816.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 55 
 
 ed, upon Parliament having negatived 
 a proposal forming so important a part 
 of their financial system ; but, instead 
 of doing so, they equally surprised the 
 House of Commons and the country, 
 hy voluntarily proposing, two days 
 afterwards, the entire remission of the 
 war duty on malt — a tax producing 
 at that time £2,700,000 a-year. The 
 reason assigned by them for this un- 
 looked-for boon was, that, as the aboli- 
 tion of the income tax would render it 
 indispensable for them to go into the 
 money market to meet the exigencies 
 of the year, it Avas of little moment 
 whether they borrowed a few millions 
 more or less; and, therefore, that it 
 was deemed advisable to give a mate- 
 rial relief to the agricultural interest, 
 "which was labouring under a severer 
 depression than any other class. There 
 can be no question that there was much 
 truth in this observation, although 
 there were not wanting shrewd observ- 
 ers, who remarked that the boon would 
 never have been heard of if Ministers 
 had not received a shake, and that this 
 showed that the best w-ay to inspire 
 Government with philanthropic feel- 
 ings was to make them afraid. Be 
 
 this as it may, the remission of the tax 
 was hailed with delight by the leaders 
 of the agricultural interest in Parlia- 
 ment ; and being levied on a beverage 
 which tlie people in great part pre- 
 pared for themselves, there can be no 
 doubt that it was felt as a relief by the 
 people generally, contrary to what too 
 often obtains with the remission of in- 
 direct taxes, which only swells the 
 profits of the dealers in the articles, 
 without lessening theu' cost to the 
 consumers. 
 
 24. As the abolition of the property 
 tax, and the remission of the war duty 
 on malt, occasioned a loss to the Ex- 
 chequer of fully £17,000,000 a-year, 
 it became necessary for Ministers to 
 revise entirely their estimates for the 
 year, and reduce the expenditure in 
 proportion to the large defalcation in 
 their resources. This was accordingly 
 done, and with a success beyond the 
 most sanguine expectations of the coun- 
 try: £3,000,000 was borrowed from 
 the Bank ; and this, with the issue of 
 Exchequer bills to the amovmt of as 
 much more, supplied the deficiencies 
 of the Exchequer.* The reduction of 
 the estimates gave rise to warm debates 
 
 * The following Table, exhibiting the national expenditure for 1815 and 1816. as estimated, 
 will show the great reductions effected in all branches of the public expenditure in the latter 
 year : — 
 
 Supply. 
 
 1815. 
 
 Army, 
 
 Extraordinaries, 
 
 Barracks, 
 
 Navy, 
 
 Ordnance, 
 
 Miscellaneous, . 
 
 Loans to foreign powers. 
 
 £13,876,757 
 
 23,983,961 
 
 99,000 
 
 18,644,200 
 
 4,431,643 
 
 3,000,000 
 
 Supply. 
 1816. 
 Army, . . . £9,665,666 
 Deduct trooiis in France, 1,234,596 
 
 £62,135,039 
 
 11,035,247 
 
 Permanent Burdens. 
 Interest of debt Funded, and Sink- 
 ing Fund, .... £41,015,527 
 Do. Of Unfunded, ... 3,014,003 
 
 £117,199,816 
 
 Extraordinaries, 
 Commissariat, 
 Deduct in France, 
 
 -£8,431,070 
 1,500,000 
 
 480,000 
 75,000 
 
 Barracks, . 
 Stores, 
 Navy, 
 
 Ordnance, . 
 Deduct in France, 
 
 Miscellaneous, . 
 Indian debt. 
 
 1,882,188 
 186,003 
 
 405,000 
 
 178,000 
 
 50,000 
 
 9,434,440 
 
 1.696,185 
 
 2,500,000 
 
 945,491 
 
 £25,140,186 
 Permanent Burdens. 
 Interest of Funded debt and Sink- 
 ing Fund, . " . . . 43,410,059 
 Interest of Exchecluer Bills, . 2,196,177 
 Foreign loans, . '£1,731,139 
 Ireland, . . . 2,581,148 
 
 4,312,287 
 
 £75,058,709 
 The expenditure for 1816, however, in reality reached £80,185,828, as various articles of 
 
56 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap, II. 
 
 in Loth houses of Parliament, which 
 are important as evincing the ideas 
 then afloat in the country, and form- 
 ing the basis on which the Avhole pa- 
 cific expenditure of the nation since 
 that time has been founded. The 
 saving effected was very great, for 
 the expenditure, irrespective of the 
 debt, was reduced from £62,000,000 
 to £25,000,000, and the loan for Eng- 
 land and Ireland together was only 
 £8,900,000. But the debates are pe- 
 culiarly valuable, as evincing the tem- 
 per of the nation on this all-important 
 subject. 
 
 25. On the part of the Opposition, it 
 was contended by Mr Ponsonby, Mr 
 Tierney, and Lord Cavendish: "War 
 is only borne because it is hoped it 
 may lead to peace ; and warlike expen- 
 diture, because it may pave the way 
 for pacific reductions. But, according 
 to the system now pursued, we are to 
 have the evils and burdens of war 
 without the blessings and reductions 
 of peace. "When we consider the enor- 
 mous amount of our national debt, and 
 the complete triumph of our arms 
 which was purchased by it, nothing 
 can be more evident than that at no 
 former period were large reductions in 
 
 our peace establishment both more 
 loudly called for, or more safe and 
 practicable, than at the present mo- 
 ment. What is the value of our 
 boasted -victories, if, after they have 
 been gained, we are obliged to remain 
 armed at all points, as before the con- 
 test in which they were achieved com- 
 menced ? Some reductions, it is true, 
 have been made, but on a scale by no 
 means proportioned to the necessities 
 of the case ; and if our financial situa- 
 tion is considered, it will at once ap- 
 pear that, unless the expenditure is 
 reduced on a very diff"erent scale from 
 what has hitherto been attempted, the 
 empire will be involved in inextricable 
 difficulties. 
 
 26. " The total sums required to be 
 provided for the service of the year 
 amount, according to the statement of 
 the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to 
 £31,683,000, of which the establish- 
 ments of the country formed upwards 
 of £28,000,000. In addition to this, 
 by the Treaty of Union, two-seven- 
 teenths of the joint expenditure of the 
 empire was to be charged to the account 
 of Ireland ; and such is now the finan- 
 cial situation of that country, that its 
 finances are not equal even to the pay- 
 
 outlay exceeded the estimate.— See Ann. Beg. 1S16, 70, 71 ; and 1817, 256, 257. To meet the 
 expenditure, which even in the last of the two years was immense, the following were the 
 receipts for the two years :— 
 
 Ways and Means. 
 
 Customs, 
 
 Excise, 
 
 Stamps, 
 
 Land and assessed, 
 
 Post-office, 
 
 Lesser resources. 
 
 1815. 
 Ordinary Revenue, net. 
 
 £9,070,554 
 
 20,539,028 
 
 6,139,585 
 
 7,604,016 
 
 1,755,898 
 
 189,352 
 
 Ordinary and hereditary revenue, £45,197,368 
 
 Extraordinary. 
 Customs, £2,280,634 
 
 Excise, 
 
 Property tax, . 
 
 Lottery, 
 
 Paid by Ireland, 
 
 Irish expenditure, 
 
 Loans, 
 
 Lesser heads, . 
 
 6,737,028 
 
 14,978,248 
 
 304,651 
 
 3,981,783 
 
 6,107,986 
 
 39,421,959 
 
 117,241 
 
 £119.370,629 
 
 1816. 
 Ordinary Revenue, net. 
 
 Customs, £8,169,780 
 
 Excise, 19,013,630 
 
 Stamps, 6,184,288 
 
 Land and assessed, . . . 7,257,906 
 
 Post-office, .... 1,659,854 
 
 Lesser resources, . . . 67,280 
 
 Permanent ordinary. 
 Hereditary revenue, . 
 
 Extraordinary. 
 Customs, .... 
 Excise, .... 
 Property tax last year, 
 Lottery, .... 
 Interest of loans for Ireland, 
 Ireland's share of expenses, 
 Unclaimed dividends, 
 Lesser heads. 
 
 Total without loans, 
 Loan, including Ireland, 
 
 Total, 
 
 £42,370.130 
 165,270 
 
 £1.007,810 
 
 4,581,637 
 
 , 12,039,120 
 
 234,680 
 
 4,558,558 
 
 1,184,009 
 
 333,506 
 
 134,000 
 
 £66,579,420 
 8,939,802 
 
 £75,519,222 
 
 — " Fmance Statement," Ann. Reg. 1816, 420; and 1S17, 246. 
 
1816.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUPtOPE. 
 
 ment of the interest of its debt, — so 
 that, instead of its contributing any- 
 thing at all to the joint expenses of 
 the United Kingdom, Great Britain 
 will have to advance £997,000 to make 
 lip its deficiencies. Thus the whole 
 sum Ave have to provide for the service 
 of the year is about thirty-two millions 
 and a half. To meet this sum, the 
 surplus in the hands of the Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer, according to his own 
 account, is £12,700,000, leaving a de- 
 ficiency in the iirst year of peace of no 
 less than £19,981,000 ! It would be 
 some consolation if we could flatter 
 ourselves that this immense deficit was 
 owing to winding up the expenses of 
 the war, and that any considerable re- 
 duction of it could be hoped for if our 
 present establishment continued in fu- 
 ture years. But this is very far from 
 being the case. When the items of 
 the expenditure are looked into, it 
 appears that they are all permanent, 
 arising from the current expenses of 
 the year ; and so far from there being 
 any prospect of a reduction in fu- 
 ture, it is evident that next year the 
 charges of the nation must be in- 
 creased £1,000,000, and that for ever, 
 to meet the interest of the sum to be 
 borrowed in this very year, to meet its 
 excess of expenditure above income. 
 If that is our condition in time of 
 peace, and with all the security de- 
 rived from the greatest triumphs, can 
 anything be so deplorable as our finan- 
 cial situation ? 
 
 27. "If the establishment main- 
 tained in the different parts of the 
 empire at this time be compared with 
 what it was in 1792, the difference is 
 prodigious, and wholly unaccounted 
 for by any increased necessities of our 
 situation. On the contrary, if there 
 is any difference, it should be found 
 in the diminished force now required, 
 from the enhanced security which our 
 commanding situation and unparal- 
 leled victories have now procured for 
 us. Nevertheless, Government pro- 
 pose just the reverse ; the establish- 
 ment they have submitted to the 
 House is more than double of what it 
 was in 1792. The two years stand 
 thus : — 
 
 
 1792. 
 
 1816. 
 
 
 Men. 
 
 Men. 
 
 Great Britain, 
 
 . 15,919 
 
 32,000 
 
 Old Colonies, 
 
 . 16,848 
 
 27,000 
 
 Ireland, . . 
 
 . 16,000 
 
 28,000 
 
 New Colonies, 
 
 — 
 
 25,000 
 
 57 
 
 48,767 112,000 
 Exclusive of troops in France and India. 
 
 "If to these forces be added the 
 troops in France and India, which are 
 maintained by their respective coun- 
 tries, and comprise at least 50,000 
 men, it follows that we have now 
 above 160,000 men in arms in a period 
 of profound peace, and immediately 
 after the conclusion of a war which is 
 boasted of as having given us unex- 
 ampled security. All that we have 
 gained, if the statement of Ministers 
 be correct, by a war which has quad- 
 rupled our public debt, is, that we 
 have incurred a necessity of tripling 
 our military establishment. " 
 
 28. On the other hand, it was con- 
 tended by Lord Liverpool, Lord Pal- 
 merston, and Lord Castlereagh : ' ' IVIuch 
 of the embarrassments and difficulties 
 of the country during war have always 
 arisen from our establishment in peace 
 having been brought to so low an ebb 
 that, on the first breaking out of hos- 
 tilities, we were either absolutely pow- 
 erless, or, if we attempted anything, 
 were constantly, for some years, in- 
 volved in disaster. This was particu- 
 larly the case during the first years of 
 the American and the late war — on 
 the last of which occasions Mr Pitt, 
 by whom the reductions were made, 
 expressed bitter regret that he had 
 been instrumental in reducing the es- 
 tablishment, duringthe previous peace, 
 to so low an ebb that the fairest oppor- 
 tunity of bringing the war to an early 
 and successful termination Avas lost. 
 It was to the liberty we enjoyed that 
 the industry and exertion Avhich hap- 
 pily distinguished England from many 
 of the Continental powers were to be 
 ascribed; and to these advantages, 
 which a free people only could possess, 
 Ave OAved all our superiority, Avhich 
 would not be in the smallest degree 
 affected by the magnitude or diminu- 
 tion of our peace establishment. 
 
 29. " It is a A' ery easy matter to com- 
 
58 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE; 
 
 [chap. 
 
 II. 
 
 pare our peace establishment in 1816 
 with what.it was in 1792, and to ask 
 how, when we have been successful in 
 the war, an additional and much larger 
 military force is requisite. Is it not 
 well known — has it not passed into 
 a maxim in history — that success 
 only multii^lies the demand for in- 
 creased means of defence, by widening 
 the circle from which hostility may be 
 apprehended? Our empire in the co- 
 lonies has been more than doubled 
 during the war ; and are we to be told 
 that, after having been won with so 
 much difficulty, they are not worth 
 preserving, but must be abandoned, 
 for want of a protective force, to the 
 first enemy who chooses to grasp them ? 
 Look around upon the colonies, and 
 say whether there is any one of them 
 for which a supply of soldiers has been 
 voted larger than is absolutely neces- 
 sary. The fact is notoriously the re- 
 verse ; they are all so under-garrisoned 
 that the men stationed there will bo 
 overworked, and fall victims to fatigue 
 and the diseases of tropical climates. 
 The new colonies obtained during the 
 war were proposed to be garrisoned by 
 22,000 men, of whom not more than 
 15,000 could be reckoned on as effec- 
 tive ; whereas the aggregate of effective 
 soldiers who marched out of them, 
 when they were taken, was upwards 
 of 30,000. In some of the old colonies 
 — as Jamaica and Canada — it was pro- 
 posed to station a force considerably 
 larger than had been there before the 
 war; but that was because America 
 had become a considerable military 
 and naval power, in consequence of 
 the events of its later years. 
 
 30. "In regard to the home stations, 
 the number allotted for Great Britain 
 is 25,000, being about 7000 more than 
 the quota of 1792. But is that an ex- 
 cessive addition, when the increase 
 which during the war has taken place 
 in our population and resources is con- 
 sidered? The first has increased a 
 fourth; the last, if measured by our 
 exports, imports, and shipping, have 
 more than doubled. The augmenta- 
 tion of the army at home was by no 
 means in the same proportion. Ac- 
 cording as our colonial force is enlarged, 
 
 the troops at home, by whom they are 
 to be fed or relieved, must be increased 
 also. Then if, in addition to all this, 
 the vast additions made to the armies 
 of the Continental powers during the 
 war, and the magnitude of their peace 
 establishments, be taken into consid- 
 eration, it must become at once appar- 
 ent that not merely our respectability, 
 but our very existence as an independ- 
 ent nation, is involved in resisting the 
 reduction now proposed. The ques- 
 tion at issue is not whether, by reduc- 
 tions in our establishment, we can get 
 quit of the income-tax or loans in its 
 stead, for by no possible reduction can 
 tliat object be effected. It is, whether 
 we shall compel the Crown to aban- 
 don all our colonial possessions, fertile 
 sources of our commercial wealth, and 
 whether we shall descend from that 
 elevated station which it has cost us 
 so much labour, blood, and ti'easui-e to 
 attain. 
 
 31. "It is unfair to charge the whole 
 expense of the army, being £9,800,000 
 proposed this year, to the account of our 
 present establishments: £2,000,000 of 
 it is absorbed in pensions to those gal- 
 lant men, now for the most part re- 
 tired, who have borne us through the 
 perils of the contest; £1,000,000 is 
 applied to the forces embodied at pre- 
 sent, Avhich will be disbanded in the 
 course of the year — particularly the 
 regular militia and foreign corps, which 
 are to be entirely reduced. Let it be 
 recollected, too, that since the year 
 1792 tlie pay of the soldiers has been 
 doubled — it has been raised from six- 
 pence to a shilling a-day, which added 
 at least a third to the total expense of 
 our military establishment. If these 
 things are taken into consideration, it 
 will be found that the proposed mili- 
 tary establishment, so far from being 
 excessive, is in reality extremely mo- 
 derate, and could not be reduced, in 
 the present circumstances of Europe, 
 the empire, and the world, without 
 serious detriment to our national char- 
 acter, and the most serious danger to 
 our national independence." 
 
 32. Notwithstanding the force of 
 these arguments, and the obvious in- 
 expedience of too rapidly reducing the 
 
1S16.J 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 59 
 
 national establisliments, from the per- 
 nicious effect Avticli throwing a vast 
 number of idle hands at once upon the 
 labour market -would have, such was 
 the sti-ength of the public cry for eco- 
 nomy, and such the necessities of Gov- 
 ernment after the great resource of 
 the property tax was withdrawn, that 
 very great reductions became necessary 
 in the army, against which the chief 
 complaints were directed. The estab- 
 lishment was ultimately fixed at 
 111,756 men,* deducting the foreign 
 corps disbanded in the course of tlie 
 year, and the troops in France and in 
 the East India Company's territories. 
 Including them, the number was 
 196,027, The regular militia 80,000 
 strong, and about 50,000 of the regu- 
 lar army, were disbanded in the course 
 of the year. For the navy 33,000 men 
 W'ere voted — a great and immediate re- 
 duction from 100,000, who had been 
 in the service in the preceding year. 
 Great part of these copious reductions 
 did not take effect till the succeeding 
 year, and so had little efl'ect in lessen- 
 ing the expenditure of this; but the 
 disbanding of so large a number as 
 200,000 men from the two services, 
 including the regular militia, however 
 unavoidable, had a most prejudicial 
 effect upon the labour market, and 
 tended much to augment the suffering 
 so generally felt by the working classes, 
 from the diminution of employment, 
 and the distressed condition both of 
 the agricultural and manufacturing 
 population. 
 
 33. Agricultural distress, as might 
 well have been expected, from the dif- 
 ficulties so generally experienced by 
 
 that important class of the community 
 who were engaged in tlie cultivation 
 of the soil, liolds a very prominent 
 place among the subjects of parlia- 
 mentary discussion in tliis year. Tlie 
 debates of course terminated in nothing 
 effective being done for the relief of the 
 landed interest ; for the causes of this 
 disti'ess were either altogetlier beyond 
 the reach of remedy on tlie part of 
 Government, or they arose from mea- 
 sures connected with the currency, 
 which the Legislature was inclined to 
 render more stringent rather than the 
 reverse. But they are not, on that ac- 
 count, the less valuable in a historical 
 point of \'iew, as tending to indicate 
 the commencement of the operation of 
 those causes of a general nature which, 
 ere long, had so important an influ- 
 ence on British prosperity, and came 
 at last to exercise so decisive an effect 
 on the legislation and destinies of the 
 empire. 
 
 34. On the part of the Opposition, it 
 was contended by Mr Brougham, ]\Ir 
 Tierney, and Mr Western: "It is 
 superfluous to say anything on the 
 amount and universality of the distress 
 which exists in the country at this 
 time. That, unhappily, is matter of 
 notoriety, and is universally admitted. 
 If any doubt could exist upon the 
 subject, it would be removed by the 
 petition presented this very night 
 from Cambridgeshire, in which it is 
 stated that every single individual in 
 a parish in that country, Avith one ex- 
 ception, has become bankrupt or a 
 pauper, and that that one, in conse- 
 quence, has fallen from a state of 
 affluence to ruin, from the rates all 
 
 * Abmy Estimate for 1816. 
 
 Land forces, including corps intended to )^ 
 
 be reduced, J 
 
 Regiments in France, .... 
 
 Regiments in India, 
 
 Foreign corps 
 
 Recruiting Staff, 
 
 Deduct in France, 
 ,, India, , 
 
 111,756 
 
 34,031 
 
 28,491 
 
 21,401 
 
 348 
 
 - 196,027 — with lesser charges, 
 34,031 .... £1,234,596 
 28,491 .... 906,604 
 62,522 
 
 Remains, 
 —Pari Deh., xxxii. 842. 
 
 133,505 
 
 £4,702,611 
 
 1,234,596 
 906,604 
 370,669 
 
 20,835 
 
 £11,123,577 
 
 2,141,190 
 
 £8,982,.: 
 
60 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 falling upon him. The real point for 
 consideration is, to what is this 
 imiversal and overwhelming distress 
 owing? In 1792, the average price of 
 Avheat was 47s. a cpiarter ; now (April 9) 
 it is 57s. — almost twenty per cent 
 higher ; yet no complaint of ruin from 
 low prices was heard before the war. 
 On the contrary, such a state of things 
 was with reason hailed as the greatest 
 possible blessing, as the first fruits of 
 peace and plenty. We must seek for 
 other causes, therefore, for tlie present 
 distress, than in the mere fact of low 
 prices ; and those causes seem to be 
 chiefly the followdng : — 
 
 35. **The years 1796 and 1799, it 
 is well known, were years of very bad 
 harvests, and they, of course, raised 
 the price of agricultural produce, and 
 gave a temporary stimulus to cultiva- 
 tion. This was increased by the pro- 
 fuse expenditure of the war, which, 
 not confined to income, lavished in 
 single years the accumulated hoards of 
 previous generations. But the great 
 circumstance which tended to raise 
 prices in a lasting way, was the sus- 
 pension of cash payments by the Bank 
 of England. This gave such a stimu- 
 lus to that establishment, and also to 
 all the country banks, that prices not 
 only rose, but were retained at a high 
 level. The consequence was, that the 
 banks were encouraged to advance 
 money to cultivators from the certain- 
 ty of their obtaining a remunerating 
 price for their produce, and thence 
 a prodigious impulse was given to 
 agriculture in all its branches. Nor 
 is the effect of the vast increase of our 
 colonial possessions to be overlooked, 
 which has operated not merely by in- 
 creasing our exports and imports, but, 
 in a far more important degree, by 
 promoting enterprise in the cultiva- 
 tion of our own soil. This appears 
 from the great amount of riches which 
 was remitted from these colonial pos- 
 sessions to purchase or improve lapd 
 in Great Britain ; and the source from 
 which that wealth has come may be dis- 
 tinctly traced in the names of estates 
 and farms, especially in Scotland, 
 which are frequently taken from that 
 of places — as Berbice, Surinam, or 
 
 the like — in the East or "West Indies. 
 Lastly, among the causes which gave 
 so great an impulse to agriculture 
 during the war, we nmst assign a 
 very prominent place to Napoleon's 
 continental blockade, which not only 
 gave our cultivators, during the last 
 seven years of its continuance, an al- 
 most entire monopoly of the home 
 market for agricultural produce, but, 
 by throwing the whole foreign com- 
 merce of the world into our hands, 
 powerfully promoted the prosperity of 
 our seaport and manufacturing towTis, 
 and through them reacted upon that 
 of the most distant parts of the countrj'. 
 
 36. **In consequence of this com- 
 bination of circumstances, most of 
 which were of a casual or temporary 
 nature, there has occun-ed in this 
 country what may without impropriety 
 be called an over-trading in agricul- 
 ture, and consequent redundance of 
 agricultural produce. Enclosure bills 
 to the amount of twelve hundred have 
 been passed during the last ten years, 
 and the number of acres thereby 
 brought into cultivation has been es- 
 timated at tAvo millions. Certain it is 
 that, between the newl}^ enclosed land 
 and the improvement of that which 
 was formerly under cultivation, at 
 least the produce of two millions of 
 acres, which may be taken at six 
 millions of quarters of grain, has been 
 added to the national supply. But 
 the population of the island has only 
 increased two millions during the war, 
 and taking a quarter of grain for the 
 average consumption of each indivi- 
 dual, it follows that two millions of 
 quarters only have been added to the 
 demand, and six millions to the supply. 
 This sufficiently explains the glut of 
 agricultural produce, and consequent 
 fall of prices, and the distress which 
 now universally prevails amongst the 
 cultivators and landed proprietors. 
 
 37. "Supposing, as is perhaps the 
 case, that these calculations of politi- 
 cal arithmetic are not altogether to be 
 trusted, we may rely on a much safer 
 testimony,- the CAidences of our own 
 senses, to be convinced of the extraor- 
 dinary advance which our agriculture 
 lias made of late years. The improve- 
 
1816.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 61 
 
 ments in most parts of the country 
 have been so great, that the most care- 
 less observer must have been struck by 
 them. Not only have wastes for miles 
 and miles disappeared, giving place to 
 liouscs, fences, and crops ; not only 
 have even the most inconsiderable 
 commons, the very village greens, and 
 little stripes of sward by the wayside, 
 been sulyected to division and exclusive 
 ownership, but the land which formerly 
 grew something has been fatigued with 
 labour and loaded with capital until it 
 yielded much more. The work botli 
 of men and cattle has been econo- 
 mised, new skill has been applied, and 
 a more dexterous combination of differ- 
 ent kinds of husbandry practised, imtil, 
 without at all comprehending the waste 
 lands wholly added to the productive 
 territory of the nation, it may be safely 
 said, not, perhaps, that two blades of 
 grass now grow whei'e only one grew 
 before, but certainly that five now grow 
 where only four used to be ; and that 
 this kingdom, which foreigners were 
 wont to taunt as a mere manufacturing 
 and trading countiy, inhabited by a 
 shopkeeping nation, is in reality, for 
 its size, by far the greatest agricultural 
 state in the world. 
 
 38. " It is since 1810 that these 
 causes have in an especial manner come 
 into operation, as appears in the price 
 of wheat, which, on an average, has 
 been above 100s. the quarter since that 
 time — a striking conti-ast to the woeful 
 depression whicli has taken place since 
 the peace. What is very remarkable, 
 this depression is the very reverse of 
 what took place on former pacifications ; 
 for on the peace of Paris, in 1763, wheat 
 rose from 36s. to 41s. a quarter, and to 
 42s. 6d. on an average of five years 
 ending 1767 ; and on tlie peace of Ver- 
 sailles, in 1784, it rose 5s. a quarter. 
 In the present contest, however, the 
 battle of Leipsic, which induced the 
 hope of a speedy peace, at once lowered 
 the price from 120s. to 86s., and before 
 November 1813, wheat was at 68s. No 
 man who attends to these figures and 
 dates, can doubt that the fall of prices 
 was connected with the prospect of an 
 approaching termination of the war. 
 Nor is it diificult to see how it is that 
 
 this eff'eot took place. A sudden dimi- 
 nution of expenditure, to the extent of 
 £50,000,000 annually by the Govern- 
 ment of this country alone, could not 
 take place without immediately affect- 
 ing the market both for manufactured 
 and rude produce ; and a derangement 
 in the former is sure, sooner or later, 
 to be followed by distress in the latter. 
 The commercial and manufacturing 
 difficulties of 1811 and 1812, which 
 are yet fresh in all our recollections, 
 conMbuted powerfully to increase the 
 dangers of our mercantile situation ; 
 for after the cramped and almost block- 
 aded situation in which we had been 
 kept for several years, a sudden nish 
 into speculations and adventures took 
 place on the reopening of the European 
 harbours, which was so violent that it 
 seized all classes of the community, and 
 induced unheard-of losses. English 
 goods were soon selling cheaper at 
 Buenos Ayres and in the north of 
 Europe, than either in London or 
 Manchester. All this reacted, and that 
 quickly too, on agriculture ; for the 
 commercial interests of the country 
 can never suffer without its being felt, 
 and that right speedily, by the culti- 
 vators of the soil, who mainly live on 
 their expenditure. 
 
 39. " Excessive taxation is the last, 
 and perhaps the most powerful, cause to 
 which the present depressed condition 
 of the agriculturists is to be ascribed. 
 During the last twenty-five years, our 
 revenue has increased from £15,000,000 
 to £66,000,000— our expenditure in 
 one year exceeded £125,000,000; in 
 this year of peace it is to be £72, 000, 000, 
 and no hopes are held out of its being 
 permanently below £65, 000, 000. These 
 figures sound immense, and convey an 
 idea of apparently interminable re- 
 sources ; but if we descend into detail, 
 and examine how, in so short a time, 
 so prodigious an increase of revenue 
 has been effected, the illusion will be 
 dispelled, and it will at once appear 
 that it is owing to excessive and grind- 
 ing taxation. Not only has the direct 
 taxation risen to a most enormous 
 amount — certainly not less, while the 
 income-tax lasted, than 15 per cent 
 on the income of all persons liable to 
 
62 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. ii. 
 
 that tax — ^hut tlie most ordinaiy and 
 indispensable necessaries of life have 
 come to be taxed with a severity which 
 almost amounts to a prohibition. The 
 duty on salt, which in 1792 was lOd. 
 a bushel, had been raised, previous to 
 1806, to 15s., its ]5resent amount. The 
 tax on leather has been doubled within 
 the last four years. The duty on malt 
 has been raised from 10s. 7d. a quarter 
 to 34s. 8d., of which 16s. is war duty; 
 that on beer from 5s. 7d. (in 1802) to 
 9s. 7d. ; that on spirits from 7d. to 
 Is. 9d. Sugar is taxed 30s. per cwt., 
 instead of 15s., the rate in 1792. 
 
 40. "Add to all this, also, the ex- 
 cessive inequality and injustice of our 
 mode of levying and rating for the 
 poor-rate. The whole burden of main- 
 taining the poor is laid upon the land ; 
 and this reduces the price of labour 
 below its natural level, at the sole ex- 
 pense of the cultivator. The money 
 raised for the relief of the poor is, in 
 direct opposition to the intention of 
 the 43d Elizabeth, from a defect in 
 the Act, laid entirely upon the land. 
 Manufacturers and merchants are rated 
 cnl}^ as owners of large houses. In this 
 way it often happens that a man who 
 has an income of £10,000 a-year from 
 trade, is rated no higher than one who 
 derives £500 a-year from land. The 
 gross injustice of this is rendered more 
 glaring from the fact — the manufac- 
 turer creates the poor, and leaves the 
 farmer to maintain them. The farmer 
 employs a few hands only, the manu- 
 focturer a whole colony.; the former 
 causes no material augmentation in the 
 number of paupers, the latter multiplies 
 them wholesale ; the first creates the 
 poor, leaving it to the last to maintain 
 them. In addition to this injustice, 
 which is glaring enough, the custom 
 has spread widely, and become almost 
 universal, of 'making up, ' as it is called, 
 wages to a certain level out of the poor- 
 rates — a system which has just the 
 effect of compelling the land to bear, 
 not only its own burdens, but part of 
 the wages of all emj^loyed by the rest 
 of the community. The magnitude of 
 this burden may be estimated from the 
 fact, that the total sum levied for the 
 use of the poor, which before the 
 
 American War wa.? under £2,000,000, 
 now exceeds £8,000,000. AVhen, in 
 addition to this huge burden, it is con- 
 sidered how large a proportion of the 
 taxation of £66,000,000 annually is 
 paid by the land, the price of the pro- 
 duce of which has simk within eighteen 
 months to half its former amount, it 
 will cease to be surprising that the 
 agricultural interest should be suffer- 
 ing, and evident that no substantial 
 relief can be expected, as long as these 
 burdens continue to oppress it."* 
 
 41. On the other hand, it"was main- 
 tained by Lord Liverpool, Lord Castle- 
 reagh, and Mr Vansittart : " It is so 
 far consolatory to find that the Bank 
 Restriction Act of 1797, which has 
 been so often held out as the cause of 
 all our calamities, is now admitted, not 
 only to have had no such effect, but to 
 have produced, in some part at least, 
 great prosperity'-. In fact, it has been 
 the mainspring of our strength ; and 
 no reasonable man can now deny that, 
 had it not been for that measure, this 
 country must long since have sunk in 
 the conflict, and we have become a 
 pro-\dnce of France. It is now seen, 
 and admitted on the other side, by 
 whom the system had so long and 
 vehemently been condemned, that it 
 was not only by this wise measure of 
 Mr Pitt's that the countiy has been 
 saved, but that under this artificial 
 circulating medium the prosperity of 
 the country, even during war, had in- 
 creased to an unparalleled degree, i 
 
 42. " The existing distress is to be 
 ascribed entirely to the simple fact, 
 that during the last two years, and 
 particularly during the last year, the 
 great and necessary articles of human 
 consumption have been depreciated at 
 least a half. Ever}^ one knows what 
 effect so great a change must produce 
 on any interest in the community. 
 "\Miat, then, must it be upon the farm- 
 ing property of the empire— that gi-eat 
 interest which creates, notwithstand- 
 ing all the increase of our manufactures, 
 atleast nine-tenths of the entire wealth 
 of the empire ? Then how has this 
 
 * The above is a mere skeleton of the aWe 
 and instructive speech of Mr (now Lord) 
 Brougham on this important subject. 
 
1816.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 6» 
 
 great depreciation "been "brought about ? 
 It began, as has been correctly stated, 
 in 1813 ; and the cause to which it 
 was then owing was very ob\nous. It 
 was the prospect of the opening of the 
 Baltic harbours, and the letting in of 
 the great harvests of Poland on our 
 markets, coupled with the fine season 
 of that year, which produced the fall. 
 The farmers of this country, who, from 
 the effects of the war, had long enjoyed 
 a monopoly in the home market, were 
 suddenly exposed to the competition 
 of great grain-growing countries, where 
 corn could be raised at a third of the 
 cost at which alone it can here be 
 reared. It was to mitigate this danger 
 — one of the most appalling whicli 
 could befall any nation — that the corn 
 law of 1814 was passed, without which 
 the depression, great as it has been, 
 would have been far greater.* It is 
 consolatory to find that that measure, 
 which, at the time it was introduced, 
 was the subject of such unmeasured 
 condemnation by the gentlemen oppo- 
 site, is now admitted to have not only 
 been a necessary measure in our own 
 defence, but the only effectual antidote 
 to the still greater difficulties in which 
 we are now involved. 
 
 43, " Corn, which in 1812 was sell- 
 ing at 120s. or 130s. the quarter, has 
 now fallen to 56s. Nothing more is 
 requisite to explain the agricultural 
 distress which everywhere prevailed. 
 It induced that most fearful of all con- 
 tests which can agitate a community, 
 the contest of doss with class in the 
 struggle to shake the burden off upon 
 each other. But there is no reason 
 to believe that this alarming contest 
 will continue long. Shut out as this 
 country is, in a great measure, from 
 foreign supply, there is no reasonable 
 room for doubt that the price of wheat 
 will gradually rise to an average of 80s. , 
 and, with it, the profits of agriculUiral 
 industry again reach a remunerative 
 level. Great pressure is unliappily 
 now felt, and some land has probably 
 been brought into tillage which had 
 better have been left in pasturage. 
 There is no reason to suppose that the 
 
 * See History of Europe, chap. xcii. §§ 22, 
 
 paper circulation is excessive, or will 
 produce any very dangerous convul- 
 sion ; still less that the great mass of 
 agriculture is in a tottering state. It 
 is secured against the only enemy who 
 can beat it down — foreign ; it is also 
 secure from domestic competition, aris- 
 ing from other modes of employing 
 capital ; and this being so, it must in 
 the end attain remunerative prices. 
 
 44. "Coincident with the fall in 
 the price of corn has been a great re- 
 duction in the amount of the circulat- 
 ing medium, and with it unhappily 
 has departed the confidence which had 
 existed before. Beyond all question, 
 this is the principal cause of the dis- 
 tress which now generally prevails. 
 But this diminution of the circulating 
 medium is not founded on causes of 
 a permanent nature. The return of 
 peace must eventually lead to the re- 
 turn of old maxims — to the return of 
 those common principles on which the 
 circulation of every country ought to 
 be regulated. All must see that the 
 time is fast approaching when the 
 country will again possess a large cir- 
 culating fliedium, and, with it, the 
 means of carrying on industrial opera- 
 tions of all sorts. The Bank Restric- 
 tion Act will expire in two years ; and 
 before that time comes, the return of 
 the precious metals to the country will 
 have rendered it a safe measure to re- 
 sume cash payments. But, above all, 
 let it never, under any circumstances, 
 be proposed to trench upon the Sink- 
 ing Fund, the sheet-anchor of the 
 countr}^ and any serious diminution 
 of which will render its financial affairs 
 altogether desperate." 
 
 45. No legislative measure did, or 
 could, result from this debate, hoAV 
 interesting or important soever, for it 
 related to a subject in part at least be- 
 yond the reach of human remedy. But 
 it was otherwise vdth another subject 
 closely connected with the former, on 
 which the measures of Government 
 had a gi-eat and decisive effect on the 
 future condition and ultimate desti- 
 nies of the country. The proposal of 
 Government on this point was, that 
 the Bank should lend the Treasury 
 £6,000,000, and, in return, receive a 
 
64 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. II. 
 
 prolongation of the suspension of cash 
 payments for two years subsequent to 
 4th. July 1816. In this way, it was 
 thouglii, the double object would be 
 gained, of providing a supply adequate 
 for the immediate necessities of the 
 State, the resources of which had been 
 so much impaired by the repeal of the 
 property tax, and giving time for the 
 Bank to make the necessary arrange- 
 ments for the resumption of cash pay- 
 ments. This proposal gave rise to 
 animated and important debates in 
 both Houses of Parliament, whicli are 
 of the highest importance, as indicat- 
 ing the views entertained at that pe- 
 riod on this all -important subject, 
 on which subsequent experience has 
 thrown such a flood of light. 
 
 46. On the part of the Opposition, 
 it was contended by Mr Horner, Mr 
 Ponsonby, and Mr Tierney : " If any- 
 thing is to be regarded as fixed in the 
 legislation, or to which the Govern- 
 ment of the countiy is pledged, it is 
 that the restriction on cash payments 
 is to continue till the conclusion of a 
 general peace, and no longer. The 
 proposal now made to continue this 
 restriction for two years longer has 
 already had this pernicious effect, that 
 it has thrown a doubt upon the sin- 
 cerity of all the former professions of 
 Ministers on this subject. The Bank 
 directors have declared, time out of 
 mind, that they were most anxious to 
 resume the system of cash payments ; 
 but it now appears that they eagerly 
 grasp at the first opportunity of post- 
 poning that happy consummation. 
 They have no objection to continue 
 the system of over-issue, from which 
 they have so long derived such exorbi- 
 tant profits. The conduct of the Bank 
 directors evinces such an example of 
 rapacity on the part of a corporate 
 body, and of acquiescence on the part 
 of Government, as stands unrivalled in 
 the financial history of any country of 
 Europe. It is evident that Govern- 
 ment have no settled ideas at all upon 
 the subject, but that they have a con- 
 fused notion that the longer the pre- 
 sent system continues, the better ; and 
 that, by mixing up present measures 
 of finance with its prolongation, it 
 
 may 1)e continued for an indefinite 
 pei'iod. 
 
 47. *'Even when first introduced, 
 and when the fatal principle of making 
 the resti'iction last as long as the war 
 continued was adopted, it was univer- 
 sally understood, and most solemnly 
 declared, that it was to cease within. 
 six months after the conclusion of a 
 general peace. Last year, when the 
 prospect of a durable peace was not 
 nearly so favourable as at present, the 
 prolongation was only made to the 5th 
 July in the present year. Now, how- 
 ever, it is to be prolonged for two 
 years longer, for no reason that can 
 possibly be assigned, but that it has 
 become mixed up with a loan from the 
 Bank, and is thought to be connected 
 with the general agricultural distress. 
 But if the Bank restriction is to be 
 continued to uphold the profits of the 
 farmers, why is it to be limited to two 
 years ? Why not render it perpetual ? 
 If the prospect of resuming cash pay- 
 ments is the cause of the agricultural 
 distress, will it not recur, perhaps, 
 with additional force whenever cash 
 payments are resumed ? If this view 
 be well founded, we are only post- 
 poning the dreaded evil, not avert- 
 ing it. 
 
 48. '* Are there no evils arising from 
 the system now going on of indefi- 
 nitely postponing the resumption of 
 cash payments ? During the war we 
 borrowed money when it was of small 
 value, and we are now obliged to pay 
 it off when it is of high value ; and 
 this evil is every day increasing with 
 the postponement of cash payments. 
 This is by far the greatest danger which 
 now threatens the country ; for the 
 debt was for the most part contracted 
 in one currency, and the taxes, which 
 come in from year to year, are paid in 
 another. A greater and more sudden 
 contraction of the currency has never 
 taken place in any countiy than in 
 this since the peace, with the excep- 
 tion, perhaps, of France, after the fail- 
 m-e of the Mississippi scheme. This 
 sudden contraction has been the cause 
 of all our distresses ; it is, and will long 
 continue to be, the cause of all our 
 difiiculties. It arose from the pre- 
 
1816.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUPtOPE. 
 
 65 
 
 vious fall in the price of agricultural 
 produce. This had occasioned a de- 
 struction of the country bank paper to 
 an extent which would not liave been 
 thought possible Avithout more ruin 
 than had ensued. The Bank of Eng- 
 land has also reduced its issues. The 
 average amount of its currency dur- 
 ing the last year has not exceeded 
 £25,000,000, wliile, two years ago, it 
 had been £29,000,000, and at one time 
 was as high as £31,000,000. But we 
 must consider the vast reduction of 
 country bank paper as the main cause 
 of the vast fall of prices which had 
 ensued. 
 
 49. "A fluctuating currency is the 
 greatest curse tvhich can hy possibi- 
 lity befall an ojmlcnt and commercial 
 community. At all times, and to all 
 classes, it is pre.gnant with disaster; 
 at one time unduly elevating the credi- 
 tor at the expense of the debtor; at 
 another, as unjustly benefiting the 
 debtor at the expense of the creditor. 
 This is a state of things so fraught with 
 ruin, first to one class and then to 
 another, that it never can too much 
 occupy the attention of a Avise and 
 paternal government. As long as we 
 have no standard, no fixed value of 
 inone}^ but it is allowed to rise and 
 fall like quicksilver in the barometer, 
 110 man could conduct his property 
 with any security, or depend upon any 
 certain profit. If prices are fixed and 
 stead}?^, it is immaterial what is to be 
 assumed as the standard. Last year, 
 though it was for the most part one of 
 peace, gold was never below £4, 8s. the 
 ounce ; this year, as so great a contrac- 
 tion of the country bankers' notes has 
 taken place, it has fallen to nearly the 
 Mint price of £3, 17s. lOd. the ounce. 
 This, however, all took place in con- 
 sequence of the impending resumption 
 of cash payments, Avhich, by the exist- 
 ing law, was to begin on July 5, 1816. 
 If, however, a further suspension of 
 cash payments takes place, the banks 
 will begin issuing in all directions as 
 before ; prices will again rise, and we 
 shall, a second time, enter upon that 
 fatal mutation of prices from the eff'ects 
 of which we are just esca^iing. This 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 is openly announced in certain publica- 
 tions. It is said, if the restriction on 
 cash payments is continued, and tlio 
 issue exi)ands again, prices maybe run 
 up to 100s. a quarter of wheat. Are 
 the gentlemen o})posite prepared to 
 support tliis measure on such grounds ? 
 If not, now is the time to stop short, 
 and avoid entering on a cycle flatter- 
 ing in the outset, but fraught with 
 ultiniate ruin. " 
 
 50. On the other hand, it was con- 
 tended by Lord Liverpool and the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer: "The 
 Bullion Committee themselves were of 
 opinion that cash payments should not 
 be resumed for two years after the re- 
 turn of peace, so strongly were even 
 they impressed with the dangers to 
 property and existing engagements 
 which would result from the sudden 
 contraction of paper credit. The dif- 
 ference between the two parties is not 
 so great as would at first sight appear ; 
 it is a diff"erence in point of time only, 
 not of principle. There is no man on 
 this side of the House who contends 
 for the eternity of the restriction ; 
 none on the other who pleads for its 
 instant termination. Is not two years 
 a fair compromise between them ? 
 Preparations on the part of the Bank 
 were indispensable before facing so 
 great a change : one of the most neces- 
 sary would be, the permitting the 
 Bank to issue £2 and £1 notes after 
 the restriction ceased, as they had so 
 long formed the staple of the circula- 
 tion of the country. No reason has 
 been assigned why two years was an 
 unadvisable period ; and although it 
 did seem rather long, yet it was better 
 to delay than precipitate important 
 changes. 
 
 51, "It is a mistake to say prices 
 have been forced up by the copious 
 issue of the currency ; on the contrary, 
 the increased issue was the effect of 
 the previous high prices. The rise 
 of prices preceded the increase of the 
 currency ; and it has now been proved, 
 that the fall has not proceeded from 
 its contraction, for it is admitted on 
 the other side that it preceded that 
 contraction. It is no doubt true that. 
 
66 
 
 HISTOr.Y OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. II. 
 
 •when the prices of all articles of con- 
 sumption began from the great importa- 
 tion to fall, the country banks, seized 
 with panic, drew in their advances, and 
 thereby augmented the general distress ; 
 but what did this prove ? Nothing, 
 but that paper currency could not be 
 extended beyond what the circulation 
 required. The variations in the price 
 of gold showed they were unconnected 
 witli the price of grain. In the begin- 
 ning of 1813, wheat was at 120s. 7d., 
 in the end of the same year it was 
 82s. 4d. ; while the price of gold in the 
 beginning of that year was £5, 6s. 6d. 
 an ounce, and in the end £5, 10s. 
 This showed distinctly that the price 
 of gold arose from the demand for it- 
 self, arising from causes abroad, and 
 was wholly irrespective of the amount 
 of paper issued at home. To the eter- 
 nal credit of this country, it will be 
 recorded in history, that the Bank 
 restriction, though perhaps originally 
 forced upon the country Ijy necessity, 
 and having forced up the price of gold, 
 had proved the salvation of Europe, 
 by enabling us to carry on a system 
 which could not otherwise have been 
 supported. 
 
 52. "The opinions of those who 
 would uphold prices by a continued 
 and lavish issue of paper, are as much 
 condemned on this side of the House 
 as the other. N'othing is farther from 
 the intentions of Government than to 
 make the restrictions on cash payments 
 permanent. It is merely a question 
 of time when they are to cease. The 
 Bullion Committee had recommended 
 two years from the conclusion of peace 
 — all I ask is two years and sevon 
 months. It was not till December 
 last that the ratifications of the defi- 
 nite treaty were interchanged. Seve- 
 ral of the most eminent members of the 
 Bullion Committee had concurred in 
 this opinion. The restoration of the 
 old state of the currency must obvi- 
 ously be done gradually, and with 
 ample time for preparation ; for it is 
 to be recollected the Bank of England 
 would be called upon to furnish cash 
 for demands, not only on the Bank 
 of England, bnt those of Ireland and 
 Scotland." Upon a division, Mr Hor- 
 
 ner's motion, which was for a select 
 committee to inquire into tlie resump- 
 tion of cash payments, was negatived 
 by a majority of 146 to 73. 
 
 53. These debates on agricultural 
 distress and the currency are almost 
 as memorable for what was left unsaid, 
 as what was said in the course of their 
 discussion. Both parties were to a 
 certain degree right, and to a certain 
 degree wrong, in the oynnions they ad- 
 vanced. Lord Liverpool was unques- 
 tionably right when he affirmed that 
 the nation, and through it Europe, had 
 been saved by the suspension of cask 
 payments during the war ; for but for 
 it the armaments never could have 
 been produced which brought it to a 
 successful issue. He was equally right 
 in sajdng that the rise in the price of 
 gold, which took place in its latter 
 years, was owing to the increased de- 
 mand for that article of commerce to 
 meet the exigencies of war on the Con- 
 tinent, where hostilities on a great 
 scale were going on. On the other 
 hand, Mr Horner, who had thought 
 and written more profoundly on the 
 subject of the currency than any other 
 person then in existence,* was equally 
 right when he observed, that the ex- 
 tensive issue of paper during the war 
 was the cause of the rapid and extra- 
 ordinary enhancement of prices which 
 then took place in every article, whe- 
 ther of rude or manufactured produce, 
 while it lasted ; that the still more 
 rapid and disastrous fall of prices which 
 had taken place since the peace, was 
 the result of the great contraction of 
 the currency, especially of country 
 bankers, which had ensued from the 
 prospect of immediately resuming cash 
 payments in terms of the existing law 
 on the termination of hostilities ; and 
 that by far the greatest evil which im- 
 pended over the country was the ne- 
 cessity of paying off" in a contracted, and 
 therefore dear, currency, during peace, 
 the debts, public and private, which 
 had been contracted during the lavish 
 
 * Several of that most able and lamented 
 gentleman's papers on the subject in the 
 Edinburgh Review, as well as his speeches on 
 it in Parliament, are models of clear and for- 
 cible reasoning. 
 
1816.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 67 
 
 issue of a plentiful, and tlierefore clieap, 
 currency during the war. 
 
 54. The extraordinary thing is, that 
 when so many of the tnie and undeni- 
 able views on the subject were enter- 
 tained by the ablest and best-informed 
 men in the country, the obvious con- 
 clusions which flowed from them were, 
 liy common consent, rejected on both 
 sides. Mr Horner saw clearly that we 
 had been so prosperous, and done such 
 mighty things during the war, because 
 Ave had possessed a currency adequate 
 to our necessities, and had languished 
 and suffered since the peace, because 
 it had been suddenly and violently 
 contracted from the prospect of imme- 
 diately resuming cash payments. He 
 saw also that interminable disasters 
 impended over the country in the at- 
 tempt to pay off war debts, public or 
 private, in a peace currency. But 
 neither he nor his opponents on the 
 Treasury Bench perceived, what is now 
 evident to every reasonable person who, 
 apart from interested motives, reflects 
 on the subject, that all those difficul- 
 ties and dangers might have been avert- 
 ed, without either risk or detriment, by 
 the simple expedient of taking the 
 paper currency, like the metallic, at 
 once into the hands of Government, 
 and issuing, not an unlimited amount 
 of notes, like the French assignats, not 
 convertible into the precious metals, 
 but such a limited amount as might be 
 adequate to the permanent and aver- 
 age wants of the cominunity. He saw 
 clearly that oscillations in the value of 
 money, and consequently in the price 
 of every article of commerce, were a- 
 mong the most grievous evils which can 
 afflict society, and rendered property 
 and undertakings of every kind to the 
 last degree insecure ; and he thought 
 that he would guard effectually against 
 them, by fixing the entire currency on 
 a gold basis — forgetting, Avhat he him- 
 self at the same time saw, that gold 
 itself is an article of commerce, and, like 
 every other such article, is subject to 
 perpetual variations of price, and to be 
 suddenly drawn away by changes in 
 foreign countries ; and that, from its 
 being so portable and valuable, and 
 everywhere in rec^uest, it is subject to 
 
 more sudden and violent changes of 
 value than any other article in exist- 
 ence. 
 
 55. He saw clearly that the great 
 contraction of the currency was owing 
 to the prospect of the resumption of 
 cash payments ; but he could see no 
 remedy for the evils thence arising, 
 but in the immediate adoption of such 
 payments. He saw the impossibility 
 of paying off war debts in a peace cur- 
 rency ; but it never occurred to him 
 that the whole difficulty might be 
 avoided by extending the war curren- 
 cy, under adequate safeguards against 
 abuse, into peace. He was as much 
 alive as any man to the perils of a sud- 
 den contraction of the currency ; but 
 it never occurred to him how fearfully 
 these dangers must be aggravated by 
 the contraction of paper going on at 
 the very time when a still greater con- 
 traction of the annual produce of the 
 treasure mines for the use of the globe 
 was going on, from the disasters con- 
 sequent on the South American revo- 
 lution. The truth is, that, as gener- 
 ally occurs in human affairs, men's 
 attention was fixed exclusively on the 
 last evils which had been experienced ; 
 and as these had been the ruinous rise 
 of prices, and destruction of realised 
 property which had resulted from the 
 frightful abuse of the system of assig- 
 nats in France, the eyes of a whole 
 generation were shut to the still more 
 serious and lasting evils resulting from 
 the undue contraction of the currency, 
 and the fixing it entirely on a metallic 
 basis, of which Great Britain was ere 
 long to furnish so memorable an ex- 
 ample. 
 
 56. A measure of great importance 
 to both countries passed both Houses 
 in this session of Parliament, for the 
 consolidation of the English and Irish 
 Exchequers. It appeared from the 
 statement of the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer, that the unredeemed debt 
 of Ireland was £105,000,000 ; the 
 Sinking Fund, £2,087,000 ; and the 
 whole charge of the debt, interest, an- 
 nuities, and Sinking Fund, £5,900,000. 
 On the other hand, the entire perma- 
 nent revenue was only £2,681,000 a- 
 year, having risen to that amount from 
 
63 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. ir. 
 
 £847,000 in 1797. The entire gross 
 revenue of the island was £7,000,000 ; 
 but the clear produce, after deduct- 
 ing the expense of collection, was 
 £5,752,000; and as it was stipulated 
 in the union that two-seventeenths of 
 the expenditure of the United King- 
 dom should be defrayed by Ireland, 
 the result was that the clear revenue 
 of Ireland was unable to defray the 
 interest of its o^^^l debt, without con- 
 tributing anything at all to the joint 
 expenses of the United Kingdom, 
 which for several years past had been 
 entirely provided for by Great Britain. 
 In these circumstances, a consolidation 
 of the two Exchequers had become a 
 matter of absolute necessity, and it 
 was accordingly unanimously agreed to. 
 57. This was undoubtedly a very 
 great improvement ; for, as matters 
 stood before, the confusion arising 
 from the separate charges for Ireland 
 had been such as to occasion very 
 great ditticulty in arriving at a clear 
 idea of the revenue and financial con- 
 dition of the United Kingdom. Un- 
 happily, however, the state of Ireland 
 has ever since been such that it has 
 been found impracticable to carry into 
 execution tlie declared intentions of 
 Government, in bringing forward the 
 consolidation, of subjecting both coun- 
 tries to a similar measure of taxation. 
 Ireland has from first to last been 
 most genei'ously treated by England 
 in the article of assessment. It never 
 paid the income-tax or assessed taxes, 
 nor, till within these few years, any 
 poor-rates. With the exception of a 
 trifling hearth-tax, the direct taxes in 
 Ireland were almost nothing. Yet such 
 has ever been the improvidence and 
 want of iu'lustry of its inhabitants, 
 that although possessing triple the 
 population, and more than triple the 
 arable acres of Scotland, Ireland has 
 never paid its own expenses ; while 
 Scotland has yielded, for half a cen- 
 tury, above five millions a-year of clear 
 surplus to the Imperial Treasury ; and 
 in the great famine of 1846, while Ire- 
 land received £8,000,000 from the 
 British Exchequer, Scotland, great 
 part of which had suff"ered just as 
 much, got and asked nothing. 
 
 58. In a very early period of the 
 session, JSIr Brougham moved for a 
 copy of the treaty concluded at Paris 
 on the 26th September 1815, entitled 
 the " Holy Alliance," of which an ac- 
 count will hereafter be given. This 
 treaty he stiginatised as nothing but 
 a convention for the enslaving of man- 
 kind, under the mask of piety and 
 religion. Lord Castlereagh, without 
 denying the existence of such a treaty, 
 which he stated had been communi- 
 cated to the Prince-Regent, and of the 
 principles of which he entirely ap- 
 proved, added that it had not received 
 his Roj-al Highness s signature, "as 
 the forms of the British Constitution 
 prevented him froTU acceding to it." 
 This being the case, the rules of Par- 
 liament forbade the j)roduction of any 
 treaty to which this country was not a 
 party. The House, upon a division, 
 supported the latter view, the numbers 
 being 104 to 30. There can be no 
 question of the wisdom of this deter- 
 mination on the part of +he British 
 Government ; for however si. ^-^re and 
 philanthropic were the feelings > ""Mch 
 undoubtedly prompted the Empei.j 
 Alexander to bring about that cele- 
 brated alliance, they were such as 
 could be acted on only by absolute 
 monarchs, omnipotent for good or for 
 evil, and never could be rendered palat- 
 able to a popular government such as 
 Great Britain, divided by the passions, 
 political and religious, of a whole 
 people, and ruled by a legislature 
 chiefly intent upon the present necessi- 
 ties and practical wants of its subjects. 
 
 59. A warm debate also ensued oa 
 another topic of foreign policy— a bill 
 for the detention of JS'apoleon in St 
 Helena. This bill was strongly op- 
 posed by Lord Holland and Lord 
 Lauderdale, who stigmatised the de- 
 tention as illegal, unjust, and urgener- 
 ous; while it was defended by Earl 
 Bathurst and Lord Castlereagh as a 
 measure for the general security of the 
 world, agreed to by the whole allied 
 powers, and rendered unavoidable by 
 his breach of all his engagements, and 
 open declaration of ^^•a^ against the 
 Allies by returning from Elba and de- 
 throuincr Louis XVIII. The debates 
 
1816.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 69 
 
 on this sulDJect, which terminated in 
 the bill being passed in both Houses 
 without a division, are of little histo- 
 rical value ; for if the detaining Napo- 
 leon in captivity was illegal, it could 
 not be validated by any British Act of 
 Parliament — if legal, it required no 
 such authority for its support. But it 
 must always be a matter of regret to 
 every generous mind in Britain that 
 the conduct of so great a man, in break- 
 ing his engagements, had been such as 
 to render his detention a matter of 
 absolute necessity ; and of gratification 
 to every British subject, that neces- 
 sary as that detention was, it excited 
 so strong a feeling of commiseration 
 and regret in the breast of a large 
 portion of the English people, 
 
 60. Another topic was soon brought 
 forward, of still more general interest, 
 and which passed both Houses of Par- 
 liament without a dissentient voice, as 
 it excited a universal feeling of joy 
 throughout the country. On the 14th 
 March, Lord Liverpool in the House 
 of Lords, and Lord Castlereagh in the 
 House of Commons, respectively pre- 
 sented a message from the Prince- 
 Regent, to the efiect that he had con- 
 sented to a marriage of his daughter, 
 the Princess Charlotte Augusta, to 
 Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg. The 
 announcement of this auspicious union 
 was received with the utmost satisfac- 
 tion by both Houses of Parliament, 
 and universal joy by the country ; and 
 on the next day the House of Com- 
 mons fixed the provision of her Royal 
 Highness at £60,000 a-year, of which 
 £10,000 was to be for her own privy 
 purse, and £50,000 for the support of 
 their establishment. The like sum 
 was settled as a provision for the 
 Prince of Coburg, in the event of his 
 surviving his august spouse. These 
 provisions were independent of £60,000 
 for the outfit of the royal pair, and 
 were all agreed to without a dissenting 
 voice. The marriage, from which so 
 much was hoped, took place on the 2d 
 May following, and ere long the situa- 
 tion of her Royal Highness gave hopes 
 of an heir to the monarchy. The 
 Prince and Princess fixed their resi- 
 dence at Claremont, near London, now 
 
 an object of melancholy interest to 
 every British heart, where tiieir simple, 
 unostentatious life, their fervent and 
 mutual attachment, their kindness and 
 affability of manner, won the attections 
 of all who approached them, as the 
 noble example of domestic virtue and 
 purity which they exhibited in their 
 conduct commanded the respect of the 
 whole nation. 
 
 61. The heart of the nation still 
 beat violently at the recollection of 
 the glorious events of the war ; and 
 the chill of indifference and economy 
 had not yet paralysed the expression 
 of it by public grants. At an early 
 period of the session a monument at 
 the public expense was unanimously 
 voted for the battle of Waterloo, to 
 which, soon after, one was also agreed 
 to for the battle of Trafalgar. These 
 graceful tributes of a nation's gi-atitude 
 to the gallant men by whom it had 
 been brought through the perils of the 
 war, gave universal satisfaction, and 
 great expectations were formed of the 
 magnificence of the monuments which 
 would thus be added to the growing 
 splendour of the metropolis ; for it was 
 understood that £250,000 would be 
 expended on each monument. Un- 
 fortunately, however, although the 
 monuments were unanimously voted, 
 their cost did not enter the estimates 
 for the year, and thus nothing was 
 done towards their commencement at 
 that time. In subsequent times the 
 national ardour cooled, or the national 
 necessities had increased ; and the re- 
 sult has been, that two sterile votes of 
 the House of Commons remain as the 
 only national monument for the great- 
 est and most gloiious triumphs which 
 ever immortalised tlie history of a na- 
 tion in modern times. 
 
 62. To the memory of individual he- 
 roes who had died in the contest, how- 
 ever, the public gratitude was evinced 
 in a more satisfactory way. ]\I onuments 
 were voted to Sir Thomas Picton, Sir 
 Edward Pakenham, and Generals Hay, 
 Gore, Skerrett, Gibbs, and Gillespie, 
 and the requisite funds set apart for 
 their completion. They were with great 
 propriety placed in St Paul's, as West- 
 minster Abbey was so full that space 
 
70 
 
 HISTORY OF EUEOPE. 
 
 could scarcely he found for any addi- 
 tional structures, and began that noble 
 circle of sepulchral sculpture which 
 now adorns that sublime cathedral, and 
 which, having been commenced at a 
 period when taste was comparatively 
 pure, and the finest monuments of an- 
 tiquity were accessible to artists, is in 
 a great measure free from that painful 
 exhibition of conceit and bad taste by 
 which, with a few exceptions, those of 
 Westminster Abbey are characterised. 
 A great impulse was given to sculpture 
 in this year, and the only secure founda- 
 tion laid for national eminence in that 
 art, by the grant from Parliament of 
 £35,000 for the purchase from Lord 
 Elgin of the Friezes which he had by 
 the permission of the Turkish Govern- 
 ment brought from the Parthenon of 
 Athens. Certainly, however much the 
 traveller who sees the chasms which 
 their removal has made on the still 
 exquisite remains of that inimitable 
 edifice may regret the spoliation, no 
 Englishman can fail to feel gratification 
 at beholding them arranged with so 
 much taste and eflect as they now are, 
 in the noble halls of the British Mu- 
 seum ; and not only forming the last 
 stage in the historic gallery beginning 
 with the Nineveh sculptures which are 
 there preserved, but laying the best 
 foundation, in the study of ancient per- 
 fection, of the desire to emulate in the 
 only nation perhaps now in existence 
 capable of approaching it. 
 
 63. Magnificent gi-ants, bespeaking 
 the nation's gratitude, were bestowed 
 by Parliament on the officers and men 
 engaged in the war. A vote of thanks 
 was proposed and carried with enthu- 
 siastic cheers, in the Houses of Lords 
 and Commons, to the Duke of Wel- 
 lington, Prince Blucher, the Prince of 
 Orange, and the officers and men en- 
 gaged in the Waterloo campaign. An 
 additional grant of £200,000 was be- 
 stowed on the Duke of Wellington — 
 making, with former grants, £500,000 
 which he had received from the jus- 
 tice or gratitude of his country. On 
 this occasion, Mr Wliitbread,who had 
 always been a vigilant opponent of 
 Government, and had more than once 
 condemned in no measured terms the 
 
 [chap. II. 
 
 military conduct of the Duke of Wel- 
 lington, made an amende honorable to 
 both, which cannot be read without 
 emotion by any generous mind, and 
 which is not less honourable to the party 
 making than to those who received it.* 
 Finally, the sacrifices of the war were 
 wound up by a grant of £800,000 to 
 the troops engaged in the Peninsula 
 from 1807 to 1814, for the stores and 
 munitions of war captured by them 
 during its campaigns. And although 
 this grant rather fell short of than ex- 
 ceeded the value of the ca])tures made 
 by the army, yet it must always be 
 considered an honourable trait of the 
 English Parliament that they agreed 
 to so considerable a payment to their 
 gallant defenders after the contest and 
 the danger were alike over, and the 
 nation was labouring under the accu- 
 mulated evils of general distress and a 
 fearfully diminished revenue. 
 
 64. A measure of less thrilling inte- 
 rest, but great practical importance, 
 
 * " He had always been one who watched 
 with an eye of exti'eme jealousy the proceed- 
 ings of Ministers ; but their conduct in the 
 prosecution of the war, waiving for the mo- 
 ment all consideration of its necessity or 
 policy, was such as extorted his applause ; 
 and he had no hesitation in saying, that every 
 department of Government must have exert- 
 ed itself to the utmost, to give that complete 
 efficiency to every part of the army which 
 enabled the genius of the Duke of Wellington, 
 aided by such means, to accomplish the won- 
 derful victory he had achieved. It was grati- 
 fying to the House to hear tlie traits of hero- 
 ism whi(;h have been mentioned of that noble 
 Duke, especially that of his throwing himself 
 into one of tlie British squares when charged 
 by the enemy. To see a commander of his 
 eminence, distinguished above all tlie com- 
 manders of the earth, throw himself into a 
 hollow square of infantry, as a secure refuge 
 till the rage and torrent of the attack was 
 passed, and that not once only, but twice or 
 thrice during tlie course of the battle, proved 
 that his confidence was placed not on one 
 particular carps, but in the whole British 
 army. In that mutual confidence lay the 
 strength and ]io\ver of the British army. The 
 Duke of Wellington knew he was safe when 
 he thus trusted himself to the fidelity and 
 Talour of his men, and they knew and felt 
 that the sacred charge thus confided to them 
 could never be wrested from their hands. 
 If such a trait were recorded in history as 
 having occurred ten centuries ago, with what 
 emotions of admiration and generous enthu- 
 siasm would it be read ! " — Mr Whitbread's 
 Speech, June 23, 1S15. Pari Deb. xxxi. 991, 
 992. 
 
1816.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 71 
 
 •was passed in this session of Parlia- 
 ment, the benefit of which the nation 
 has ever since experienced. This was 
 the formation of a new silver coinage. 
 The old coins, which had been for above 
 half a century, some a whole century, 
 in circulation, had become extremely 
 worn out and debased, and a new issue, 
 especially of shillings, was loudly called 
 for — the more so as, from the contem- 
 plated return to cash payments, it was 
 evident that the entire currency of the 
 country would ere long be rested on a 
 metallic basis. An act passed accord- 
 ingly, authorising a new silver coinage, 
 and the calling in and remoulding of 
 the old one. This great improvement 
 was carried into execution with entire 
 success — the new coins were elegant in 
 design, and substantial in material ; 
 and to such an extent did the issue 
 take place, that in the following year 
 no less than £6,711,000 was thrown 
 off at the Mint, and sent forth to the 
 public. 
 
 65. Long as the preceding abstract 
 of the parliamentary proceedings in the 
 year 1816 has been, it will not by the 
 reflecting mind be deemed inordinate. 
 During peace, it is the national thought 
 and social interests which are the real 
 objects of historic portraiture ; its bat- 
 tles and sieges are to be found in the 
 debates of the Legislature. There is 
 no period of repose, in this view, which 
 is so interesting and important, both 
 in England and France, as this year ; 
 for not only was the transition then 
 made from war to peace, but the great 
 questions then emerged which have 
 distracted the later period, and still 
 divide the opinions of the world. The 
 immense fall of prices then began, which 
 has ever since, Avith a few intervals, 
 been felt as so serious an impediment 
 to British industry. The sudden con- 
 traction of the currency, from the pro- 
 spect of a speedy resumption of cash 
 payments, then involved one -half of 
 the farmers and traders of the United 
 Kingdom in bankruptcy. The evils of 
 an excessive importation of the prin- 
 cipal articles of consumption reacted by 
 forcing on a ruinous export of our manu- 
 factures, in search of a market which 
 general cheapness had so much injured 
 
 at home. The Exchequer shared in 
 the imiversal embarrassment, and the 
 demand for a general remission of taxa- 
 tion was so loud and general, that Gov- 
 ernment were reluctantly compelled 
 to abandon at once above a fourth of 
 the revenue, and thereby, for the time 
 at least, completely to nullify the action 
 of the Sinking Fund. The difficulties 
 of peace rose up in appalling magnitude 
 in the very first year of its endurance ; 
 and it is not the least important part 
 of history to unfold their origin, trace 
 their effects, and portray the contem- 
 ])orary ideas which they awakened in 
 the general mind. 
 
 66. When so many causes contri- 
 buted to produce, in an itnexampled 
 degree, general distress and suffering 
 through the country, it was not to be 
 expected that the efforts of faction were 
 to be awanting to inflame the general 
 discontent, and direct it to the demand 
 for a great and theoretical change in. 
 the Government. This accordingly was 
 in a very remarkable manner the case 
 in Great Britain at this period; and 
 perhaps at no time in its long annals 
 was discontent more general, or were 
 the efforts of faction more systemati- 
 cally directed to inflame it into sedi- 
 tion, or involve it in overt acts of high 
 treason, than in this and the three 
 succeeding years. Persons unknown 
 before, unheard of since, suddenly shot 
 up into portentous celebrity with the 
 manufacturing classes, by magnifying 
 their sufferings, inflaming their pas- 
 sions, and ascribing all the public dis- 
 tresses to the measures, the corruption, 
 and the oppression of their superiors. 
 According to these men, the reckless 
 prodigality of Government, supported 
 by a corrupt majority in Parliament, 
 and sustained by fictitious paper credit, 
 was the source of all our distresses ; it 
 was this which made provisions high, 
 wages low, imports ruinous, and want 
 of employment universal. The only 
 remedies for these evils were, a great 
 reduction of expenditure, reform in 
 Parliament, and a return to a metallic 
 currency. The Common Council of 
 London, that faithful mirror of the feel- 
 ings of the 2}opuIace of the metropolis, 
 at this juncture presented a petition to 
 
72 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. II. 
 
 the Prince-Regent, which, as a picture 
 of the capacity of that body for the 
 duties of legislation in peace, deserves 
 a place beside the celebrated specimen 
 of their fitness for the duties of war, 
 afforded by their diatribe against the 
 Duke of AVellington after the battle of 
 Talavera.* It is remarkable that the 
 measures which they recommended as 
 likely to alleviate the public distress- 
 viz. , a sudden reduction of expenditure, 
 and return to a metallic currency — 
 are the very ones which experience has 
 now proved were best calculated to in- 
 crease it.f 
 
 67. When ideas so extravagant, and 
 language so intemperate, were adopted 
 by the first incorporation of the king- 
 dom, with the Lord Mayor of London 
 at their head, in addressing the Sover- 
 eign, it may readily be conceived that 
 inferior functionaries and demagogues 
 were still more intemperate and vio- 
 lent in their measures. An example 
 of this soon occurred in the metropolis. 
 On December 2, a mob, collected by 
 hand -bills plentifully dispersed over 
 
 * Vide History of Europe, chap. Lxii. § 67. 
 
 t "We forbear to enter into details of the 
 aCaicting scenes of privations and sufferings 
 that everywhere exist ; the distress and mis- 
 ery which for so many years has been pro- 
 gressively accumulating has at length become 
 insupportable. It is no longer jiartially felt, 
 nor limited to one portion of the empire ; the 
 commercial, manufacturing, and agricultural 
 interests are equally sinking under its irresis- 
 tible pressure ; and it has become impossible 
 to find employment for a large mass of the 
 population, much less to bear up against our 
 present enormous burdens. 
 
 "Our grievances are the natural effect of 
 rash and ruinous wars, unjustly commenced 
 and pertinaciously adhered to, when no ration- 
 al object was to be attained ; of immense sub- 
 sidies to foreign powers to defend their own 
 territories, or to commit aggressions on those 
 of their neighbours ; of a delusive paper cur- 
 rency ; of an unconstitutional and unprece- 
 dented military establishment in time of 
 peace ; of the unexampled and increasing 
 magnitude of the civil list ; of the enormous 
 sums paid for unmerited pensions and sine- 
 cures ; and of a long course of the most lavish 
 and improvident expenditure of the public 
 monev throughout every department of Gov- 
 ernment,— -all rising from the corrupt and in- 
 adequate representation of the people in Par- 
 liament, whereby all constitutional control 
 over the servants of the Cro^\^l has been lost, 
 and Parliaments have become subservient to 
 the will of Ministers." — Address of the Lord 
 3favor a7id Council of London, Dec. 9, 1S16. 
 Ann. Eej. 1S16, p. 417. Stale Papers. 
 
 the whole manufacturing districts of 
 London, and roused by the speeches 
 delivered at a seditious meeting held 
 in the same place a fortnight before, 
 assembled at Spafields to hear the an- 
 swer to a petition they had voted at the 
 former meeting to the Prince-Regent. 
 They waited some time for Mr Henry 
 Hunt, the leading orator, who was ex- 
 pected to address them ; and as he did 
 not make his appearance, they pro- 
 ceeded with tricolor flags and banners, 
 and entering the city, headed by a man 
 of the name of "Watson, they attacked 
 a gunsmith's shop, whom they shot 
 when defending the entrance ; and 
 having rifled the shop, and loaded the 
 guns they got, they marched on in 
 military array to the Royal Exchange, 
 where 'they were met by the Lord 
 Mayor, Alderman Shaw, and a strong 
 body of police ; but notwithstanding 
 their resistance, the rioters forced their 
 way into the building, when three of 
 the ringleaders were seized and made 
 prisoners. The mob upon this fired 
 over the rails, which had been closed 
 upon the magistrates, and moved off 
 to the Minories, Avhere they broke into 
 two other gunsmiths' shops, and re- 
 mained for a considerable time in 
 possession of that part of the town. 
 Strong bodies of police and military, 
 however, now rapidly arrived and sur- 
 rounded the insurgent district ; and 
 the mob, finding themselves over- 
 matched, by degrees dispersed. Two 
 of the persons seized were condemned 
 and executed ; but the greatest crim- 
 inal, Watson's son, escaped to Amer- 
 ica. This tumult, as is generally the 
 case with such disorders, when prompt- 
 ly and firmly met by those in author- 
 ity, was in the end attended with 
 beneficial eff'ects, by awakening the 
 vigilance of the Government, by whom 
 such meetings were afterwards care- 
 fully watched, and showing the people 
 with what danger they are attended, 
 what were the real objects of their 
 leaders, and how thin is the partition 
 which separates seditious assemblages 
 from general pillage. 
 
 68. One glorious exploit, second to 
 none which has graced the annals of 
 the British navy, illustrated this year. 
 
1816.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 73 
 
 It had long been a matter cf reproach 
 to the Christian powers that the pirat- 
 ical states of Barbary were still permit- 
 ted, with impunity, to carry on their 
 inhuman warfare against the states of 
 Europe, and that their prisons exhi- 
 bited captives of every nation, who 
 were detained in hopeless slavery, and 
 exposed to the most shocking barbar- 
 ities. In one instance, fifty out of 
 three hundred prisoners died of harsh 
 iisage, at Algiers, on the very day of 
 their arrival. Neither age nor sex 
 was spared ; and one Neapolitan lady 
 of rank was rescued by the British, in 
 the thirteenth year of her captivity, 
 having been carried off with her eight 
 children, six of whom had died in sla- 
 very ! Notwithstanding these enor- 
 mities, such had been the jealousies of 
 the European powers, and their ani- 
 mosity against each other, that these 
 audacious pirates had in an unaccount- 
 able manner been allowed to carry on 
 their hostilities against the Mediter- 
 ranean states with impunity ; and it 
 was suspected that the British connived 
 at these depredations, as their flag, 
 being the only one which was respected, 
 thereby gained an advantage in navi- 
 gating that inland sea. The piracies 
 were renewed on a more extended scale 
 Avith the revival of commerce after the 
 peace ; and the onl}^ check which the 
 corsairs received w^as from the Amer- 
 icans, who, in the j^ear 1815, in a very 
 spirited manner, vindicated the hon- 
 our of their Hag, which had been in- 
 sulted by their ferocious attacks. 
 
 69. At length, however, the general 
 system of piracy Avhich the Dey of Al- 
 giers had adopted, brought him into 
 contact with the subjects or allies of 
 Great Britain — in particular the in- 
 habitants of the Ionian Islands, and 
 of Naples and Sardinia. Lord Ex- 
 MOUTH,* accordingly, who connnanded 
 
 * Edward Pellew, afterwards Lord Ex- 
 mouth, was born at Dover on April 19, 1757. 
 His father was commander of tlie Post- 
 ofTice Packet on the Dover station; his mo- 
 ther a daughter of Edward Saughlon, Esq., 
 of Herefordshire, a woman of extraordinary 
 spirit and determination of character. Early 
 difficulties drew forth young Edward's ener- 
 gies. His father, who was a most exemplary 
 man, died in 1705, leaving six children ; and 
 a subsequent imprudent marriage gi their 
 
 the British squadron in the !Mediter- 
 ranean, received orders to proceed to 
 Tunis, Tripoli, and Algiers, and insist 
 upon the inhabitants of these states 
 being included in the same pacification 
 as Great Britain, and, if possible, ob- 
 
 motber having deprived them of the support 
 of their surviving parent, tliey were thrown 
 on the world with scarce any resources. Ed- 
 ward entered the navy in 1771, in the Juno, 
 Captain Stott, in which he was sent to the 
 P'alkland Islands. Soon after he sailed in the 
 Blonde, Captain Pownall, an officer of the 
 kindest and most elevated character. There 
 he soon showed both his daring and humane 
 disposition. On one occasion, in 1775, when 
 the vessel was taking General Bourgoyne out 
 to America, the general was horrified at see- 
 ing a midshipman on the yard-arm standing 
 on his head ; but Captain Pownall quieted 
 him by saying, it was one of the usual frolics 
 of young Pellew, and that he need not be un- 
 easy, for if he fell, he would only go under 
 the ship's bottom, and come up on the other 
 side. What was then spoken in jest by the 
 captain was actually realised by young Pel- 
 lew ; for on an occasion soon alter, a man 
 having fallen overboard when the ship was 
 going fast through the water, he actually 
 sprang from the foreyard of the Blonde and 
 saved the man. Captain Pownall reproached 
 him for his rashness, but never spoke of it 
 again without tears in his eyes. After the 
 American War broke out, a party from the 
 Blonde, of whom young Pellew was one, was 
 sent across to Lake Champlain, where he was 
 employed in the Carleton, and distinguished 
 himself so much by his gallantly in perform- 
 ing a service of extreme danger, which no 
 other man would execute, that it drew forth 
 a letter of strong commendation from his 
 commander, Sir Charles Douglas, and a holo- 
 graph letter, appointing him lieutenant, 
 from Lord Howe, the First Lord of the Admi- 
 ralty. He was afterwards attached with a 
 party of seamen to General BourgojTie's ex- 
 pedition, which terminated in such disaster 
 at Saratoga ; but even here he contrived to 
 distinguish himself, for he recovered a vessel 
 containing provisions with such skill and 
 gallantry, that General Bourgoyne thanked 
 him in a letter written with his own hand. 
 Wlien the capitulation was proposed, Pellew, 
 who was the youngest officer in the council 
 of war, earnestly entreated to be allowed to 
 fight his way back with his handful of sailors, 
 alleging he had never heard of seamen capitu- 
 lating ; and it was with great difficulty that 
 Bourgoyne succeeded in dissuading him from 
 making the attempt, by representing it would 
 lead to a general ruin and vi(jlatif)n of the 
 capitulation. He returned to England in 1777, 
 and was immediately promoted. He had 
 already acquired such extraordinary skill in 
 rowing and swimming, that he often ran the 
 greatest risk by the dangers incui-red, from 
 his confidence in his own powers, and the 
 fearless courting of danger wliich he constantly 
 exhibited. In 1780, when on board the Apollo, 
 
74 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. ir. 
 
 tain a general abolition of Christian 
 slavery. To these demantls the Beys 
 of Tunis and Tripoli at once agreed ; 
 hut the Dey of Algiers refused to con- 
 sent to the last, on the ground that, 
 being a subject of the Ottoman Porte, 
 he could not do so without the consent 
 of that government. He agreed, how- 
 ever, to despatch a messenger to Con- 
 stantinople in a frigate, to obtain in- 
 structions on the subject, and actually 
 did so. Satisfied with these conces- 
 sions, which attained all that he could 
 reasonably expect. Lord Exmouth re- 
 returned Avith his squadron to Great 
 Britain. In the mean time, however, 
 an outrage took place, which broke off 
 the negotiation, and rendered immedi- 
 ate hostilities unavoidable. At Bona, 
 
 still with Captain Pownall, he fell in with the 
 Stanislaus of heavier calibre, and Captain 
 Pownall was badly wounded early in the ac- 
 tion. " Pellew," he said, "I know you won't 
 throw tlie ship away," and died in his arms. 
 He continued the action an hour longer, and 
 drove the enemy dismasted ashore, but was 
 disappointed of his prize, by her claiming 
 protection from a neutral harbour. His gal- 
 lant conduct on this occasion led to his being 
 appointed to the command of the Hazard 
 sloop in July 1780, and afterwards to the 
 Pelican, in which he performed many im- 
 portant services. When the war of the French 
 Bevolution broke out, he was appointed to 
 the Nymph frigate, in wliich, after a desperate 
 action, in whicli tlie commanders and crews 
 of both vessels displayed the utmost skill and 
 courage, he captured the Frenirh frigate Cleo- 
 patra, for whicli he was knighted. He was 
 next appointed to the Arethusa frigate, in 
 which, on 23d August 1794, he took La Po- 
 mone, French frigate. After this he nearly 
 lost his life in attempting to save two of his 
 crew who had been washed overboard : and 
 signalised himself in the most distinguished 
 way at the wreck of the Button, near Ply- 
 mouth, when he boarded the vessel as it was 
 lying a wreck on the coast, took the com- 
 mand, and, by his energy and skill in running 
 a hawser to the shore, succeeded in saving 
 the whole crew, who would otherwise inevit- 
 ably have perished. For this extraordinary 
 act of heroism he was created a baronet. He 
 was next appointed to the Indefatigable fri- 
 gate, and by his great skill not only rendered 
 most important service off the west coast of 
 France, but by his admirable seam^ship 
 saved his own vessel when all but wrecked, 
 in company of the Amazon, which perished. 
 The mutiny, which proved so formidable in 
 1797, broke out twice on board his vessel, and 
 was only quelled by his undaunted conduct 
 in twice arresting the ringleaders with his 
 own hand, and ordering his officers to cut 
 down the first man who resisted. When, on 
 
 on the coast of Algiers, on the festival 
 of the Ascension, on 23d May, as the 
 crews of a number of Italian, Corsican, 
 and Neapolitan vessels were preparing, 
 under the shelter of the British flag, 
 to hear mass and join in the solem- 
 nities, they were, on the signal of a gun 
 fired from the castle, suddenly assailed 
 by a body of two thousand Turks and 
 Moors, who cut the greater part of them 
 to pieoes, tore to pieces the English 
 flag, broke into and pillaged the English 
 consul's house, and thrust him into 
 prison. Upon receiving intelligence 
 of this outrage, the English Govern- 
 ment, in a worthy spirit, not only re- 
 solved on demanding entire satisfac- 
 tion, but on seizing the opportunity 
 of destroying the nest of pirates who 
 
 another mutiny, three of the ringleaders, on 
 board the Prince at Port Mahon, were brought 
 up for execution, Sir Edwai'd, addressing the 
 men who had followed him from the Indefa- 
 tigable, said — " Indefatigables, stand aside; 
 not one of you shall touch the rope ; but you 
 who have encouraged your shipmates to the 
 crime by which they have forfeited their lives, 
 it shall be your punishment to hang them." 
 The men of the Prince felt it as such ; they 
 wept aloud, but obeyed These were terrible 
 days — more terrible than any conflict with the 
 enemy to the Briti-sh navy; and it was Sir 
 Edward Pellew's firmness, in a great degree, 
 which brought it through the crisis. During 
 the peace of Amiens he obtained a seat in 
 Parliament for the borough of Barnstaple, and 
 he made a short but powerful speech in de- 
 fence of the Admiralty, in a debate Avhich 
 ensued Avhen the war broke out again. He 
 was then appointed to the Tonnant of SO 
 guns, and soon obtained the command of the 
 squadron blockading Ferrol; after wliich he 
 was made commander-in-chief on the Indian 
 station, where he remained till 1808, and ren- 
 dered the most essential service, both by the 
 destruction of several of the enemy's ships of 
 war, and the protection afforded to British 
 trade. In 1811 he proceeded as commander- 
 in-chief to the Mediterranean, which position 
 he held to the close of the war, anxiously 
 watching for a general battle with the Toulon 
 fleet, which the caution of the enemy caused 
 them to avoid. He died on 2.3d January 1832, 
 with the calm serenity of a Christian. " Every 
 hour of his life," said an officer who was 
 much with him at that time, " is a sermon; 
 I hnve seen him great in battle, but never so 
 great as on his deathbed." — See Ostler's 
 Life of Lord Exmouth, p. 1-361, a most inter- 
 esting work, and which, with the Life of Col- 
 lingwood, by G. L. Collingwood, should bo 
 studied by all who would learn the spirit, at 
 once courageous and humane, simple and 
 noble, pious and patriotic, which then ani- 
 mated the British navy. 
 
1816.] 
 
 had so long inflicted their barbarities 
 on the whole states of Christendom. 
 Lord Exmouth was informed that any 
 force he might deem requisite would 
 be placed at his disposal, and the 
 equipment of the necessary squadron 
 proceeded with the utmost activity. 
 
 70. The city of Algiers, which had 
 so long been an object of terror and 
 curiosity to the Christian powers, and 
 has been the theatre of so many mem- 
 orable actions by the principal states 
 of Europe, is, like Genoa, built on the 
 declivity of a steep hill, with its lower 
 part washed by the ocean. It is in a 
 triangular form, the sea being the base, 
 and the apex high up on the hill ; and 
 as it is entirely enclosed within walls, 
 and the buildings are of a white colour, 
 rising one above another, its appear- 
 ance from a distance, when first de- 
 scried by the mariner, is that of a huge 
 sheet stretched out upon the dusky 
 slope. Its fortifications are very strong, 
 being surrounded by walls of immense 
 thickness, which, like those of Genoa, 
 run to the summit of the hill behind the 
 town ; and towards the sea, especially, 
 the defences are of the most formidable 
 description. A broad straight pier, 
 300 yards long, projects into the ocean 
 from a point about a quarter of a mile 
 from the seaport of the town. From 
 the end of this pier a mole is carried, 
 which bends round in a south-western 
 direction towards the town, forming in 
 its course nearly a quarter of a circle. 
 Opposite the mole - head is another 
 smaller pier, and between the two is 
 the entrance of the harbour, which is 
 about 120 yards wide. The mole is 
 constructed on a ledge of rock, which 
 stretches out about 200 yards towards 
 the north-east, beyond the angle at 
 which it unites to the pier. All the 
 points commanding the entrance to the 
 harbour were covered with the strong- 
 est fortifications. At the j)ier-head 
 stood the lighthouse battery, a large 
 circular fort, mounted by fifty heavy 
 guns, in three tiers, exactly like those 
 of a three-decker. At the outer extre- 
 mity of the rock was another battery 
 of thirty heavy guns and seven mortars, 
 arranged in two tiers. The mole it- 
 self was also lined with cannon in two 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 75 
 
 tiers, like the sides of a line-of-battle 
 ship; but the eastern end, near the 
 lighthouse, had an inner fortification 
 with a third tier of guns, making six- 
 ty-six in the mole alone. On these 
 batteries, at the entrance of the har- 
 bour, were mounted 220 guns, almost 
 all thirty-two or twenty-four pounders. 
 On the sea-wall of the town Avere nine 
 batteries, the strongest of which was the 
 fishmarket battery, in three tiers. Al- 
 together there were nearly 500 guns 
 defending the sea approaches of Al- 
 giers ; and as the ramparts were 
 admirably constnicted of hard stone, 
 and in the very best order, a more for- 
 midable object of attack could hardly 
 be imagined. 
 
 71. Nelson, in a conversation with 
 Captain Brisbane on a former occasion, 
 had said that Algiers could not be suc- 
 cessfully attacked by less than twenty- 
 five ships of the line. Great, there- 
 fore, was the surprise of the Admiralty 
 when Lord Exmouth proposed to as- 
 sault it with five sail of the line, five 
 frigates, and as many bomb-vessels ; 
 and many of the most experienced 
 ofiicers at the Board considered the 
 Avorks so strong that the place was 
 altogether unassailable. The opinion, 
 of that gallant and experienced officer, 
 however, was founded on actual ob- 
 servation, which Nelson's was not, 
 and it proved entirely correct. The 
 truth is, that not one-half of the ships 
 which Nelson spoke of could have 
 found room abreast of the Algerine bat- 
 teries ; and being of necessity croAvded 
 one behind another, they Avould only 
 have augmented the confusion, and 
 presented an additional mark to the 
 enemy's fire. He explained his plans 
 accordingly to the Admiralty, showing 
 the position which each ship was to 
 occupy, and the works it was intended 
 to rake ; and they very wisely allowed 
 him to act on his own judgment, 
 though they entertained serious appre- 
 hensions as to the result. Indeed, 
 there were not wanting those who pre- 
 dicted that the undertaking could ter- 
 minate in nothing but disaster. His 
 own confidence, however, never wav- 
 ered. "All will go well," he said — 
 "at least so far as depends on me. 
 
76 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. II. 
 
 If they open their fire -when the ships 
 are coming up, and cripple them in 
 the masts, the difficulty and loss will 
 he greater ; hut if they allow us to take 
 our stations, I am sure of them, for I 
 know nothing can resist a line-of-battle 
 ship's fire." 
 
 72. Scarcely was Exmouth appointed 
 to this perilous service, when officers 
 in crowds, tenfold greater than could 
 be accepted, came forward to offer 
 their services. He left the entire se- 
 lection to the Admiralty, and refused 
 all his o^^^l relations, though many 
 were anxious to accompany him. An 
 entirely new S(iuadron was fitted out, 
 none of the ships which had just re- 
 turned from the jMediterranean being 
 sent back. It was thought best that 
 a fleet which was going to fight a severe 
 battle should he manned entirely by 
 volunteers. No difficult}'-, however, 
 was experienced in getting sailors for 
 the squadron ; as soon as it was known 
 it was going on a service of danger, 
 the seamen came forward in crowds. 
 The ship's company of the Leander, 
 then on the point of sailing for the 
 North American station, where it Avas 
 to be the flag-ship, volunteered to a 
 man. Among them were a great 
 number of smugglers, who had been 
 taken on the west coast and sentenced 
 to five years' service in the navy : they 
 implored to be allowed to share in 
 the perils of the expedition, and Lord 
 Exmouth acceded to their request, 
 and took them into his own shiji, the 
 Queen Charlotte. His confidence was 
 not misplaced : they behaved with 
 such gallantry in the action which 
 ensued, that Lord Exmouth applied 
 to the Admiralty after his return, and 
 obtained their discharge. Rear-Ad- 
 niiral ]\Iilne, a noble veteran, who had 
 just got the command on the North 
 American station, obtained permission 
 to go out with the Leander ; and as 
 Sir Charles Penrose did not join at 
 Gibraltar, he hoisted his flag on board 
 the Impregnable, as second in com- 
 mand. Before Lord Exmouth sailed, 
 he made every arrangement, as if for 
 immediate death. Among the rest, he 
 ■vn'ote a long letter to his eldest son, 
 detailing the duties which would de- 
 
 volve upon him as a British nobleman, 
 which was found among his papers 
 after his death. He felt that he was 
 setting out on what might truly be 
 deemed a holy war : his feelings were 
 those of Godfrey of Bouillon, or Ray- 
 mond of Toulouse, when they mounted 
 the breach of Jerusalem. 
 
 73. Lord Exmouth hoisted his flag on 
 board the Queen Charlotte of 100 guns. 
 His fleet consisted of five line-of-battle 
 ships, of which two were three-deckers ; 
 three large frigates, and two smaller 
 ones; four bomb-vessels, and five gun- 
 brigs. His plan of attack, which was 
 fully explained to all the officers in the 
 fleet, was, that four of the line-of-battle 
 ships were to breast the fortifications 
 on the mole ; a fifth cover them from the 
 batteries of the town on the one side, 
 while the heavy frigates did the same 
 on the other; and the bomb -vessels, 
 aided by the shijis' launches, fitted up 
 as rocket and mortar boats, were to keep 
 up an incessant fire on the ships in the 
 harbour, arsenal, and to\\ni. The fleet 
 left Portsmouth on 25tli July, and on 
 the 28th was off" Falmouth, where Lord 
 Exmouth parted with his brother, at 
 the very place where, three-and-twen- 
 ty years before, he had sailed to fight 
 the first battle of the war. From 
 that place the Mind en of 74 guns was 
 sent on to Gibraltar, to provide sup- 
 plies, and thither the whole fleet 
 arrived on the 9 th August, the 
 evening after the Minden. On the 
 voyage, the crews of all the ships were 
 sedulously trained to their guns and 
 ball - practice ; and on Tuesdays and 
 Fridays the whole were cleared for 
 action, and each fired six broadsides. 
 On board the Queen Charlotte, the 
 captains of guns were constantly ex- 
 ercised by firing a twelve-pounder at a 
 small target hung from the fore-top- 
 mast studding-sail boom ; and to such 
 expertness did they soon arrive, that 
 after a few days' practice the target 
 was never missed, though it was only 
 three feet scjuare, and ten or twelve 
 bottles were hit every day. By these 
 means, and by the effect of the mental 
 excitement arising from the noble en- 
 terprise on which they were proceeding, 
 the crews of all the vessels were highly 
 
1816.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 77 
 
 elated, and kept in the "best possible 
 spirits. Not a doubt of their success 
 was entertained by any one on board 
 any of the vessels ; and such was the 
 effect of this mental excitement on the 
 health of the men, that scarce a name 
 was on the sick-list; and when the 
 Queen Charlotte was paid off on her 
 return, only one man hatl died, ex- 
 cepting those slain in action, out of a 
 thousand who had joined her three 
 months before. 
 
 74. At Gibraltar the fleet was joined 
 by Vice- Admiral the Baron Von Ca- 
 pellan, with a Dutch squadron of five 
 frigates and a corvette, Avho, on learn- 
 ing the noble object of the expedition, 
 solicited and obtained leave to join 
 it. On the 13th, every vessel was fur- 
 nished with a plan of the fortifica- 
 tions, and the place assigned to each 
 in the attack. To the Dutch ships 
 was allotted the attack of the fort 
 and batteries towards the south of the 
 town, a duty formerly allotted to the 
 Minden and Hebrus, which were now 
 brought up among their comrades on 
 the front of the mole. On the same 
 evening the Prometheus arrived from 
 Algiers, bringing the wife, daughter, 
 and infant child of Mr MacDonnell 
 the English consul, the consul him- 
 self and fourteen of the crew of the 
 Prometheus being detained in prison. 
 The two former had escaped disguised 
 as midshipmen ; the last was detected 
 by its crying as it passed the gate, 
 and arrested ; but the Dey sent it on 
 boird next morning — " a solitary in- 
 stance of humanity," said Lord Ex- 
 mouth, "which ought to be recorded. " 
 The Prometheus brought the most 
 formidable accounts of the prepara- 
 tions made at Algiers to resist the 
 attack. Forty thousand troops had 
 been collected in the town, all the 
 Janizaries called in from the distant 
 garrisons, and the fortifications and 
 batteries put in the best possible state 
 of defence. The whole naval force of 
 the regency, consisting of four frigates, 
 five large corvettes, and thirty-seven 
 gunboats, was assembled in the har- 
 bour, manned by their most expe- 
 rienced and daring sailors. This in- 
 telligence, instead of daunting, con- 
 
 tributed only to animate the sailors 
 on board the British fleet, by showing 
 the importance of the service on which 
 they were bound, and the magnitude 
 of the blow against the enemies of 
 Christendom they were about to strike. 
 75. On the morning of the 27th 
 August, at daybreak, the fleet Avas off 
 Algiers ; Lord Exmouth immediately 
 despatched a flag of truce to the Dey, 
 with the terms dictated by the Prince- 
 Regent, which were the entire aboli- 
 tion of Christian slavery and libera- 
 tion of all captives, and full compen- 
 sation to the British consul, and the 
 sailors of the Prometheus who had 
 been imprisoned. An answer was pro- 
 mised by the port - captain in two 
 hours, and meanwhile the fleet stood 
 into the bay and anchored within a 
 mile of the town. At two p.m. the 
 boat was seen returning with the sig- 
 nal that no answer had been given. 
 Lord Exmouth immediately made the 
 signal, "Are you ready?"— and the 
 affirmative being returned from every 
 vessel, the signal to advance was given, 
 and every ship bore up for its ap- 
 pointed station. The Queen Char- 
 lotte headed the line, and made 
 straight for the mole -head. It was 
 Lord Exmouth's intention not to have 
 opened his fire unless that of the 
 enemy became very galling, and the 
 guns on the upper and lower deck, 
 accordingly, were not primed till the 
 ship had anchored. But the Alger- 
 ines, confident in their defences, and 
 hoping to carry the principal vessels 
 by boarding after they had taken 
 their stations, allowecl the Queen. 
 Charlotte to bear in without molesta- 
 tion until she anchored by the stern, 
 just half a cable's length from the 
 mole-head, and was lashed by a haw- 
 ser to the mainmast of an Algerine 
 brig that lay at the harbour's mouth. 
 jNIeanwhile the other vessels, in silence 
 and perfect readiness, moved slowly 
 forward under a light sea-breeze to 
 their appointed stations. Not a word 
 was spolv'en in the vast array; eveiy 
 eye was fixed on the enemy's batteries, 
 which were crowded with troops, with, 
 the gunners standing with lighted 
 matches beside their pieces. 
 
78 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap, ir. 
 
 " There was silence deep as death 
 As they drifted on their path, 
 And the boldest held his breath 
 For a tinie." 
 
 76. The mole-head at this time pre- 
 sented a dense mass of troops, whose 
 turbans and shakos were distinctly seen 
 crowding on the top of the parapets. 
 Standing on the poop, Lord Exmouth 
 waved with his hand to them repeatedly 
 to get down, as the firing Avas about to 
 commence. When the ship was fairly 
 placed, and her cables stoppered, the 
 crew gave three hearty cheers, which 
 were answered from the whole fleet. 
 The Algerines answered by three guns 
 from the eastern battery, one of which 
 struck the Superb. At the first flash 
 Lord Exmouth gave the word " Stand 
 by;" at the second, "Fire ;" and the 
 report of the third gun was drowned 
 in the roar of the Queen Charlotte's 
 broadside. So terrible was the efl"ect 
 of this discharge, that above five hun- 
 dred men Avere struck down on the 
 mole by its eff'ects. In a few minutes, 
 and before the action had become 
 general, the fortifications on the mole- 
 head were ruined and its guns dis- 
 mounted ; upon this the Queen Char- 
 lotte sprang her broadside to the north- 
 ward, and brought her guns to bear 
 upon the batteries round the gate 
 which leads to the mole and the upper 
 tier of the lighthouse battery. With 
 such accuracy were the shot directed, 
 that the lighthouse tower was soon in 
 ruins, every successive discharge bring- 
 ing down some of the guns ; and when 
 the last fell, a Moorish chief was seen 
 springing up on the fragments of the 
 parapet, and Avith impotent rage 
 shaking his scimitar at the giant of 
 the deep which in so brief a space had 
 worked such fearful devastation. 
 
 77. Meanwhile the Algerines were not 
 idle : a tremendous and well-sustained 
 fire was kept up from every battery 
 and gun on the ships as they approach- 
 ed and cast anchor ; every bastion and 
 battlement streamed with flames, and 
 the roar of above a thousand cannon 
 oji the two sides, within a space not 
 more than half a mile in breadth, ex- 
 ceeded anything, since the battle of 
 Copenhagen, heard in naval war. The 
 
 Leander closely followed the flag-ship, 
 and, passing, anchored ahead of her ; 
 next came the Superb, which took her 
 station two hundred and fifty yards 
 astern of the Queen Charlotte ; the 
 Minden anchored about her own length 
 from the Superb. Astern of the Min- 
 den lay the Albion, the former passing 
 her stream cable out of the larboard 
 gun-room port to the Albion's bow, 
 and lashing the two ships together. 
 The Impregnable came in at last, 
 and v/as anchored astern of the Albion 
 in a situation very much exposed to 
 the enemy's batteries. The three large 
 frigates and the Dutch squadron went 
 into action with a gallantry which 
 never was surpassed, and took their 
 stations amidst a tremendous fire with 
 the utmost accuracy. The Leander 
 was placed athwart the Queen Char- 
 lotte's bows, her starboard broadside 
 bearing upon the Algerine gunboats 
 with the after-guns, and on the fish- 
 market battery with the others. The 
 Severn lay ahead of the Leander with all 
 her starboard broadside also bearing on 
 the fishmarket battery. Beyond her 
 the Glasgow was stationed, and brought 
 her larboard guns to bear on the bat- 
 teries of the town. The Dutch took 
 their position with great steadiness in 
 front of the works to the south of the 
 towTi. The two smaller frigates, the 
 Hebrus and Granicus, Avere left to 
 come into the line wherever they could 
 find an opening. The former pressed 
 forward to get next the flag -ship, 
 but being becalmed, she was obliged 
 to anchor on the Queen Charlotte's 
 larboard quarter. Captain Wise, of 
 the Granicus, steered straight for where 
 Lord Exmouth's flag was seen tower- 
 ing above the smoke, and, with a skill 
 equal to his intrepidity, succeeded in 
 placing his vessel in the open space be- 
 tween the Queen Charlotte and the Su- 
 perb — thus taking a position, as Lord 
 Exmouth justly said, which a three- 
 decker might have been proud to 
 occupy. 
 
 78. Eastward of the lighthouse, at 
 the distance of two thousand yards, 
 were placed the bomb- vessels, the shells 
 from which were thrown with admir- 
 able precision by the marine artillery ; 
 
1816.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 79 
 
 while the flotilla of "gim, rocket, and 
 mortal- boats, distributed in the open- 
 ings of the line, kept up an incessant 
 and destructive fire on the ships in the 
 harbour. Soon after the battle became 
 general, the Algerine flotilla, under 
 cover of the smoke, advanced, with 
 true Mussulman intrepidity, to board 
 the Queen Charlotte and Leander, and 
 they were very near before they were 
 descried ; but when they were so, the 
 liital precision which the British gun- 
 ners had acquired appeared conspicu- 
 ous. The Leander brought her broad- 
 side to bear upon them, and, by a few 
 discharges, thirty-three out of thirty- 
 seven of the gunboats were sent to the 
 bottom. The thick smoke round the 
 Queen Charlotte prevented the admi- 
 ral from seeing the vessels as they 
 came in and took up their position ; 
 but he soon received joyful proof of 
 their presence, and the accuracy of 
 their fire, by the yawning breaches 
 and crumbling ruins which appeared, 
 when the smoke for a few seconds 
 cleared away, in the walls opposite to 
 the positions assigned to them. At 
 four o'clock, as a close action of an 
 hour's duration had produced no signs 
 of submission. Lord Exmouth deter- 
 mined to attempt the destruction of 
 the Algerine ships. The nearest frigate 
 was accordingly boarded by Lieuten- 
 ant Richards in the Queen Charlotte's 
 barge, accompanied by Major Gossett, of 
 the marine artillery. Captain Veolinge, 
 marine artillery, and Mr M'Lintock, 
 who volunteered on the perilous ser- 
 vice ; and in a few minutes she was in 
 a perfect blaze. When the frigate burst 
 into a flame, he telegraphed to the 
 fleet the animating signal, "Infallible ;" 
 and as the barge returned alongside, 
 she was received with three cheers. 
 The burning ship broke from her moor- 
 ings, and drifted along the broadsides 
 of the Queen Charlotte and Leander, 
 and grounded ahead of the latter, un- 
 der the town wall, so that the confla- 
 gration did not spread. Upon this the 
 gunboats and barges opened a fire with 
 bombs and carcasses on the largest 
 frigate in the centre of the harbour, 
 and she was soon in flames, from which 
 the fire spread to the other ships around, 
 
 which were all consumed, with the ex- 
 ception of a sloop and brig. The arsen- 
 al also took fire, and, Avith all its stores, 
 was totally destroyed. 
 
 79. Aft^r sunset a message was re- 
 ceived from Admiral Milne, in the Im- 
 pregnable, which had suflered extreme- 
 ly from her position, exposed to the 
 batteries, and had lost 210 men killed 
 and wounded, and requesting that a 
 frigate might be sent to take off" from 
 her some of the fire under which she 
 was suflering. The Glasgow immedi- 
 ately weighed anchor for that purpose, 
 and gallantly .stood forward into the 
 thicke.st of the fire ; but it was found 
 impossible to reach the desired position, 
 owing to the want of wind. An ord- 
 nance vessel was accordingly inin ashore 
 under the lighthouse battery, and 
 blown up, which in some degree di- 
 minished the enemy's fire in that quar- 
 ter. Towards night the discharges of 
 the Algerines slackened in all quarters, 
 and at last entirely died away, except 
 from the Emperor's Fort,* on the high 
 ground, which, being above the range 
 of the guns, continued the cannonade 
 with desti-uctive efl'ect to the very close 
 of the action. On the side of the Brit- 
 ish, also, the fire lessened considera- 
 bly ; for, the chief objects of the ex- 
 pedition having been gained, it became 
 necessary to husband their powder and 
 shot, the consumption of which had 
 been beyond all parallel. + A little 
 before ten the Queen Charlotte's bow- 
 cable Avas cut, and her head hauled 
 round to seaward. Warps were run out 
 to get out, but they were in part cut by- 
 shot from the Emperor's Fort, and the 
 batteries south of the town, which had 
 been only partially engaged. About 
 half-past ten the land-breeze, on which 
 Loi'd Exmouth had calculated, sprang 
 up, and, by the aid of the boats tow- 
 ing, she, with the remainder of the 
 fleet, was got out of fire. Soon after 
 the breeze freshened, and a tremendous 
 storm of thunder and lightning came 
 
 * So called from having been built by the 
 Emperor Charles V. when he besieged the 
 town in 1557. 
 
 t They had fired 118 tons of powder, 50,000 
 balls, weighing above 500 tons of iron, and 
 960 thirteen and ten inch shells thrown by 
 the bomb-vessels and launches. 
 
80 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. II. 
 
 on, with torrents of rain, which lasted 
 three honrs, but conkl not extinguish 
 the flames of the burning ships, arsenal, 
 and houses, which cast an awful light 
 over the scene of ruin. Before it liad 
 subsided, Lord Exmouth assembled in 
 his ca.bin all the wounded who coukl 
 be moved, that tliey might unite with 
 him and his oflicers in thanks to the 
 Almighty Disposer of events for their 
 victory and preservation. 
 
 80. Such was the battle of Algiers, 
 one of the most glorious even in the 
 resplendent annals of the British navy. 
 It was, withal, one of the most bloody 
 — the best proof of the desparate nature 
 of the service, and the heroic courage 
 requisite to render it successful. In 
 the British squadron, 128 were killed 
 and 690 wounded — in all, 818 : a great- 
 er proportion to the number engaged 
 than in any action during the preced- 
 ing war ; for in Copenhagen itself, the 
 bloodiest of that contest at sea, there 
 were only 1200 killed and wounded out 
 of eleven line-of -battle sliips engaged ;* 
 but here there were 818 in five ships. 
 The loss fell chiefly on three vessels : 
 in the Impregnable, which bore Ad- 
 miral ^nine's flag, there were 50 killed ; 
 and in the Leander and Granicus, which 
 also took up line-of -battle positions, 
 the loss was very severe. In the other 
 line-of-battle ships the entire loss was 
 only 26 killed and 62 wounded. The 
 Dutch squadron had 13 killed and 52 
 wounded. Lord Exmouth had several 
 most narrow escapes ; he was struck 
 in three places ; a cannon-ball carried 
 away the skirts of his coat, and a shot 
 broke the spectacles in his pocket. On 
 the side of the Algerines it was com- 
 puted by Lord Exmouth that 7000 had 
 perished — a fearful loss, but which is 
 not improbable when the crowded state 
 of the batteries and the extraordinary 
 precision of the English fire are taken 
 into consideration. The British loss 
 would have been much greater but for 
 the commanding position taken at the 
 very commencement of the action, and 
 maintained throughout, by the Queen 
 Charlotte, which swept by her broad- 
 sides the Avhole batteries on the mole, 
 the most formidable in the enemy's 
 * Alison's Europe, chap. liii. § GO. 
 
 defences. Admiral Capellan estimated 
 that 500 men were thus saved to the 
 allied squadron, who otherwise would 
 have been destroyed. During the ac- 
 tion the Queen Charlotte Avas often in 
 the most imminent danger of being 
 burned, from the blazing Algerine ves- 
 sels which floated close past her, which 
 came so near that Lord Exmouth was 
 almost scorched as he stood on the 
 poop, and he was obliged to pull in the 
 ensign to prevent its being consumed. 
 But when Admiral von Capellan and 
 the other captains, seeing his imminent 
 danger, ofl'ered him the assistance of 
 the boats of the fleet to haul him out, 
 he replied, "that, having calculated 
 everything, it behoved them by no 
 means to be alarmed for his safety, but 
 only to continue their fii'e with redoub- 
 led zeal for the execution of his orders, 
 and according to his example." * 
 
 81. Next morning Algiers presented 
 the most melancholy aspect. The mole, 
 the lighthouse battery, and all the 
 fortifications near them, Avere totally 
 ruined ; cannon, carriages, and dead 
 bodies, lay one above another, inter- 
 mingled with large stones and masses 
 of masonry, in one undistinguished 
 mass to the water edge. In the walls of 
 the town, huge gaps appeared ojjposite 
 the broadsides of the vessels ; and 
 behind them, long lanes, cut in the 
 houses as far as the horizontal shot» 
 could reach up the town, told how 
 fatal the fire had been, and with Avhat 
 
 •* Admiral Capellan, who nobly seconded 
 Lord Exmouth on this occasion, bore the fol- 
 lowing honourable testimony to Lord Ex- 
 moutli's conduct during tlie battle : " The 
 Dut(;li squadron, as well as the British force, 
 appeared to be inspired with the devotedness 
 of our magnanimous chief in the cause of 
 mankind ; and the coolness and precision 
 witli which tlie terrible fire of the batteries 
 was replied to, close under the massy walls 
 of Algiers, will as little admit of description 
 as the heroism and self-devotion of each indi- 
 vidually, and Lord Exmouth in particular, ia 
 the action of this memorable day. Till nin© 
 o'clock he remained with the Queen Charlotte 
 in the same position, in the hottest of the fire, 
 encouraging every one not to give up the work 
 begun till the whole was completed ; and thus 
 displayed such perseverance that all were 
 animated with the same spirit ; and the fire 
 of the ships, against a brave and desperate 
 enemy, appeared to redouble." — Admiral Ca.- 
 pellan's Despatch, Aug. 30, 1S16. .4/171. Eeg. 
 1S16, 2^2— Appendix to Chronicle. 
 
1816.] 
 
 HISTOEY OF EUROPE. 
 
 81 
 
 precision the shot had been directed. 
 At daylight a flag of truce was sent 
 in with the same demands as the after- 
 noon before, the bomb-vessels at the 
 same time resuming their positions, 
 so as to renew the attack. This, how- 
 ever, was rendered unnecessary. The 
 Dey at once submitted, and the con- 
 clusion of peace Avas announced liy a 
 salute of twenty-one guns. The terms 
 were the abolition of Christian slavery 
 for ever ; the instant delivery of the 
 slaves of all Christian nations ; the 
 restitution of all money received for 
 slaves since the commencement of the 
 year ; reparation to the British consul 
 for the injuries he had received ; and 
 a public apology for the conduct of 
 the Dey. These terms were all com- 
 plied with, and on the following day 
 1200 slaves were embarked at Al- 
 giers, and restored to their country and 
 friends. The total number liberated 
 there, and at Tunis and Tripoli, was 
 3003. The author was at Genoa when 
 the Sardinian slaves, 62 in number, 
 which had been delivered, were brought 
 there in one of the English sloops which 
 had shared in the action. The cheers 
 of the people as they entered the har- 
 bour, and the thunder of the artillery 
 which saluted the victors, still resound 
 in his ears. It was one of those mo- 
 ments which make a man proud of 
 his country and of the human race. 
 
 82. Lord Exmouth was deservedly 
 made a Viscount for this glorious vic- 
 tory ; and promotion on the usual 
 scale was bestowed on the other offi- 
 cers engaged. Admiral IVIilne was 
 knighted ; and the achievement was 
 noticed in the most flattering terms in 
 Parliament, by whom thanks were cor- 
 dially voted. "ISTo one," said Lord 
 Cochrane, who spoke on this occasion, 
 "was better accpiainted than himself 
 with the power possessed by batteries 
 over a fleet ; and he would say that 
 the conduct of Lord Exmouth and the 
 fleet deserved all the praise which that 
 House could bestow. The attack was 
 nobly achieved, in a way that a British 
 fleet always performed such services ; 
 and the vote had his most cordial con- 
 currence, for. he never knew or had 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 heard of anything more gallant than, 
 the manner in which Lord Exmouth 
 had laid his ships alongside the Alger- 
 ine batteries. " These are noble words, 
 such as the brave only can apply to 
 the brave ; rendered doubly striking, 
 and not less honourable to the giver 
 than the receiver, when it is recollected 
 under what unmerited obloquy Lord 
 Cochrane laboured at that time, and 
 the shameful ingratitude with which 
 he had been treated by his country. 
 There were not wanting, however, many 
 who thought that, on such an occasion, 
 honours and rewards might have been 
 bestowed with a more liberal hand, 
 and that Government woitld have acted 
 more gi-acefully if they had seized this 
 opportunity to bestow, perhaps, an un- 
 usual amount of the royal favour on a 
 service which, during the last years of 
 the war, had received so little of it, 
 simply because the magnitude of its 
 former victories had swejjt every enemy 
 from the ocean. But the admiration 
 and gratitude of the world was the real 
 reward of the victors. Never, perhaps, 
 since the fall of Jerusalem resounded 
 through Christendom, had such a una- 
 nimous feeling pervaded every civil- 
 ised state. Diff"erences of race, of na- 
 tions, of institutions, were forgotten in 
 the common triumph of faith. The 
 Roman Catholic grasped the hand of 
 the Protestant, the Lutheran of the 
 Greek. Through two hundred millions 
 of human beings one simultaneous 
 burst of joy broke forth ; the unity of 
 feeling, which is the charm of love be- 
 tween two faithful hearts, was for once 
 felt by an entire fifth of the human, 
 race. 
 
 " Was ist Liebe, ich der sage? 
 Zwei Seelea, eiii Gedanke, 
 Zwei Herzen, einer Sehlag."* 
 
 83. The battle of Algiers was memor- 
 able in another point of view, still 
 more important to the general interests 
 of humanity. It Avas the first of the 
 great and decisive ti'iumphs of the 
 Christians over the Mohammedans. 
 
 * " What is Love ? I tell thee— 
 Two Souls, one Thought, 
 Two Hearts, one Throb." 
 
 Der Sohn der Waldniss. 
 F 
 
82 
 
 HISTORY OF EUEOPE. 
 
 [chap. II. 
 
 Other victories had been gained in 
 former days, but they were in defence 
 only, or were obliterated in the conse- 
 quences of subsequent disaster. The 
 battle of Tours, in the time of Charles 
 Martel, the deliverance of Vienna by 
 John Sobieski, the victory of Lepanto 
 by Don John of Austria, only averted 
 subjugation from Christendom ; the 
 glories of Ascalon, the conquest of 
 Jerusalem, the heroism of Richard 
 Coeur-de-Lion, were forgotten in the 
 disaster of Tiberias, the fate of Ptole- 
 mais, tbe expulsion of the Christians 
 from the Holy Land. Even the more 
 recent successes of the Russians over 
 the Turks had been deeply checkered 
 with disaster ; the storming of Ocza- 
 kow was balanced by the disaster of 
 the Pruth ; the Balkan had never been 
 crossed by the followers of the Cross, 
 and the redoubtable antagonists still 
 exchanged desperate thrusts, with al- 
 ternate success, on the banks of the 
 Danube. But with the battle of Al- 
 giers commenced the decisive and eter- 
 nal triumph of the Christian faith ; 
 the Cross never thereafter waned be- 
 fore the Crescent. Other successes not 
 less decisive rapidly succeeded, and 
 the Ottoman Empire was only saved 
 from dissolution by the jealousies 
 of the victors. Navarino wrenched 
 Greece from its grasp ; Acre saw the 
 sceptre of Syria pass from its hands ; 
 Koniah brought it to the verge of 
 ruin ; Algiers delivered its sway over 
 Africa to France ; the passage of the 
 Balkan rendered it tributary to Russia. 
 Nor was the waning of the Crescent 
 less perceptible in Asia. The bastions 
 of Erivan gave the Muscovites the 
 command of Georgia ; the Cross was 
 placed on the summit of Ararat, the 
 resting-place of the Ark ; the British 
 standards were seen on the ramparts 
 of Ghuznee, the cradle of the Moham- 
 medan dominion of India. 
 
 84. These memorable occurrences, in 
 a certain degree, lift up the veil which 
 conceals the designs of Providence 
 from mortal eyes. Whence proceeded 
 
 this sudden and decisive superiority 
 on the part of one of those antagonists, 
 who for five centuries had struggled 
 with each other with alternate success 
 and equal resources ? Evidently from 
 the energy which a spiritual faith and 
 unfettered thought had communicated 
 to the Christian powers, and the vast 
 development of military skill which, 
 had taken place in the principal Euro- 
 pean states from the wars of the French 
 Revolution. And whence arose those 
 memorable wars, disastrous to human- 
 ity at the time, but from which, as 
 from the dragon's teeth, have sprang 
 the armed men who are subduing the 
 globe ? From the efforts of Voltaire 
 and the Encyclopedists to deride and 
 destroy Christianity. Such is the sys- 
 tem of Divine administration : it is 
 Ixard to say whether it is most ad- 
 vanced by the efforts of its enemies 
 or the sacrifices of its friends. That 
 which all the devotion of the Crusaders 
 could not effect, has been brought 
 about at the appointed season by the 
 agency of the Infidels ; the preaching 
 of Voltaire has done that which that 
 of Peter the Hermit had left undone. 
 Humanity may cease, therefore, to de- 
 plore the ceaseless wars between civil- 
 ised nations, when it perceives the 
 superiority which they give to the 
 arms of civilisation over those of bar- 
 barism ; it will discern in them the 
 severe ti-aining by which the race of 
 Japhet is prepared for its predicted 
 mission to dwell in the tents of Sliem, 
 to overspread the earth and subdue it. 
 Christianity, indeed, is destined to ex- 
 tend mainly by its winning the hearts 
 of men ; but in a world of selfishness 
 and violence it is not thus alone that 
 mankind are to be converted even to 
 their own blessing ; thfe first entrance 
 must be sometimes won by conquest ; 
 and he who bears even the olive branch 
 and Cross in one hand, may often 
 despair of success if he is not pre- 
 pared, when necessary, to wield the 
 naked sword with practised skill in 
 another. 
 
1815.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUEOPE. 
 
 83 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 HISTOEY OF FRAXCE FROM THE SECOND RESTORATION OF LOUIS XVITI. 
 TO THE ORDINANCES OF SEPTEMBER 7, 1816. 
 
 1. If England, which had been vic- 
 torious in the strife, and closed a con- 
 flict of twenty years with glory unpre- 
 cedented in its annals, still found itself 
 grievously straitened and reduced to 
 the greatest difficulties on the return 
 of peace, what must the condition of 
 France have been, and what the diffi- 
 culties of its Government, when, after 
 having had the national passions ex- 
 cited to the very highest degree by the 
 long triumph of the Republic and the 
 Empire, it was suddenly stript of all 
 the fruits of victory, shorn of its con- 
 quests, humbled in its pride, with its 
 armies defeated, its Emperor a captive, 
 its capital taken ? To any nation such 
 a series of reverses must have been a 
 subject of deep humiliation and regret ; 
 but to the French it was doubly so 
 from the warlike character of the 
 people, their eager desire for military 
 glory, and the unparalleled series of 
 successes which, in the early wars of 
 the Revolution, had fanned this desire 
 into a perfect passion. Seven hundred 
 thousand aiTued men, in the summer 
 of 1815, invaded the territory of the 
 Great Nation, from the Rhine, the 
 Alps, and the Pyrenees ; and spread- 
 ing themselves, after the contest ceased, 
 over its whole extent, systematically 
 began the work of retribution on 
 France for the innumerable evils and 
 humiliations they had experienced from 
 it in the days of its triumphs. Eng- 
 land alone, which had felt no such 
 evils and mortification, attempted no 
 such retaliation ; the State which had 
 successfully withstood Napoleon in the 
 plenitude of his power, noAV alone 
 strove to appease the "WTath of the 
 conquerors, and restrain the uplifted 
 arm of vengeance. 
 
 2. To have founded a government 
 
 and restored a dynasty with any pro- 
 spect of success amidst such a whirl- 
 wind of disaster, would have been a 
 matter of the utmost difficulty un- 
 der any circumstances, and Avith any 
 people. But in the case of the French, 
 the embarrassment was infinitely en- 
 hanced by the mobility of disposition, 
 and extremes of passion by which they, 
 beyond any other people recorded in 
 history, have ever been characterised. 
 Nations have their distinctive charac- 
 ter as well as individuals, and what is 
 first impressed on them b}^ the signet- 
 ring of nature as the peculiarity of the 
 race, is rarely if ever changed in any 
 subsequent period of their history. No 
 one can have been acquainted with the 
 men, and still more the women, of 
 that highly intellectual and agreeable 
 people, Avithout being convinced that 
 proneness to change, and readiness to 
 pass from one extreme to another, is 
 their great characteristic; and what 
 individuals do in days, the nation as 
 a whole does in years or centuries, 
 " Emporte comme une femme " has in 
 every age been their distinctive tem- 
 perament. An eloc[uent French writer, 
 who knew them Avell, and had himself 
 experienced their mutability, has given 
 the following gi'aphic ])icture of the 
 disposition of his countrj^men : "The 
 people," says Lamartine, "are like in- 
 dividual men ; they have their pas- 
 sions, their reactions, their exaltation, 
 their depression, their repentance, their 
 hesitation, their uncertainty. What 
 we commonly call public opinion in 
 free governments, is nothing but the 
 moving needle on the compass, which 
 marks the variations in the atmo- 
 si)here of human affairs. That insta- 
 bility is more sudden and prodigious 
 in France than in any other country 
 
84 
 
 HISTORY OF EULOPE. 
 
 [chap. III. 
 
 in the world, if yve except tlie ancient 
 Athenian races. It lias become a by- 
 word in Europe. The French historian 
 is bound to confess this vice in his 
 country, of Avhich he records the vi- 
 cissitudes and signalises the virtues. 
 That very mobility is allied to a noble 
 quality of tlie great French race — Ima- 
 gination ; it forms part of their destiny. 
 In war it is termed ardour ; in the arts, 
 genius; in reverses, despondency; in 
 that despondence, inconstancy ; in 
 patriotism, enthusiasm. They are the 
 people in modern times who have the 
 most fire in their souls. It is the gales 
 of that mobility which feed the flame. 
 It is impossible to explain, but by this 
 peculiarity in the character of the 
 French race, the accessions of delirium 
 which at times gain possession of the 
 whole nation, and induce them unani- 
 mously to support, at only a few 
 months' distance from each other, 
 principles, men, and forms of govern- 
 ment the most opposed to each other." 
 3. Never did this extraordinary pe- 
 culiarity of the French nation appear in 
 more striking colours, or induce more 
 important ettects, than in 1815, after 
 the return of Louis XVII I. from Ghent, 
 and the re-establishment of the mo- 
 narchy of the Bourbons in Paris. The 
 passion for freedom, and the forms and 
 privileges of a constitutional monarchy, 
 which had burst forth so strongly at the 
 opening of the Revolution, and been 
 after suppressed by the blood of the 
 Convention and the glories of the Em- 
 pire, had broken out afresh, and spread 
 immensely during the year of peace 
 which followed the first restoration in 
 1814. "Whatever had been the faults 
 of the Bourbons during that period 
 — and doubtless they Avei-e many — 
 they had been against themselves and 
 the cause of monarchical government 
 alone ; they had all redounded to the 
 advancement and spread of Liberal 
 opinions. An opposition to the Court, 
 that invariable mark of a constitutional 
 monarchy, had spning up ; and all the 
 errors of the Executive had only weak- 
 ened its own respect and augmented 
 the influence of the Opposition. The 
 days of sabre dominion were at an end ; 
 the access to power was to be sought by 
 
 other means than the jingling of spurs 
 in the antechambers of the palace. A 
 powerful opposition had sprung up in 
 the Chambers, and been supported by 
 a large portion of the public press, in 
 the free discussion of which the newly 
 emancipated French people took the 
 greatest delight. The nightmare of 
 the Revolution, the dreams of the Em- 
 inre, were past, and in their stead the 
 morning of freedom appeared to have 
 dawned again, gilded with all the co- 
 lours which, twenty-five years before, 
 had lured the world by their brilliancy. 
 4. These hopes and expectations had 
 been alike dashed by the second return 
 of ISTapoleon, and the sudden catas- 
 trophe by which it was terminated. 
 The rule of constitutional government 
 was at an end ; the ambition which had 
 turned into the channels of peace was 
 at once blasted. The delusive colours 
 with which the generosity or policy of 
 the Allied chiefs had disguised the first 
 conquest of France had disappeared ; 
 the veil had been suddenly withdrawn, 
 and subjugation, with all its bitterness, 
 had fallen upon the people. There was 
 no longer any semblance of moderation 
 in the langi;age or conduct of the con- 
 querors ; the stern law of retaliation — 
 an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a 
 tooth — had become the principle ; the 
 maxim Vce vidis was not only in every 
 mouth, but directed the movements of 
 every hand. Requisitions, enforced by 
 all the rigour of military execution, 
 were everywhere made, and brought 
 the anguish and weight of conquest 
 home to every bosom. Already 700, 000 
 armed men, and above lOO.OOOdiorses, 
 were quartered in this manner ou 
 France; before autumn their number 
 amounted to nearly 1,040,000. The 
 villages in the country, the small towns 
 in the provinces, were all occupied by 
 corps of Prussians, English, Austrians, 
 or Russians ; and every one had a story 
 to recount of an indignity he had ex- 
 perienced, or a loss he had sulTered. 
 The general Avrath, which had been re- 
 strained for a moment by the fascina- 
 tion of Napoleon's return, the terrors 
 of the army, the vigoiir of the Imperial 
 police, and the hopes of a return of the 
 days of glory, now broke out on all 
 
1S15.] 
 
 HISTOEY OF EUROPE. 
 
 85 
 
 sides in loud complaints and lamenta- 
 tions ; and it Avas no consolation to the 
 sull'cring peasants to be told by tlie old 
 soldiers that all this was only the fate 
 of war, and that the blows which de- 
 scended on their shoulders from the 
 Prussian troops were no more than they 
 had themselves inflicted on the Prus- 
 sians ten years before. 
 
 5. Pride, it has been often observed, 
 is the last weakness which can be con- 
 quered in the human heart. Wlien 
 eitlier individuals or nations have un- 
 dergone a great calamity, the first thing 
 they think of is to find some individual 
 or party on whom it can be laid ; they 
 will turn any way rather than ascribe 
 it to its real cause — their own follies or 
 sins. Great as may be the weight of 
 external evils, it is as nothing to the 
 sting of tlie secret mental reproach of 
 having induced them. A scapegoat is 
 invariably sought for to bear the bur- 
 den of the sins of the nation, and take 
 away the last and bitterest drop in the 
 cup of misery — the consciousness of 
 laving deserved it. This scapegoat 
 ■was found by the French at this disas- 
 trous epoch in Napoleon and his party. 
 Great as had been the enthusiasm in 
 1789 in favour of the Eepublic, un- 
 bounded the exultation in 1806 at 
 the glories of the Empire, they were 
 equalled now by the unanimous burst 
 of indignation at the same conqueror 
 and his followers. All classes joined in 
 it ; all heads were SAvept away by the 
 torrent. Pioyalists, Liberals, proprie- 
 tors, merchants, agriculturists, arti- 
 sans, clergy, Yendeans, Eepublicans, 
 Catholics, Protestants, seaport toAvns, 
 the provinces, the capital — all joined in 
 one universal chonis against the fallen 
 Emperor. The mothers recounted their 
 two or three sons who had been sacri- 
 ficed in Spain or Russia to the ambition 
 of the conqueror ; the fathers, their 
 fortunes or means of subsistence that 
 liad been wrested from them by the 
 Continental blockade or the war con- 
 tributions. All had a loss to lament, 
 a wrong to avenge. They forgot that 
 they themselves had been the first to 
 swell the song of triumph when these 
 bloody successes were gained. General 
 opinion threw itself, without measure, 
 
 without reflection, into indignation 
 against one man and his military fol- 
 lowers, and that universal transport 
 seized men's minds which, be it right or 
 be it wrong, the forerunner of blessings 
 or the herald of disaster, is generally 
 found to be for the time irresistible. 
 
 6. As this transport of indignation 
 was all directed against the enemies of 
 the Bourbons, it might naturally be 
 supposed that it would have favoured 
 the return and facilitated the govern- 
 ment of Louis XVIII. ; yet it was just 
 the reverse ; and, in truth, nothing 
 augmented the difficulties of his posi- 
 tion, in the first years of the second re- 
 storation, so much as the inconsiderate 
 ardour of his party. Vengeance was 
 the universal cry. The passions of the 
 Revolution, the thirst for blood, again 
 appeared, but directed against a differ- 
 ent object. It was no longer against 
 the Royalists or aristocrats, but against 
 the Imperialists andrevolutionists, that 
 the persecution was directed. Misfor- 
 tune had made them change sides. The 
 people now loudly demanded the heads 
 of those who had formerly been the ob- 
 jects of their idolatry. It was no easy 
 matter for the Government, returning 
 after so sad a calamity as the disaster of 
 Waterloo, to moderate the vehemence 
 of a nation torn by such violent pas- 
 sions, and demanding, with great sem- 
 blance of justice, the sacrifice of such a 
 multitude of delinquents. The rank, 
 talent, and consideration, even the sex, 
 of many who were loudest in the outcry, 
 added to the difficulty of restraining it ; 
 for experience then again illustrated 
 the truth, proved by so many passages 
 in history, that when the passions are 
 violently excited, it is in the softer sex 
 that they appear with the most vio- 
 lence. Virgil never showed his know- 
 ledge of the himian heart more than 
 when he wrote the line — 
 
 " GnaruE, furens quid femina possit." 
 
 "Women," says Lamartine, " of the 
 highest rank were implacable in their 
 demands for blood. It would seem that 
 generosity is the companion of force, 
 and that the weaker the sex is the more 
 is it pitiless. History is bound^to say- 
 so in order to stigmatise it. Neither 
 
86 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. III. 
 
 high birth, nor great fortune, nor lite- 
 rary education preserved in that crisis, 
 more than it had done in many others, 
 ladies of the aristocracy of Paris and 
 of the court from the thirst for ven- 
 geance, and the sanguinary joys Avhich 
 had actuated women of the most abject 
 condition under the Reign of Terror, 
 and at the gates of the Revolutionary 
 Tribunal." 
 
 7. Louis XVIIL, as is always the 
 case with sovereigns in similar circum- 
 stances, was the lirst to feel the pres- 
 sure, and he did so even before he 
 arrived in Paris from Ghent. The 
 necessity of choosing his ministers as 
 soon as "the battle of Waterloo had re- 
 opened to him the path to the throne, 
 at once brought it home to the mon- 
 arch. Chateaubriand had held the 
 portfolio of the Interior during the 
 exile of the court at Ghent, and by his 
 great abilities, evinced in man}'- articles 
 in the Courier de Gancl, had power- 
 fully contributed to aid the Royalist 
 cause when it seemed desperate, and 
 was all but deserted by the world. 
 But experience has abundantly proved 
 that the independence of real genius 
 is in general but ill calculated for 
 the address and suppleness necessary 
 for success in courts ; and that Lord 
 North was right when he said, on 
 being urged to bring Dr Johnson into 
 Parliament, where his great abilities, 
 it was thought, might aid the Ministry 
 — "Sir, he is an elephant ; but he is 
 as likely to trample down his friends 
 as his enemies ! " M. de Blacas was 
 the Prime Minister of the fugitive 
 monarch ; but though Louis was very 
 partial to him, his known unpopularity 
 in France, owing to the violence of his 
 royalist opinions, rendered it impos- 
 sible for him to continue to hold that 
 office when the court returned toAvards 
 Paris. Pozzo di Borgo, the moment 
 the news of the battle of \Vaterloo Avas 
 received, wrote to Louis to set out 
 immediately, and travel quickly, or 
 he might find his place taken before 
 he arrived. To that timely informa- 
 tion Chateaubriand does not hesitate 
 to say the King owed his restoration to 
 the throne. As ^L de Blacas was of 
 necessity dismissed, the office of Prime 
 
 ]\Iinister was vacant, and Louis, who 
 instantly set out from Ghent on re- 
 ceiving Pozzo di Borgo's letter, at iirst 
 thouglit of ottering it to M. de Chateau- 
 briand, and even went so far as to say 
 to him, "lam going to separate from 
 M. de Blacas ; the place is vacant, M. 
 de Chateaubriand." 
 
 8. But the monarch soon found that, 
 in a constitutional monarchy, the so- 
 vereign has not in reality the choice 
 even of his oaati ministers. Ere he 
 had reached the French frontier, ;M. de 
 Talleyrand had arrived ; and though 
 in the first instance coldly received by 
 Louis, his great intluence, and the 
 important part he had played in the 
 first restoration, in a manner forced 
 him upon that monarch as the suc- 
 cessor of M. de Blacas. A more 
 serious difficulty arose soon after, from 
 the proposal to take Fouche into the 
 Cabinet, to which the King, as Avell 
 he might, evinced the utmost repug- 
 nance. He was strongly supported, 
 however, by the Count d'Artois and 
 the whole extreme Royalists, whom 
 he had succeeded in persuading that 
 without his co-operation the Restora- 
 tion was impossible. Talleyrand also 
 espoused his cause, as did IMarshal 
 Macdonald and Hyde de Neuville ; 
 and the Duke of Wellington, who 
 came up and had an interview Avith 
 Louis at ]\lons, officially urged Louis 
 to submit to the cruel necessity. A 
 formal cabinet council was held at 
 Gonesse on the 25th June on the sub- 
 ject, and Chateaubriand, with the 
 utmost vehemence, maintained the 
 opposite side. "The elcA'ation," said 
 he, " of such a man must produce one 
 of two results : the abolition of the 
 Charter, or the iaW of the ministry at 
 the commencement of the session. Let 
 us figure to ourselves such a minister 
 on the 21st January,* interrupted 
 every moment by a deputy from Lyons 
 with the Avords, ' You are the man ! ' 
 JSIen of that stamp can never l:e osten- 
 sibly beat Avith the mutes of the serag- 
 lio of Bajazet or the mutes of the 
 seraglio of Napoleon. What Avould 
 come of the ministers if a deputy from 
 
 * The day on Avluch Louis XVI. was exe- 
 cuted. 
 
1815.] 
 
 the tribune, with a Moniteur of the 
 9th August in his hand, should de- 
 mand the expulsion of Fouche from 
 the Ministry, as, in his own words, 
 * a robber and a terrorist, whose atro- 
 cious and criminal conduct reflected 
 dishonour and opprobrium on any 
 assembly of which he may be a 
 member ? ' " 
 
 9. Strong as these considerations 
 were, the necessity of the case was still 
 stronger, and all the practical men 
 about the King impressed upon him 
 so urgently the impossibility of guid- 
 ing the vessel of the state through the 
 breakers with which it was surrounded, 
 without the aid of so experienced a 
 pilot, that he was obliged most reluc- 
 tantly, at the eleventh hour, to sub- 
 mit. M. Talleyrand was named Pre- 
 sident of the Council and Minister of 
 Foreign Affairs ; Fouche, Minister of 
 Police, with the superintendence of 
 public opinion ; Baron Louis resumed 
 the seals of Minister of Finance ; M. 
 Pasquier became Garde des Sceaux ; 
 Gouvion St Cyr, Minister at War ; M. 
 Jaucourt, of the Marine ; the Duke de 
 Eichelieu, the Household of the King. 
 M. Pozzo di Borgo was offered the 
 Ministry of the Interior, but declined 
 it. Chateaubriand retired, being re- 
 solved to take no part in a Ministry of 
 which Fouche was a member. The 
 party of the Count d'Artois were in 
 transports, not less at the retirement 
 of the sturdy Royalist, than at the 
 admission of the dexterous regicide. 
 *' Without Fouche," they exclaimed, 
 * ' there can be no safety for France. He 
 alone has saved France ; he alone can 
 complete the work he has begun." 
 Every consideration of principle, hon- 
 our, loyalty, consistency, Avas forgot- 
 ten in the universal joy at regaining 
 their offices and emoluments by the 
 aid of the arch-traitor. Many went so 
 far as to assert that, if their heads were 
 still on their shoulders, they owed it 
 to Fouche. Louis XVIII. and Cha- 
 teaubriand, though constrained to 
 yield to the torrent, were not less 
 decidedly of an opposite opinion ; and 
 before separating at St Denis, on their 
 advance to Paris, they had the follow- 
 ing remarkable conversation: — *'Eh 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 87 
 
 bien ! " said Louis XVIII., when they 
 were left alone. "Eh bien, sire," re- 
 plied Chateaubriand, " you have taken 
 the Duke of Otranto." " It was un- 
 avoidable," replied the monarch ; 
 " from my brother to the hailli de 
 coupon, who at least is not suspected, 
 all said I could not do otherwise. 
 What think you of it ? " " Sire," re- 
 plied Chateaubriand, "the thing is 
 done : I request ]>ermission of your 
 Majesty to be silent." "No, no, 
 speak out ; you know how I have resist- 
 ed ever since we left Ghent." " Sire, I 
 only obey your orders ; pardon my 
 fidelity; I think it is all over with 
 the monarchy." The King remained 
 some time silent, and Chateaubriand 
 began to fear he would have cause to 
 repent his boldness, when at length he 
 answered, "To say the truth, M. de 
 Chateaubriand, I am of your opinion." 
 10. Before leaving Cambray, the 
 King, on the 28th June, issued a pro- 
 clamation to the French people, which 
 deserves a place in history, from the 
 magnanimity which it breathes, and 
 the spirit of moderation, in the most 
 difficult circumstances, by which it 
 was distinguished. ' ' The gates of my 
 kingdom," said he, "are opened be- 
 fore me ; I hasten to collect my wan- 
 dering subjects, to place myself a 
 second time between the Allied armies 
 and the French, in the hope that the 
 regard which I hope they feel for me 
 may turn to the advantage of my sub- 
 jects. That is the only part which I 
 wish to take in the war ; I have not 
 permitted any Prince of my family to 
 enter any foreign corps, and I have 
 restrained the courage of my servants, 
 who were desirous of ranging them- 
 selves in arms around my person. 
 Returned to the soil of my country, I 
 rejoice to speak to my people in the 
 voice of confidence. When I first 
 appeared among them, I found the 
 minds of men carried away and agi- 
 tated by passions, difficulties, and 
 obstacles. Faults were scarcely to be 
 avoided in such circumstances ; per- 
 haps they were committed. There are 
 times when even the greatest purity of 
 intention will not sufifice ; when some- 
 times it even misleads. Experience is 
 
88 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. iir. 
 
 then the only safe guide ; it shall not 
 be thrown away : I wish all that can 
 save France. ]My subjects have learned 
 by bitter proofs that the principle of 
 legitimacy in sovereigns is one of the 
 fundamental bases of the social order 
 — the only one which can establish 
 in the midst of a great people a wise 
 and well-regulated liberty. That doc- 
 trine has been promulgated as that of 
 entire Europe. I had consecrated it 
 beforehand in my Charter ; and I have 
 in view to add to it such guarantees as 
 may secure its benefits. Much has 
 been said, of late, of the projected re- 
 storation of titles and feudal rights : 
 that fable, invented by the common 
 enemy, has no need of being refuted. 
 It is not to be expected that the King 
 of France is to demean himself to reply 
 to calumnies and lies. If the holders 
 of national domains have conceived 
 disquietudes, the Charter should reas- 
 sure them. Have I not myself pro- 
 posed to the Chambers, and caused to 
 be executed, sales of those properties ? 
 That proof of my sincerity is decisive ; 
 I do not intend to banish from my 
 presence any but the men whose re- 
 nown is a subject of grief to France 
 and terror to Europe. In the con- 
 spiracy which they have set on foot, I 
 perceive many misled, some guilty; 
 I promise — 1 who, as Europe knows, 
 have never promised in vain — to par- 
 don all the Frenchmen who have been 
 misled, all that has passed from the 
 day when I quitted Lille in the midst 
 of so many tears, until that when I re- 
 entered Chambray in the middle of so 
 many acclamations. But the blood of 
 my children has flowed from a treach- 
 ery without example in the annals of 
 the world. That treachery has brought 
 the stranger into the heart of France ; 
 every day reveals to me a new disaster. 
 I owe it, then, to the dignity of my 
 throne, the interest of my people, the 
 repose of Europe, to except from the 
 pardon the instigators and authors of 
 that horrible calamity. They shall be 
 marked out for the vengeance of the 
 law by the two Chambers, whom I 
 propose to assemble without delay. 
 Frenchmen, such are the sentiments 
 which he whom time cannot change, 
 
 nor misfortune exhaust, nor injustice 
 depress, brings back into the midst of 
 you. The King, whose ancestors liave 
 reigned over you for eight centuries, 
 returns to devote the remainder of his 
 days to your defence and consolation." 
 11. The King arrived at St Denis on 
 the 6th July, but he remained two days 
 there, awaiting the occupation of the 
 capital by the English and Prussian 
 troops. They made their public and 
 triumphant entry on the 7th July, and 
 on the day following it was determined 
 that the Monarch should make his en- 
 trance. M. Decazes, dreading the Fau- 
 bourg St Denis, through which the 
 cortege required to pass, and which 
 was in a violent state of fermentation, 
 advised Louis to postpone the entry 
 till the night ; but the King replied 
 in a worthy spirit, in allusion to tho 
 nocturnal entry of Kapoleon on the 
 20th March, " Xo, 1 will tra verso 
 Paris at mid-day, and in the middle 
 of my people ; when they see their 
 King in France, conspirators disap- 
 pear." Still the ministers insisted, 
 and, as the King proposed to enter in 
 an open carriage, they represented that 
 a shot or a stone, thrown from one of 
 the roofs in the Rue St Denis, might 
 prove fatal to the country. " There is 
 a misfortune," said he, "which I shall 
 never know — that of fearing my peo- 
 ple." In effect, the King made his 
 entry at noon on the 8th. Though 
 the utmost efforts were made by the 
 police to put the people on a "v^Tong 
 scent, the crowd was immense on the 
 passage ; from the Porte St Denis, 
 where the procession entered the capi- 
 tal, to the Tuileries, where the King 
 alighted, the streets seemed paved 
 with human heads. Ever passionately 
 fond of theatrical display, the Paris- 
 ians on this occasion had a still more 
 pressing motive for crowding to see the 
 entry ; they sought a momentary dis- 
 traction to their thoughts— they hoped 
 to see in the pacific monarch the dove 
 with the olive branch, which returned 
 with the glad tidings that the Deluge 
 was retiring. The National Guard in 
 full uniform everywhere lined the 
 streets, and evinced for the most part, 
 with perfect sincerity, the utmost en- 
 
1815.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 89 
 
 tliusiasm on the occasion. The ap- 
 plause was universal ; white flags were 
 generally hung out from the windows 
 or suspended from the roofs, and the 
 cheers of the multitude resembled 
 rather the exultation felt at the sight 
 of a triumphant conqueror, than the 
 feelings awakened by tlie return of a 
 fugitive monarch in the rear of foreign 
 bayonets. The partisans of Napoleon, 
 few in number, humiliated in feeling, 
 and execrated by their countrymen, 
 had retired with the army behind the 
 Loire, or sheltered themselves in ob- 
 scure corners of the metropolis. The 
 feelings of all present were unanimous ; 
 tears flowed down many cheeks ; the 
 extremity of disaster had reconciled 
 man^^ enemies — caused many feuds to 
 be forgotten; cries of "Vive Henri 
 lY. ! "— " Vive Louis XYIIL ! " were 
 heard on all sides ; and in the midst 
 of unparalleled difficulties and public 
 disasters, the monarch experienced a 
 few mimites of heart-felt joy as he re- 
 entered the palace of his fathers. 
 
 12, But the pleasing illusion was of 
 short duration ; and Louis soon expe- 
 rienced the bitter truth, that the worst 
 possible foundation for a dynasty is 
 conquest by foreign arms. It is im- 
 possible to imagine the violence of the 
 victorious Royalists, or the urgency 
 with which they besieged the Sover- 
 eign for vengeance, speedy, general, 
 and unrelenting, against the authors 
 of all their calamities. An entire 
 purification of the Chamber of Peers, 
 of the magistracy, of the army, and of 
 the ministry; the restoration to the 
 provinces of the power of the clergy, 
 and of the noblesse, were the condi- 
 tions held out as indispensable by such 
 of the Royalists as were most moder- 
 ate, and least inclined to sanguinary 
 measures. Argument was out of the 
 question : there was no discussion or 
 division of opinion in the saloons of 
 the Faubourg St Germain ; universal 
 transport gave vent to the universal 
 fury. But in the midst of these dan- 
 gerous excesses, the King had a very 
 difficult part to play ; for there were 
 perils, and no light ones, on the other 
 side ; and the ^linistry contained men 
 who were themselves the chief objects 
 
 of popular reprobation, and yet whose 
 aid could not be dispensed with in the 
 critical state of public affairs. Talley- 
 rand and Fouch^, on their part, as 
 strongly inculcated the extreme dan- 
 ger of any violent reactionary move- 
 ment, and represented the strength of 
 the party in France which was at- 
 tached to the principles of the I'cvolu- 
 tion, enriched by its spoils, and reso- 
 lute not to be stripped of any of its 
 accjuisitions. To add to the general 
 difficulties, the Allied cabinets loudly 
 demanded some guarantee for the peace 
 of Europe, by the punishment of the 
 most guilty among those who had dis- 
 turbed it; while the French, on all 
 sides, as loudly complained of the 
 dreadful exactions of the Allied troops, 
 and insisted that the first care of the 
 sovereign should be to endeavour to 
 procure some mitigation of the suffer- 
 ings of his own subjects. 
 
 13. But there was a question of still 
 greater nicety, and attended with more 
 lasting consequences, which remained 
 behind, and that was the convocation 
 of the legislature, without the aid of 
 which it was evidently impossible that 
 any of these objects could be attained, 
 or even the government be carried on 
 for any length of time. Two plans 
 here suggested themselves ; but etich 
 was attended with very great difficul- 
 ties. The one was to convoke the de- 
 puties of 1814, who were the existing 
 legislature at the period of the return 
 of Napoleon from Elba ; passing over 
 the Hundred Days entirely, as a usur- 
 pation of no legal effect, and entitled 
 to no consideration. The second was, 
 to have a new election. It was impos- 
 sible to go on with the Chamber recent- 
 ly elected under Napoleon, as it was of 
 so extremely democratic a character 
 that even his firm hand had proved 
 unable to guide it. To an English- 
 man, accustomed as the people of this 
 country have been to the vicissitudes 
 of a constitutional monarchj^ there 
 could be no doubt what comse in these 
 circumstances should have been pur- 
 sued. This was to convoke simply 
 both Chambers as they stood at the 
 departure of the King for Ghent, as 
 was done in this country on the re- 
 
90 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. III. 
 
 storation of Charles 11. in 1661. But 
 the French cabinet decided otherwise, 
 on the ground that the first requisite 
 of a representative legislature is to be 
 in harmony with the feelings of the 
 people ; that the events which had 
 passed since the preceding March were 
 equivalent to an ordinary century ; 
 and that no unity of feeling could be 
 expected between the representatives 
 of the first and the people of the 
 second restoration. 
 
 14. But another question was wound 
 up with the first, and upon its decision 
 the future fate of France in a great 
 measure hinged. By what laws were 
 the elections to be regulated ? By 
 those of the Empire, or of preceding 
 times during the Revolution ? The 
 Acte Additionnel, passed by ISI'apoleon 
 during the Hundred Days, was felt to 
 have contained some important modi- 
 fications of the charter in this respect ; 
 and it had been determined at Ghent 
 to adopt some of them, if a second 
 restoration should take place. In par- 
 ticular, the reduction in the age requi- 
 site for a seat in the Chamber of 
 Deputies, an increase in their number, 
 and the power of proposing laws or 
 resolutions, seemed desirable, and in 
 harmony with the spirit of the age. 
 In the absence of any existing legis- 
 lature, there was no authority from 
 which these changes could emanate 
 but that of the King in council ; and 
 the 14th article of the charter, which 
 reserved power to the King of intro- 
 ducing such modifications in the 
 charter as the interest of the State 
 required, seemed to give sufficient 
 authority for such a proceeding. In 
 conformity Avith these views, an ordi- 
 nance was issued, which stated in the 
 preamble : "It was his ^Majesty's in- 
 tention to have proposed to the two 
 Chambers a law for the regulation of 
 election of deputies for the depart- 
 ments. His wish was to have modi- 
 fied, in conformity with the lessons of 
 experience und the well -understood 
 wishes of the nation, many articles of 
 the charter, especially those touching 
 the conditions of eligibility, the num- 
 ber of deputies, the initiative in laws, 
 and the mode of deliberation. The 
 
 misfortunes of the times having inter- 
 rupted the sitting of the Chambers, 
 the King still felt that at present the 
 number of deputies in the departments 
 was much too small to render the 
 nation sufficiently represented. It 
 seemed in an especial manner to be 
 necessary that the national represen- 
 tation should be numerous ; that its 
 powers should be periodically renewed ; 
 that they should emanate directly 
 from the electoral colleges ; in fine, 
 that the elections should be the ex- 
 pression of public opinion at the mo- 
 ment. As no act of the legislature 
 can authorise these changes, any more 
 than the modifications intended to be 
 introduced into the charter, the King 
 thought it was just that the nation 
 should, in the mean time, enjoy the 
 advantages it would derive from a 
 legislature at once more numerous and 
 less restricted in the conditions of 
 eligibility. Wishing, at the same 
 time, that any modification of the 
 charter should not be considered as 
 definite until it had received the con- 
 stitutional sanction, the proposed or- 
 dinance will be the first object in the 
 deliberations of the Chambers. Thus 
 the legislature will jointly enact on 
 the law of election, and the changes 
 to be made in the charter in that par- 
 ticular ; and the King only takes the 
 initiative in them so far as they are 
 indispensable and urgent, and under 
 the obligation to follow as closely as* 
 possible the charter and the forms 
 already in usage. " 
 
 15. In pursuance of these motives, 
 the Chamber of Deputies, elected in 
 1814, was dissolved, and a new one 
 summoned on an entirely new basis, 
 which rested only on the royal ordi- 
 nance. The electoral colleges were 
 divided anew^ into Colleges of Depart- 
 ments, and Colleges of Arrondisse- 
 ments. The latter presented the 
 candidates, among whom the colleges 
 of departments chose the half of the 
 deputies. The electors were permitted 
 to vote at twenty -one, instead of 
 twenty -five, the time fixed by the 
 charter. The deputies were declared 
 eligible at twenty -five, instead of 
 thirty, the former age. The nimiber 
 
1815.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 91 
 
 of deputies was increased from 262 to 
 395 ; and all members of the Legion 
 of Honour were admitted, on that 
 qualification alone, to the suffrage. 
 The payment of direct taxes to the 
 amount of 300 francs (£12) was the 
 general basis of the qualification for 
 voting. It is particularly worthy of 
 observation, that this great change in 
 the constitution of the country, intro- 
 ducing an entire new class of voters, 
 drawn from the army, and adding no 
 less than 133 new members to the 
 Chamber of Deputies, was introduced 
 by the sole authority of the King, 
 without the concurrence of any other 
 branch of the legislature, and by a 
 royal ordinance alone. But being for 
 the most part a concession in favour 
 of the democratic party, the thing 
 passed Avithout objection, and they 
 silentl)'' acquiesced in an exercise of 
 the royal power which, in this instance 
 at least, was in their favour. The 
 Chamber was convoked for the 24th 
 September. 
 
 16. By this ordinance an immense 
 deal of power was thrown into the 
 hands of the prefects of departments, 
 who were, especially in the south, 
 almost entirely under the direction of 
 the Royalist committees, composed of 
 the most ardent and vehement of that 
 party. The Duke d'Angouleme had, 
 in the first tumult, and amidst the 
 first necessities of the restoration, 
 received from the King the most un- 
 limited power for the organisation of 
 the royal authority in the southern 
 provinces, which he had traversed in 
 their full extent, and where he had 
 rendered the most important services. 
 He was intrusted in them all A^th the 
 nomination of new prefects in lieu of 
 those placed by Napoleon, subject to 
 the approbation, however, of the King 
 in council. As he was entirely ignor- 
 ant of the proper persons to be nomi- 
 nated, he necessarily followed the 
 advice of the Royalist committees ; 
 and they proposed persons so violent 
 that great part of his nominations 
 were not confirmed by the King. As 
 soon as the Duke d'Angouleme was 
 informed of this, he hastened to Paris 
 to lay his complaints before the 
 
 throne ; but he was without difficulty 
 brought to see that, in so imj)ortant 
 an afi'air, and one on which the en- 
 suing elections would in a great mea- 
 sure depend, it was indispensable that 
 the prefects should be in entire har- 
 mony with the cabinet. It Avas not 
 so easy a matter, hoAvever, to deal 
 Avith the Count d'Artois, and the 
 Royalist committees in the north, 
 which Avere under his direction ; and 
 such Avas the resistance experienced 
 in many places by the royal prefects, 
 that Talleyrand Avent so far as to pro- 
 pose in the cabinet that that Prince 
 should be exiled from the kingdom. 
 This strong measure AA-as not gone into, 
 but every efibrt Avas made to strengthen 
 the interior administration. M. DE 
 Barante was appointed Secretary to 
 the Minister of the Interior, and M. 
 GuizoT Minister of Justice ; and a 
 circular, equally eloquent and judi- 
 cious, soon after issued by the GoATrn- 
 ment to the prefects, which had the 
 happiest influence, revealed the pen 
 of the former of these accomplished 
 AATiters.* But it augured ill for the 
 hanuony of administration,, and the 
 future fate of the monarchy, AA-hen 
 schisms so serious took place so early 
 in the royal faniily. At length mat- 
 
 * " Faites sentir aux habitans de votre de- 
 partement, coiubien le cceur du Roi souffre 
 surtout de ne pouvoir enipecber les d^sastres 
 que la guerre entraine a sa suite, niais que 
 les de.sastres seraient plus grands encore, que 
 notre avenir serait pour ainsi dire sans es- 
 peranees, si un gouveinemeiit honorable et 
 toujours esclave de sa foi, ne donnait a I'Eu- 
 rope une garantie, que rien ne pourrait sup- 
 pleer ni remplacer. Nos malheurs sont 
 grands aujourd'hui, mais il y a quatre mois 
 que tons les bons Fran(jais en geniissaient 
 d'avance, et les Aoyaient venir a la suite du 
 destructeur de notre patrie. En exposant 
 nos niaux je A'iensde tracer vos devoirs, c'est 
 en ne vous ecartan^/'ania s de la ligne consti- 
 tutionelle que suit le gouvernenieut du Roi, 
 en vous occupant sans reladie de tons les 
 details de vos fonctions, en ]iortant vos soins 
 sur la conduite et I'exp^dition des attaires, 
 en rendant a tous une jn.stice exacte et bien- 
 faisante que vous pourrlez a])aiser quelques 
 esyjrits encore exager^s et inquiets. L'appui 
 et les avantages individuels que chaque 
 citoyen recevra d'un legime de liberte, et 
 d'une administration reguliere, sont le uieil- 
 leur et nienie le seul moyen de conciliatioa 
 entre tous les partis." — Circulaire auxPreftts, 
 du Ministre de llnierievA; July 17, 1815; 
 Moniteur, July 18. 
 
92 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. III. 
 
 ters came to sucli a pass that, after a 
 few days' deliberation, an ordinance was 
 issued, Avithdrawing the powers of the 
 extraordinary commissioners, and re- 
 storing the whole power in the kingdom 
 to the prefects appointed by the King.* 
 17. Ere there was time for the royal 
 authority to olttain the benefit of these 
 judicious ordinances, in cahning, to a 
 certain degree, the passions which dis- 
 tracted the country, a new subject of 
 difficulty of the most urgent nature 
 j)reseuted itself, and that was in regard 
 to the press. Talleyrand and Fouche 
 strongly urged on the cabinet the ne- 
 cessity of some great relaxations in this 
 respect, as bringing the administration 
 more in harmony with public opinion, 
 ■which passionately longed for the con- 
 solation to be derived amidst all their 
 distresses from the liberty of complain- 
 ing. The liberty of the press had, by 
 means of the censorship, been totally 
 extinguished under Napoleon ; and 
 though restored at the first restoration 
 in 1814, it was soon found to be so 
 dangerous an arm that it was deemed 
 indispensable to impose some check 
 upon it. Accordingly, the law of 
 October 21, 1814, subjected all pam- 
 
 J)hlets or journals of less than twenty 
 eaves to the censorship. Now, how- 
 ever, when public opinion was declar- 
 ing itself so strongly in favour of the 
 restoration and against the Napoleon- 
 ists, it was thought that the journals 
 alone were to be considered as danger- 
 * *' Les circonstauces extraordinaires dans 
 lesqi;elles s'etait trouvee la France depuis 
 trois mois, et rimpossibilite de la faire gou- 
 venier par les niagistrats royalement insti- 
 tiies, avaient oblige de deleguer, soit par sa 
 JIajesteelle nieme, soit par ses niinistres, 
 des pouvoirs extraordinaires a quelques su- 
 jets devoues qui tons avaient servi avec zele 
 et courage, et qui i)resque toujours avaient 
 agi avec. su(!ces pour faire reconnaitre I'auto- 
 rite legitime. Aujourd'hui que le Roi avait 
 repris les renes de son gouvernement, que le 
 ministero etait organise eten correspondance 
 avec les adniinistrateurs nommes par sa :Ma- 
 jeste, les fonctions des commissaires extra- 
 ordinaires deveuaient superflus et meine 
 nuisibles a la niarche des affaires, en detrui- 
 sant I'unite daction qui est le premier besoin 
 de toute administration reguliere. Le Roi 
 voulait done que les fonctions des commis- 
 saires extraordinaires cessassent sur le 
 champ." — Ordonnance de 1S'"« July 1S15 ; 
 Monitetir, July 19; and Capefigoe's Hist, de 
 la Restauration, i. -'3, 2-1. 
 
 ous, and that works of thought and 
 reflection in the form of pamphlets, 
 however brief, would favour the govern- 
 ment rather than the reverse. Louis 
 did not share that opinion, and kept 
 the ordinance several days beside him 
 before it received his sanction ; but at 
 length, on the pressing solicitation of 
 his ministers, he affixed his signature 
 to the ordinance, removing the cen- 
 sorship from every publication except 
 the journals. 
 
 18. A still more hazardous subject, 
 because one more immediately affecting 
 the passions, recpiired next to be con- 
 sidered, which was the selection of the 
 delinquents who were to be capitally 
 proceeded against or banished for their 
 accession to the rebellion of 1815. 
 Fouche was intrusted with the prepar- 
 ation of the lists — ostensibly as the Min- 
 ister of Police — really as the person in 
 France best acquainted with the threads 
 of the conspiracy, and most qitalified, 
 by his familiarity with traitors, to 
 trace them out and mark them out for 
 public justice on this occasion. Many 
 circumstances rendered it indispens- 
 able to select and proceed against the 
 delinquents, and that without delay. 
 The universal opinion at the Court, 
 and among the Royalists, was, that it 
 was a deep-laid conspiracy which had 
 brought back Napoleon ; that the ar- 
 my, under the guidance of its leading 
 officers, was the principal agent in it ; 
 and that, if the chief conspirators were 
 only convicted and punished, the de- 
 lusion would be almost entirely eradi- 
 cated in the country. The great 
 majority of the nation, gi'ievously 
 wounded in their feelings by the pre- 
 sence, and injured in their purses by 
 the exactions of the Allies, loudly 
 called for the punishment of the au- 
 thors of these disasters ; while the 
 representatives of the Allied sovereigns 
 at Paris, in a voice less loud, but still 
 more effective, insisted that a great 
 example was necessary, and that the 
 leaders of a revolution which had in- 
 volved Europe again in the flames of 
 Avar, compelled a million of armed men 
 to enter France, and cost the Allied 
 poAvers at least £100,000,000 sterling, 
 must be brought tc condign justice. 
 
1815.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 93 
 
 Clemency and generosity had "been 
 tried at the first restoration, and 
 failed ; firmness and decision were the 
 qualities which had now become indis- 
 pensable. Louis was not ignorant Anth 
 what perils any measures of severity 
 against the marshals or generals of the 
 army would be attended ; but the cir- 
 cumstances left him no alternative, 
 and orders were given to Fouche to 
 prepare the lists of proscriptions. 
 
 19. The veteran traitor drew up 
 two lists, embracing a great proportion 
 of the survivors of those who had been 
 linked with himself in his innumerable 
 treacheries and treasons during his 
 long career ; and he put the crowning 
 act to the whole by countersigning the 
 ordinance which marked them out for 
 punishment. As originally prepared 
 by him, the lists were much larger 
 than Avas finally agreed to. The num- 
 ber of those ordered to leave Paris 
 within tAventy-four hours, which at 
 first contained sixty names, including 
 two ladies,* was reduced, by the hu- 
 manity of Louis, or the intercession 
 of his ministers, to thirty-eight ; and 
 nineteen were ordered to be arrested 
 and delivered to the proper military 
 tribunals for immediate trial. The 
 number, considering the magnitude of 
 the conspiracy, and the terrible results 
 which had flowed from it, was not 
 great ; but it had a melancholy inter- 
 est from the celebrity of many of the 
 names, immortal in history, which 
 were contained in it, and the great and 
 glorious deeds in French annals with 
 which they had been connected. The 
 names were — "Marshal Ney, Labe- 
 doyere, the two brothers Lallemand, 
 Drouet, D'Erlon, Lefebvre Desnou- 
 ettes, Ameile, Brayer, Gilly, ^louton 
 Duvernet, Grouchy, Clausel, Deville, 
 Bertrand, Drouot, Cambronne, Laval- 
 ette, Eovigo." To all who are ac- 
 quainted with the history of the revoh 
 utionary wars, many of these names 
 are as household Avords. The second 
 list, containing the names of those 
 who were to be banished forty leagues, 
 was more numerous, and contained 
 names not less illustrious ; but it has 
 not the absorbing interest of the for- 
 * Mesdames Hamelen and De Souza. 
 
 mer, from none of the persons con- 
 tained in it having met Avith the same 
 tragic fate.* 
 
 20. Before any person could be 
 brought to trial under this ordinance, 
 tAvo other ordinances appeared, regard- 
 ing the Chamber of the Peers. By the 
 first of these, issued on the same day 
 as the fatal lists prepared by Fouche, 
 it was declared that all those of the 
 former Chamber of Peers sitting under 
 the monarchy, Avho had accepted seats 
 in the one convoked by ISTapoIeon dur- 
 ing the Hundred Days, should be held 
 to have, ipso facto, vacated their places 
 in the former assembly, and be noAV 
 erased from the list of its members. 
 By another ordinance, dated 17tli 
 August, no less than eighty-tAvo mem- 
 bers Avere added to the peerage. This 
 large addition Avas anxiously considered 
 both by the King and his cabinet ; 
 and many names, after being inserted, 
 Avere erased, and again inserted. The 
 list, as finally arranged, contained 
 many illustrious persons, then for the 
 first time elevated, or restored to that 
 dignity, and exhibited a curious proof 
 of the A'arious and contending interests 
 Avhich had been at Avork in its forma- 
 tion. The King invested Avith the 
 peerage t M. de Blacas, the Count de 
 la Chatres, the Dukes d'Enars, d'Av- 
 aray, and d'Aumont, the Count d'Ar- 
 
 * "Les indiAadus dont les noms suivent — 
 LaA'ois, Marechal Soult, Alex. Excelinans, 
 Bassano, Marbot, Felix Lepelletier, Boulay 
 de la Meurthe, Mehul, Toussaint, Gen. La- 
 marque, Lobau, Harel, Pierre Barrere, Ar- 
 nault, Pomereul, Regnault de St Angely, 
 Arrighi de Padoua, De.ssau (fils), Garraw, 
 Real, Bouvier, Dermstard, Merlin de Douai, 
 Durbach, Dirat, Defennont, Bory St Vincent, 
 Felix Desjjortes, Gamier de Saintes, Mellinet, 
 Hullin, Cluys, Courtin, Forbin, Jancon (fils 
 aine), Letorque, Dideville— sortiront dans 
 trois jours de la ville de Paris, et se retireront 
 dans rinteriem- de la France, dans le lieu que 
 notre Ministre de la Police-Generale leur de- 
 signera, et ou ils resteront sous sa surveil- 
 lance, en attendant que les Clianibres sta- 
 tuent sur ceux d'entre eux qui devront oa 
 sortir du royaume ou etre livres a la pour- 
 suite des tnhwn^nx." — Ordonnance, July 
 24; Moniteur, July 25, 1S15. 
 
 t The right of sitting in the House of Peers, 
 or being a "Pair de France," Avas not, as iu 
 England, the birthright of oil nobility, but 
 Avas a privilege conferred on a certain num- 
 ber of them, as the Stars of the Garter or the 
 Thistle Avith us, by the gift of the Sovereign. 
 
94 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 tois, Viscount Chateaubriand, Count 
 Mathieii de Montmorency, Jules de 
 Polignac, and the Marquis de Riviere, 
 the Duke d'Angouleme, General Mon- 
 nier, Admiral Gantheaume, the Duke 
 de Berri, the Count de la Guiche, and 
 the Count de la Ferronnays, ]\I. de Tal- 
 leyrand, the Abbe de Montesquieu, the 
 Marquis d'Ormond, the Duke d'Al- 
 berg, and several others. To these 
 ■were afterwards added the sons of the 
 Duke of Montebello, of Marshal Ber- 
 thier, and ]\Iarshal Bessieres. 
 
 21. A still more momentous change 
 took place by an ordinance Avhich ap- 
 peared a few days after, on August 19, 
 making the seat in the Peers hereditary, 
 which was the subject of long and anxi- 
 ous discussions during four days in the 
 cabinet. Louis argued strongly that, 
 in agreeing to this change, he was strip- 
 ping the Crown of one of its most im- 
 portant prerogatives, and of nearly all 
 its influence in the Chamber of Peers. 
 •' With the cessation of ambition," said 
 he, "my influence over the peerage is 
 at an end. When it becomes a family 
 inheritance, 1 have no power over it : 
 I can no longer put a ring on the finger 
 of one of my own household. " Talley- 
 rand insisted vehemently for the here- 
 ditary succession: " We must have," 
 said he, "stability: we must huild for 
 a long future." At length it was carried 
 for the hereditary right ; and the pre- 
 amble of the ordinance bore — " The 
 King being desirous to give to his peo- 
 ple a new pledge of his anxiety to 
 establish in the most stable manner the 
 institutions on which the government 
 reposes, and being convinced that no- 
 thing insures more the repose of states 
 than that inheritance of feeling which 
 is created in families, by being called 
 to the exercise of important functions, 
 which creates an uninterrupted succes- 
 sion of persons in high stations, whose 
 fidelity to their prince and devotion to 
 their country are guaranteed by the 
 principles and examples they have re- 
 ceived from their fathers." There can 
 be no doubt that these observations are 
 well founded, but unfortunately some- 
 thing more is required than a seat in 
 it to render a hereditary House of Peers 
 either useful or influential — either a 
 
 [chap. III. 
 
 rampart to the Crowm, or a barrier 
 against its encroachments — and that is, 
 a corresponding succession of fortune 
 to support the dignity, which can only 
 be secured by territorial aristocracy, 
 and the right of primogeniture. Both 
 were swept away in the very commence- 
 ment of the Revolution, and with them 
 the possibility of reconstructing society 
 in France on the basis of European 
 freedom, in Avhich a powerful here- 
 ditary aristocracy is an essential ele- 
 ment. Without it there remains to 
 society only the choice of Oriental 
 despotism, or American equality ; the 
 tyranny of pachas and agas, or prefects, 
 in the Old World, or tlie imperious 
 commands of a numerical majority in 
 the New. 
 
 22. In the midst of these important 
 discussions, the Allied sovereigns re- 
 turned to Paris. The importance of 
 the negotiations of which it had become 
 the theatre rendered their presence in- 
 dispensable. But their entry was very 
 difterent from what it had been the 
 year before : the melodramatic display 
 of generosity was at an end, the reality 
 of vengeance was to commence. They 
 came without external pomp or parade, 
 and after their arrival were entirely 
 occupied with the important negotia- 
 tions which were going forward. If 
 they appeared at all, it was attended 
 by a single footman, and driving in a 
 travelling caleche with a pair of horses. 
 They had no need of the pomp of roy- 
 alty in the metropolis ; their attendants 
 were sufficiently numerous through the 
 country. They extended from the Brit- 
 ish Channel to the Pp'enees. Never had 
 such an inundation of armed men pour- 
 ed over a single country. Eight hundred 
 thousand warriors in the highest state 
 of discipline and equipment had already 
 entered, and the stream still continued 
 to flow on Avithout any visible abate- 
 ment. The eastern provinces could no 
 longer contain the armed multitude ; 
 already they extended over the central 
 parts of the country, and were even 
 approaching those which were washed 
 by the Atlantic waves. A certain dis- 
 trict behind the Loire, occupied by the 
 troops which had retired from Paris, 
 and the "v\Teck of the army which had 
 
1815.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 95 
 
 fought at "Waterloo, alone remained in 
 the hands of the French, surrounded 
 by the innumerable multitude of their 
 enemies ; but even this last relic of 
 nationality was ere long swept away. 
 
 23. The army which liad retired un- 
 der the command of Marshal Davoust 
 behind the Loire was still 45, 000 strong, 
 with 1 20 guns ; and as it was for the 
 most part composed of the corps of 
 ]\larshal Grouchy, which had, compara- 
 tively speaking, suffered little during 
 the brief campaign in the Netherlands, 
 it presented a very imposing appear- 
 ance. The peasants in the depart- 
 ments in which it was cantoned, seeing 
 those dense battalions, splendid regi- 
 ments of cavalry, and long trains of 
 artillery and caissons, still in the finest 
 possible order, could not be persuaded 
 that the army had suffered any serious 
 reverse, and loudly demanded to be in- 
 corporated in its ranks, and led against 
 the enemy. The soldiers, and nearly 
 all the colonels and inferior officers, 
 shared the same sentiments ; insomuch 
 that it was with no small difficulty that 
 they were restrained within the bounds 
 of discipline, and prevented from break- 
 ing into open revolt. The chiefs of La 
 Yendee had entered into correspond- 
 ence with them, and offered to array 
 the whole strength of the western pro- 
 vinces round the sacred standard of 
 national independence. But noble as 
 these sentiments were, and honourable 
 to the men who in this extremity for- 
 got their former feuds in the common 
 desire to save their country, they were 
 far from being shared by the superior 
 officers and generals of the army — 
 ]\rarshal Davoust, General Haxo, Gen- 
 eral Gerard, and Kellerman, Avho were 
 at its head. "Without undervaluing 
 their own resources, they Avere more 
 aware of the strength of the enemy 
 opposed to them. It was in vain to 
 expect that 45,000 or 50,000 men could 
 maintain a contest with 400,000 or 
 500,000, who could be brought to bear 
 upon them. Davoust accordingly is- 
 sued a proclamation to the soldiers on 
 the 14th July, in which he called on 
 the troops to unite themselves to the 
 King ; and, however unpalatable to 
 them the stern realities of their situa- 
 
 tion, it carried conviction to every 
 breast,* 
 
 24. So general was the feeling of the 
 absolute necessity of these sentiments, 
 that on the day following Davoust was 
 enabled to present to the King the 
 unqualified sulmiission of the troops. 
 "Sire!" said he, "the army, full of 
 confidence in your generosity, and de- 
 termined to prevent, by uniting itself 
 to you, civil war, and to bring back, 
 by their examj)le, such as may be 
 estranged from you, flatters itself that 
 you will receive its submission with 
 kindness, and that, throwing a veil 
 over the past, you will not close your 
 heart to any of your children." On 
 the day following, Davoust ventured 
 on the still more decisive and perilous 
 step of causing them to hoist the white 
 flag. ' ' Soldiers ! " said he, ' ' it remains 
 for you to complete the act of submis- 
 sion you have just made, by a painful 
 but necessary sacrifice. Hoist the white 
 flag ! I know that I demand of you 
 a great sacrifice; during twenty -five 
 years we have gloried in the colours 
 which we bear. But, great as it is, the 
 good of our country demands that sac- 
 rifice. I am incapable, soldiers, of giv- 
 ing you an order which is contrary to 
 your honour : preserve for your country 
 a brave and numerous army." 
 
 25. But although the army of the 
 Loire had thus hoisted the white flag, 
 and submitted to the royal authority, 
 it still formed a formidable body, and 
 its dissolution was justly deemed by 
 the Allied sovereigns an indispensable 
 
 * "Les commissaires donnent I'asKurance 
 qu'une reaction lie sera pas a craiudre, que 
 les passions seront dominees, les hommes 
 respectes, les priucipes sauves ; qu'il n'y aura 
 point de destitutions aibitraires dans I'armee, 
 que son honneur sera a couvert. On en a 
 pour gage la nomination dii Marechal St Cyr 
 au ministfere de la guerre, celle de Fouclie au 
 niinistere de la police. Ces conditions sont 
 aeceptables. L'interet national doit reunir 
 franchenient I'annee au Roi. Cet interet 
 exige quelques sacrifices ; faisons les avec une 
 energie inodeste. L'armee, rarniee unie de- 
 viendraau besoin le centre de ralliemeut des 
 Fiangais et des Royalistes eux-nieines ! Unis- 
 sons-nous, serrons-nous, ne nous separona 
 jamais. Soyons Frangais ! Ce fut toujours, 
 vous le savez, le sentiment qui domina mon 
 anie. II ne me quittera qu'avec mon dernier 
 soupir. " — Proclamation du Marechal Davoutt 
 July 14, 1815 ; Moniteur, July 15. 
 
HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. iir. 
 
 condition of ca general peace. The Em- 
 peror Alexander, in particular, was in 
 an especial manner urgent upon that 
 point, and through his minister, Nessel- 
 rode, demanded, in peremptory terms, 
 it3 immediate disbanding. Several 
 secret notes had been presented to that 
 sovereign, which painted in strong but 
 not exaggerated colours the danger of 
 allowing a powerful body of turbulent 
 men, trained by twenty years of war 
 and licence, to remain as a nucleus for 
 the disallected in the heart of the coun- 
 try.* No sooner was the formal de- 
 mand for the dissolution of the army 
 of the Loii-e presented by the Allied 
 sovereigns to the French Government, 
 than they took the most effective means 
 to enforce compliance with the requisi- 
 tion. 225,000 men rapidly defiled to- 
 wards the Loire, and took up positions 
 around it in every direction, which 
 rendered resistance or escape alike im- 
 'possible. The King made no opposi- 
 tion to the demand, too happy to have 
 the powerful armies of the Allies to 
 enforce a measure, indispensable alike 
 for the stability of his throne and the 
 peace of his kingdom. No new ordi- 
 nance was promulgated ; the ordinance 
 of 23d March 1815, which proclaimed 
 the disbanding of the army on Napo- 
 leon's return, was only officially pub- 
 lished, and ordered to be acted upon by 
 the authorities. Thus France was spared 
 the mortification of seeingher army dis- 
 banded by an ordinance emanating di- 
 rectly from the Allied headquarters. 
 
 26. Marshal Gouvion St Cyr, as 
 -war minister, was intrusted with the 
 
 * ''Viiijrt annees de guerre et de licence ont 
 forme en France une population niilitaire qui 
 se refuse a tout ordre et a toute soumission. 
 L'armee voulait la chance des hazards, les 
 dotations, et les avancements dans les grades. 
 Elle ne les voyait que dans le rappel de son 
 chef, et elle y etait decidee avec rage. L'ar- 
 mee FranQaise rappelle a la fois les souvenirs 
 des Maraeluks en Egypte, de la Garde Preto- 
 rienne a Rome, des Arabes fanatiques sous 
 Mahomet. Pour servir a I'epoque de la paix, 
 cette annee doit etre decomposee, morali.=;ee, 
 si on ne parvient pas a en detruire les trois 
 quarts. II faut done I'attaquer sans perdre 
 de temps. II n'y a pas a he.^iter ; il faut que 
 cette annee soit attaquee, detruite, les prison- 
 niers conduits en Russie doivent y rester 
 assez longtemps pour s'amender comme les 
 deportes a Botany Bay."— Capefigue, i. 45, 
 i6. 
 
 regulations for the reorganisation of 
 the army. The gi-eat object in view, 
 in that measure, was to extirpate the 
 esprit de corps which attached so 
 strongly to particular regiments from 
 the memory of glorious deeds, and 
 substitute in its room the attachments 
 and associations connected with the 
 provinces. For this purpose the whole 
 army Avas not only disbanded, but en- 
 tirely broken up, the officers and men 
 detached from each other, and re-ar- 
 ranged in new battalions formed after 
 a totally different manner. Eighty- 
 six departmental legions, of three bat- 
 talions each, were formed, and fifty- 
 two of cavalry and artillery. Every 
 soldier, conscript or recruit, was en- 
 rolled in the legion of the department 
 where he had been born ; and the old 
 soldiers of the Empire were so scattered 
 through the different legions that not 
 only was their spirit broken, but their 
 numbers rapidly declined, and their 
 ascendancy was at an end. This plan, 
 the execution of which was intrusted 
 to the experienced hand of I\Iarshal 
 Macdonald, was admirably calculated 
 to extinguish the military esi^rit de 
 corps in the army, which had proved 
 .'^0 fatal to France and to Europe ; but 
 it was likely to induce hazards of a 
 different kind if serious internal trou- 
 bles arose again, and the ardent Royal- 
 ist legions of La Vendee and Provence 
 came to be arrayed against the sturdy 
 republicans of Burgundy cr Alsace. 
 
 27. Another mortification, not so 
 great in reality, but more galling, be- 
 cause more visible to the senses, aAvait- 
 ed the Parisians in the breaking up of 
 the great museum, and the restoration 
 of those glorious works of art which, 
 had been carried off by the French, 
 from all the countries which they had 
 conquered. This important event, 
 which has been already noticed as clos- 
 ing the great drama of the French Re- 
 volution, requires to be again mentioned 
 in this place, as commencing the new- 
 drama which was to succeed it ; for 
 such is the ceaseless succession of hu- 
 man events, and the connection between 
 the chains which unite them, that 
 what appears to terminate with poetic 
 justice one epoch, is found to have 
 
1815.] HISTORY OF EUROPE. S7 
 
 been only the commencement of fresh 
 difficulties in a new one. Among the 
 many embarrassments Avhich beset the 
 government of the Bourbons during 
 the first years of the Restoration, not 
 the least arose from the ulcerated feel- 
 ings which this great act of retributive 
 justice awakened in the breasts of the 
 French people. They were incapable 
 of appreciating the dignified self-re- 
 straint which led the Allies, when they 
 had the power, to abstain from follow- 
 ing their bad example, and to confine 
 the abstraction to the restitution of the 
 works of art which they had reft from 
 the European states. They saw only 
 in the breaking up of the museum a 
 convincing proof of the reality of their 
 subjugation, and themselves experi- 
 enced the anguish which they had so 
 often inflicted on others. No one 
 could deny the justice of their doom — 
 " Neque enim lex sequior ulla, 
 Quaia necAs artifices arte perire sua." 
 
 But no one need be told that, however 
 much the justice of this rule may 
 satisfy the feelings of others, it is any- 
 thing but a consolation to the sufferers 
 under it ; and that, of all the aggra- 
 vations of the pains of punishment, 
 there is, perhaps, none so great as the 
 secret consciousness of having ourselves 
 induced it. 
 
 28. The state of the finances of the 
 "kingdom was so desperate that nothing 
 could well exceed it ; and if some breath- 
 ing time had not been given by the 
 Allies in their requisitions, utter ruin 
 must have overtaken the French na- 
 tion. Baron Louis, the new finance- 
 minister, had entered upon the duties 
 of his office on the evening of the 10th 
 July. He found the cotfers empty, 
 
 * Income and Expenditure of France for the last years of the War and 
 FIRST OF the Restoration. 
 Receipts. • Expenditure. 
 
 £ Fr-iiKS. £ 
 
 or 42,800,000 1,076,014,000 or 43,000,000 
 
 „ 4(5,000,000 .... 1,171,418,000 ,, 46,800.000 
 „ 2.5,500,000 .... 709,394,626 „ 28,280,000 
 
 „ 85,000,000 .... 931,441,404 „ 37,200,000 
 
 ,, 41,400,000 .... 1,055,854,028 „ 42,250,000 
 — Statistique de la France— Finance, p. 12. 
 
 During the reign of Napoleon, nearly half the expenditure of France was levied on foreign 
 states, and did not appear in the finance accounts at all. From 1814 downwards it was 
 reduced to its own resources. The great expenditure of 1S16 was owing to the war contri- 
 butions to the Allies. 
 
 VOL. I. ' G 
 
 credit ruined, the revenue forestalled 
 by the requisitions in tlie provinces, 
 or dried up by the impossibility of 
 collecting any taxes. In the general 
 despair, every one looked only to his 
 own security ; and the most obvious 
 and efficacious way of doing that ap- 
 peared to be for every person to hold 
 fast by his own property, and cease 
 altogether the payment of any demand 
 by another. Revenue there was none ; 
 for the bayonets of the Allies, who had 
 overspread three-fourths of the terri- 
 tory of France, forced payment of their 
 scourging requisitions without leaving 
 a sous to meet any other demand. 
 Several measures to raise a supply for 
 the immediate necessities of the State 
 were adopted, as the sale of woods, 
 and certain properties belonging to 
 municipalities, which the Crown liad 
 a right to dispose of. But this was 
 a trifling and temporary relief only ; 
 the material thing was to get some 
 modification in the grinding requisi- 
 tions of the Allies, which rendered all 
 collection of the revenue for the inter- 
 nal necessities of the kingdom hope- 
 less. The capitalists, who had great 
 confidence in the good faith of the 
 Government and credit of the country, 
 made this an absolute condition of any 
 advances on their part to meet the 
 necessities of the State ; and at length, 
 on the urgent representations of Baron 
 Louis, an arrangement was concluded 
 which in some degree alleviated the 
 distress of the treasury. It was agreed 
 that, in consideration of the sum of 
 100,000,000 francs (£4,000,000 ster- 
 ling), instantly paid down, the requi- 
 sitions should cease for two months.* 
 This sum was raised by forced loans 
 
 
 Francs. 
 
 1812, 
 
 1,070,000,000 
 
 1813, 
 
 1,150,000,000 
 
 1814, 
 
 637,432,000 
 
 1815, 
 
 876,318,232 
 
 1816, 
 
 1,036,804,534 
 
'9^ 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. hi. 
 
 laid on the chief towns, in payment of 
 which the Government agreed to take 
 hills payable at distant dates, which 
 the treasury discounted on reasonable 
 terms. The measure was violent, but 
 the public necessities left no alterna- 
 tive ; and to the credit of the French 
 capitalists it must be added that they 
 came liberally forward, and aided the 
 municipalities powerfully in providing 
 for the sums assessed upon them. So 
 successful were their efforts, that the 
 crisis was surmounted better than 
 could have been expected. The deficit 
 for the year was only 55,000,000 
 francs (£2*, 200, 000), the income being 
 876,318,232 francs (£35,000,000), and 
 the expenditure 931,441,40i francs, 
 or £37,200,000. 
 
 29. Notwithstanding this conven- 
 tion, which afforded great relief when 
 it was once fully acted upon, and the 
 regular payments begun, the e>. actions 
 of the Allies continued without inter- 
 mission ; and on all sides fresh bodies 
 of armed men were continually pour- 
 ing into the devoted country. There 
 seemed no end to the crusade : large 
 as France is, it seemed almost incap- 
 able of containing the prodigious mul- 
 titude which poured into its territory. 
 The Allies divided its provinces be- 
 tween them, and the districts they 
 severally occupied were deemed omi- 
 nous of an approaching partition of 
 their country. The English, Hanove- 
 rians, and Belgians, 80, 000 strong, were 
 quartered in the provinces between 
 Paris and the Flemish frontier. The 
 Prussians Avere encamped in a mass 
 round Paris, and stretched from thence 
 to the Loire and the Atlantic Ocean : 
 their insolence and overbearing man- 
 ner, as well as exactions, the requital 
 of six years of French bondage, ex- 
 cited universal indignation. The Aus- 
 trians, Bavarians, and Wiirtembergers, 
 were scattered over Burgundy, the Ni- 
 vernais, ' the neighbourhood of Lyons, 
 and Dauphine. The Piedmontese and 
 Austrians from Italy occupied Pro- 
 vence and Languedoc ; the numerous 
 corps of the Russians overspread the 
 plains of Lorraine and Champagne ; 
 the Saxon and Baden troops, Alsace ; 
 the Hungarians were extended along 
 
 the shores of the [Mediterranean. 
 "Pour comble de malheur," as the 
 French historians say, 40,000 Spani- 
 ards crossed the frontier, and inun- 
 dated Roussillon and the roots of the 
 Pyrenees, not to engage in the conflict, 
 for it was entirely over, but to share 
 in the expected booty. The Duke 
 d'Angouleme, by hastening to the 
 spot, and by great personal exertions, 
 succeeded in x^ersuading this uncalled- 
 for and unruly body of invaders to re- 
 tire. Never before — not even in the 
 days of universal mourning, when the 
 Northern nations overthrew the Roman 
 Empire, and, advancing like a resist- 
 less torrent, drove the whole native 
 population before them — had such an 
 inundation of armed men overwhelmed 
 a country ; and never had a people 
 been so thoroughly subjugated, for 
 already 800,000 foreign soldiers occu- 
 pied their territory, and their native 
 army was disbanded. The moderation 
 of the conquerors was theii" last remain- 
 ing Iwpe. 
 
 30. This dreadful accumulation of 
 evils produced its usual result in 
 ulcerating the minds of men. In the 
 south, especially, the effect appeared 
 with extraordinarj^ vehemence, for not 
 only were the inhabitants of its pro- 
 vinces all of a warm and ardent tem- 
 perament, but the party feuds of cen- 
 turies' duration between the Roman 
 Catholics and Protestants, and subse- 
 quently between the Royalists and 
 Republicans, had inspired them with 
 the most violent hatred against each 
 other. Disorders there were already 
 seen to be inevitable during the month 
 of June, when the Imperial armies 
 were collected on the frontier, and few 
 armed men remained in the provinces 
 to suppress the general effervescence, 
 when, on the 25th of that month, the 
 news of the battle of AVaterloo arrived, 
 and the telegraph brought to General 
 A^erdier, the commander of the district, 
 at the same time the intelligence of 
 the abdication of Napoleon. The news 
 arrived at Marseilles on Sunday at 
 noonday, when the people were just 
 leaving church, and instantly spread 
 like wildfire through the city and the 
 adjoining districts. Being all ardent 
 
1815.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 l^oyalists, the intelligence excited 
 tliem to the very highest degree. The 
 transports were universal, . the enthu- 
 siasm unbounded. General Verdier 
 had a regiment of infantry, a Lattery 
 of artillery, and several squadrons of 
 horse, at his command, and with mili- 
 tary instinct they arranged themselves 
 round their commander on the com- 
 mencement of the crisis. The firm 
 countenance of the troops, who shouted 
 incessantly "Vive TEmpereur," for a 
 time restrained the ardour of the 
 people, among whom the cry of "Vive 
 le Roi " was on the point of break- 
 ing out. But the Royalists got pos- 
 session of the church steeples, and 
 sounded the tocsin ; and its well- 
 known clang, vdih the flying rumours 
 already m circulation, soon brought a 
 prodigious concourse of peasants from 
 the country into the streets. This ac- 
 cession of strength rendered the trans- 
 ports of the Royalists uncontrollable. 
 Cries of " Vive le Roi " burst from all 
 sides. The troops Avere soon enveloped 
 by an insurgent and menacing multi- 
 tude ; and Verdier, despairing of the 
 possibility of maintaining himself in 
 liis posts, though there were two forts 
 commanding the city, and dreading 
 the responsibility of commencing a 
 civil war, while as yet uncertain what 
 authority was to obtain the ascendancy 
 at Paris, evacuated the town in the 
 course of the evening, and retreated 
 with all his forces to Toulon. 
 
 31. Tliis retreat was the signal for 
 the commencement of the massacre ; 
 and never did the violent passions and 
 savage disposition of the inhabitants 
 of the south of France appear in more 
 frightful colours. The effervescence 
 was so great, the people so violent, 
 that the troops had considerable diffi- 
 culty in making their way through 
 the multitudes which thronged around 
 them on every side ; but after they 
 were gone all order ceased, and the re- 
 action burst forth with ungovernable 
 fury. It began with the murder of 
 a few Mamelukes, with their wives, 
 who had followed the army of Napo- 
 leon back from Egypt. They were 
 cut down w^ithout mercy, many on the 
 harbour's edge, where thev had fled 
 
 in hopes of finding barks to escape 
 from their murderers. The whole, 
 with their wives and children, wero 
 slaughtered, and thrown into the 
 water. A few who had swam out to 
 sea were despatched by musket-shots 
 after they had gained a considerable 
 distance. Having once tasted of blood, 
 the multitude Avas as fierce as madden- 
 ing wolves in pursuit of their prey. 
 During the Avhole niglit and the day 
 following, they sought out the old 
 officers and soldiers of the Imperial 
 army, and bayoneted them without 
 mercy. Among the victims was M. 
 Angles Capefigue, a man of eminence 
 and respectability, the friend of Mas- 
 sena, and many of the leading men of 
 the Empire ; his body was pierced in 
 a hundred places with pikes. Power- 
 less, and passed by their followers, in 
 the strife, the Royalist Committee re- 
 mained passive spectators of the mas- 
 sacre. At length, after two days of 
 tumult and bloodshed, and the loss of 
 above a hundred lives, a sort of urban 
 guard was assembled, and messengers 
 despatched to some English vessels in 
 the bay, and by the aid of succour 
 sent b}^ them, an end was put to the 
 massacre. Marseilles proved on this 
 occasion the satanic wisdom witli 
 which the chiefs of the Gironde had 
 sent for and awaited the arrival of the 
 Federes de Marseilles, to head the in- 
 surrection on the 18th August 1792. 
 
 32. Marshal Brune was at this time 
 intrusted with the general command 
 in the south of France ; and he was at 
 Toulon when A^erdier arrived with the 
 troops from Marseilles, followed soon 
 after by intelligence of the frightful 
 atrocities committed in that city. 
 Uncertain at first which party was to 
 gain the ascendancy at Paris, he tem- 
 porised for a few weeks, but in the end 
 of July, finding the authority of the 
 King firmly established in the capital, 
 and generally recognised tlu'oughout 
 France, he hoisted tiie white flag, and 
 sent in his adliesion. The Royalists 
 had no fault to reproach him with, but 
 his ready recognition of Napoleon, and 
 tardy return to the colours of the 
 monarchy. To explain his conduct in 
 these particulars, the marshal set f$ut^ 
 
100 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. in. 
 
 on the 31 st for Paris by land. His 
 friends, who dreaded the catastrophe 
 which followed, in vain besought him 
 to change his route, and embark at 
 Toulon for Havre de Grace. The old 
 soldier revolted at such a proposal as 
 an imputation on his courage, and, 
 only the more resolute to brave the 
 dangers from the representations of 
 their reality, persevered in his inten- 
 tion of proceeding by land. 
 
 33. On the 2d August he arrived 
 at Avignon, whither the rumour ol 
 his approach had preceded him. He 
 stopped in the morning at a hotel near 
 the Rhone to change horses ; his coun- 
 tenance was recognised, and a crowd 
 immediately assembled, in which the 
 ferocious passions and vehement spirit 
 of the south were soon conspicuous. 
 A rumour, as false as it was certain 
 to be believed, spread rapidly through 
 the crowd, that he had been actively 
 concerned in the massacres of Septem- 
 ber 1792 in Paris, and had actually 
 carried the head of the Princess of 
 Lamballe, affixed to a pike, to the 
 windows of the King. His friends in 
 vain represented that he was not in 
 Paris at all, but on the frontier with 
 the army, on the occasion. That state- 
 ment, though true, did not produce 
 the slightest impression. It was added, 
 that he was not going to Paris, but 
 to the army of the Loire, to aid in 
 leading the troops and renewing the 
 ■war. Twice he set out fi-om the hotel 
 under the escort of the prefect, M. de 
 St Chamont, the mayor of Avignon, 
 and a handful of intrepid citizens, who, 
 though Royalists, had hastened with 
 generous devotion to save the life of 
 their opponent at the hazard of their 
 own ; and twice he was forced to re- 
 turn, from the experienced impossi- 
 bility of forcing a passage. At length 
 the people became so furious that all 
 resistance was in vain ; they violently 
 assaulted the principal gate of the 
 hotel, and while the prefect and mayor, 
 with a handful of troops, bravely made 
 good that post, a few dastardly assas- 
 sins got in bj' a back window, and, 
 breaking into the room where the 
 marshal was, laid him dead at their 
 feet by two shots from carbines. Fero- 
 
 cious shouts, as from the demons of 
 hell, immediately followed the bloody 
 deed : the body was dragged by the 
 heels through the streets, and cast 
 into the Rhone. That rapid stream 
 quickly floated it down to the sea, by 
 the waves of which the body was cast 
 ashore in a deserted haven between 
 Aries and Tarascon, where it was de- 
 scried amidst the sea-weed by the \nil- 
 tures, which in those warm climates 
 never fail to discover their prey. Their 
 concourse attracted the attention of a 
 poor fisherman, who approached the 
 spot and discovered the corpse. He 
 retired at the moment for fear of dan- 
 ger to himself, for, being an old soldier, 
 he recognised the features of him who 
 had once been his general ; but re- 
 turned at night, and with his own 
 hands gave it a decent sepulture in 
 the sands of the shore — as if to prove 
 that the most renowned tragedies of 
 antiquity were to find a parallel in 
 those which arose out of the French 
 Revolution.* 
 
 34. Such was the impotence, not 
 merely of the constituted authorities, 
 but of the Royalist committees, who 
 were supposed to direct the public 
 movement, that the official gazette an- 
 nounced that Marshal Brune, menaced 
 by the populace of A^^gnon, had com- 
 mitted suicide. It was not for a con- 
 siderable time after that the real facts 
 became known ; — so powerful is popu- 
 lar passion, not merely in instigating 
 to the most atrocious deeds, but in 
 concealing their enormit}--, or misre- 
 presenting their character. The horrid 
 example was not long in being follow- 
 ed in the adjoining provinces. Bands 
 of assassins, issuing from Avignon, 
 Nimes, and Toulouse, devastated the 
 houses of the suspected persons wher- 
 ever they could be found, and perpe- 
 trated cruelties on the unhappy in- 
 mates, which recalled the memory of 
 the worst atrocities of the Revolution. 
 After sacking the chateau of Vaquer- 
 ville, the wretched inhabitants were 
 burnt alive in its flames. At Toulouse, 
 * The classical reader need not be remind- 
 ed of the freedman and old soldier of Pom- 
 pey celebrating the funeral obsequies of that 
 great man on the shores of Egypt, after the 
 battle of Pharsalia. 
 
1815.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUEOPE. 
 
 101 
 
 General Ramel, commander of the de- 
 partment, was murdered in his own 
 hotel in open day. A band of assas- 
 sins burst into the room where he was 
 sitting, " "What do you wish ? " said 
 he. " To kill you, and in you an ene- 
 my of the King," was the reply of one, 
 pointing his musket at his breast. A 
 sentinel sprang forward and turned 
 aside the muzzle. Ramel drew his 
 sword and advanced, determined to 
 sell his life dearly ; but Avhile he did 
 so, a fresh shot pierced him through 
 the breast, and he fell mortally wound- 
 ed beside the faithful sentinel, who 
 had been already slain by his side. 
 The dying general was carried up to 
 his room and stretched on his bed ; 
 but soon the assassins burst in, and 
 although the surgeon on his knees be- 
 sought them to spare the last minutes 
 of a dying man, they hacked him with 
 sabres, and plunged pikes in his body, 
 till he was literally cut to pieces. 
 When this was done, the frightful 
 multitude defiled regularly in, and 
 went round the bed singing songs of 
 triumph, and dipping their pikes in 
 the blood of his mangled remains. 
 
 35. These atrocities were but a speci- 
 men of what went on during the whole 
 of August in the south of France. At 
 Nimes, the brave General Lagardt was 
 severely wounded, Avhile endeavouring 
 at the head of his troops to suppress 
 a sedition in the public square, which 
 had arisen from no other cause but liis 
 having had the courage to arrest Tres- 
 taillon, the chief of the assassins. This 
 open contempt of the law produced a 
 great impression on the King, who 
 ordered an unlimited number of troops 
 to be quartered on the town till the 
 guilty parties were given up. But this 
 act of firmness produced no result. 
 Justice, as usual in such cases, was 
 impotent in the midst of crime ; the 
 tyrant majority was alike guilty and 
 secure of impunity. Unable to make 
 head against such a universal debacle 
 of violence, the prefect of the depart- 
 ment, M. Darbaud de Jouque, a moder- 
 ate but firm man— selected for that 
 perilous office from his known ability 
 to discharge its duties — entreated the 
 Duke d'Angouleme to come to Nimes, 
 
 in the hope that the presence of a de- 
 servedly beloved prince of the blood 
 would tend to calm the effervescence 
 of his impassioned adherents. He 
 arrived accordingly, and for a time 
 succeeded in overawing the violence 
 of the Royalists. When pressed by 
 numerous influential bodies, especially 
 among the Roman Catholic clergy, to 
 order the liberation of Trestaillon, he 
 replied, " No ! I will never screen 
 assassins and incendiaries from the 
 law." Trestaillon accordingly was 
 brought to trial ; but then the inhe- 
 rent weakness of jury trial amidst the 
 effervescence of the passions became 
 apparent. Both he and Bovines, the 
 assassin of Lagardt, were, in the face, 
 of the clearest evidence, acquitted 
 unanimously by the jury, and imme- 
 diately carried in triumph through the 
 streets of the tovm which they had 
 disgraced by their crimes. 
 
 36. The impunity with which these 
 atrocious crimes were committed led 
 to a fearful multiplication of similar 
 deeds of blood. The passions of the 
 moment became engrafted on those of 
 centuries' duration, and the power of 
 murdering without risk revived the 
 frightful thirst for blood which in 
 those regions had led to the crusade 
 against the Albigeois, and all the sav- 
 age deeds which have for ever dis- 
 graced the Roman Catholic religion. 
 The two most violent and dangerous 
 passions which can inflame the human 
 breast — political zeal and religious 
 fanaticism — wei'e aroused with the ut- 
 most violence at the same time, and 
 for once pulled in the same direction. 
 The Royalists held that they were en- 
 titled by their temporal wrongs to 
 wreak their vengeance without re- 
 straint on the Napoleonists ; tlie Ro- 
 man Catholics deemed themselves 
 secure of salvation, when they burned 
 the temples or plunged their pikes in 
 the bosoms of the Protestants. The 
 crusade of the thirteenth was blended 
 with the reaction of the nineteenth 
 century. In vain the Allied sovereigns 
 interested themselves in the unhappy 
 Protestants of the south ; in vain the 
 Duke of Wellington, with generous 
 humanity, made the utmost efforts for 
 
102 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE 
 
 [chap. Ill, 
 
 their protection. The King issued a 
 noble proclamation, denouncing these 
 atrocities, and enjoining the magis- 
 trates to bring the guilty j)arties to 
 justice.* The prefects followed his 
 example, and called on all good citi- 
 zens to aid them in the discovery and 
 prosecution of the assassins, who were 
 a disgrace to society. It was all in 
 vain ; the guilty majority was omni- 
 potent. The free institutions which 
 France had won proved the safeguard 
 of the criminals. The guilty were 
 screened from arrest ; if taken, Avit- 
 nesses were suborned, removed, inti- 
 midated ; juries proved "the judicial 
 committee of the majority, "f and 
 acquitted in the face of the clearest 
 evidence ; and, to the disgrace of free 
 institutions be it said, the whole of 
 this long catalogue of frightful crime 
 in the south of France passed over 
 without ove single criminal leing 
 brought to justice, while more than one 
 judicial murder, on the other side, 
 proved that the passions of the moment 
 could direct the verdicts of juries as 
 well as the pikes of assassins. Tran- 
 quillity was not restored till, by orders 
 
 * "Nous avons appris avec douleur, que 
 dans les departemeiits du Midi, plusieurs de 
 DOS snjets se sont reeemment j^ortes aux plus 
 coupables exces ; que sous pretexts de se 
 faire les ministres de la vengeance publique, 
 des Frangais, satisfaisant leurs haines et 
 leurs vengeances privees, avaient vers6 le 
 Bang des Frangais, meme depuis que notre 
 autorite etait universelleinent retablie et 
 recounue dans notre royaume. Certes, d'in- 
 fames trahisons, de grands crimes, ont 6te 
 commis, et ont plonge la Frauce dans une 
 abime de maux : raais la punition de ces 
 crimes doit etre nationale, solennelle, et 
 regulife;-e ; les coupables doivent tomber sous 
 le glaive de la loi, et non sous le poids de 
 vengeances particulibres. Ce serait boule- 
 verser I'ordre social que de se faire a la fois 
 juge et executeur pour les offences qu'on a 
 revues, ou merae pour les attentats commis 
 centre notre personne. Nous esperons que 
 cette odieuse entreprise de prevenir Taction 
 des lois a deja cessi ; elle serait un attentat 
 contre nous et contre la France, et quelque 
 vive douleur que nous pussions en ressentir, 
 rien ne servit epargner pour punir de tels 
 crimes. C'est pourquoi nous avons recom- 
 niande par des ordres pr(5cis a nos ministres 
 et a nos magistrats de faire strictement re- 
 specter les lois, et de ne mettre ni indulgence 
 ni faiblesse dans la poursuite de ceux qui les 
 ont viol^es."— ilfo/iiteur, July 20, 1S15; Cape- 
 riGUE, i. 54. 
 • t De Tocqueville in regard to America, 
 
 from headquarters at Paris, the Allied 
 troops were sj)read over the disturbed 
 districts, and the Imperialists and 
 Protestants found that shelter under 
 the bayonets of their enemies, which 
 they could no longer look for in the 
 justice of their countrjonen. 
 
 37. It was in the midst of this vehe- 
 ment effervescence of the passions that 
 the elections took place over France ; 
 and never was evinced in a more strik- 
 ing manner the extreme danger of 
 appealing to the people during a i)eriod 
 of violent public excitement than on 
 that occasion. Already the King and 
 Council of State, Avho were resolutely 
 bent on moderate measures, had become 
 apprehensive of the violence of the 
 current which was setting in in their 
 own faTour, and strove by every means 
 in theii''p6wer to moderate it. Secret 
 instructions were sent do'um to the 
 prefects and presidents of colleges, to 
 favour as much as was in their power, 
 or consistent with their duty, the re- 
 turn of members who might not by 
 their violence occasion embarrassment 
 to the Government. Fouche set all 
 his agents and intrigues, and they 
 were not a few, in motion, to support 
 the Republican candidates, and foi-m 
 a respectable minorit}^, at least, in 
 favour of liberalism. But it was all 
 in vain ; and the elections of 1815 
 afforded the first indication of what 
 subsequent events have so completely 
 proved, that though France in general 
 is entirely submis.sive to Paris, and 
 follows with docility the mandates of 
 the capital, yet its real opinion is often 
 very different : and when an opportu- 
 nity does occur, in which it can make 
 its voice be heard, it does so in a way 
 which cannot be mistaken. 
 
 38. Public opinion in the provinces 
 threw itself, without reflection and 
 without reserve, into the very extremes 
 of Royalist prejudice. Prudence, wis- 
 dom, foresight, moderation, justice, 
 were alike disregarded ; one only voice 
 was listened to — it was that of passion ; 
 one only thirst Avas felt — it was that of 
 vengeance. A flood, broad and irre- 
 sistible as the tides of the ocean, 
 overspread France from the banks of 
 the Rhine to the shores of the Atlantic, 
 
1315.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 103 
 
 All attempts to stem it were in vain, 
 or rather, by irritating, they tended 
 only to inflame its violence. Even the 
 presence of the Allied troops, and their 
 occupation of the cities and depart- 
 ments where the elections were going 
 on, was no restraint upon the general 
 fervour : on the contrary, they tended 
 only to increase it ; for wlio had brought 
 that burden upon themselves — tliat 
 disgrace upon their country ? Morti- 
 fied by defeat, humiliated by conquest, 
 oppressed by contribiitions, irritated 
 by insult, the French people had no 
 mode of giving vent to their universal 
 feelings of indignation, but by return- 
 ing to the legislature members ani- 
 mated by the same sentiments ; and so 
 strong were their feelings, so universal 
 their indignation, that they sent to 
 Paris a Chamber of Represent'atives 
 more counter-revolutionary than the 
 Allied sovereigns — more Royalist than 
 the King. 
 
 39. The known tendency of these 
 elections, and the increasing vehemence 
 with which extreme Royalist opinions 
 were promulgated in the now unfet- 
 tered pages of the Parisian press, ren- 
 dered the position of the two leaders 
 of the revolutionary party in the 
 Jlinistry every day more precarious. 
 Fouche in particular, against whom, 
 from the bloody reminiscences con- 
 nected with him, and his unparalleled 
 tergiversations, the public indignation 
 was in an especial inanner directed, 
 began to perceive that he would not 
 be able much longer to maintain his 
 ground. The party of the Count d'Ar- 
 tois daily insinuated to the King that 
 public opinion was now declaring itself 
 so strongly that all attempts to with- 
 stand it were in vain, and that both Tal- 
 leyrand and Fouche must be dismissed. 
 The latter, conscious of the sinister 
 eyes with Avhich he was regarded, came 
 now very rarely to the Tuileries ; when 
 he did so, a murmur always ran through 
 tlie courtiers, "There is the regicide." 
 The very persons who, a few months 
 before, had joined in the chorus that 
 he was the saviour of France, and the 
 only man who could extricate it from 
 its difficulties, because it was likely to 
 favour theii" ambition, were now the 
 
 first to exclaim against him, because 
 he threatened to oppose it. In despair 
 of being able to influence the affections 
 of men, he appealed to their fears, and 
 \n'ote with his usual ability several 
 reports on the state of public opinion 
 and of the country, ostensibly intended 
 for the eye of the King, but which, 
 from the extensive circulation surrep- 
 titiously given to them, were obviously 
 intended to intimidate the Court. In 
 them he portrayed in strong, even ex- 
 aggerated colours, the dangers of the 
 country, and the strength of the party, 
 especially among the great body of the 
 rural proprietors, who were still at- 
 tached to the principles of the Revolu- 
 tion.* Notwithstanding the sinister 
 appearances against him, he was no- 
 thing daunted. He married a young 
 lady of good family, Madame de Cas- 
 tellane, whom he had met at Aix at 
 the close of the Empire ; and relying 
 on his talents, his good fortune, the 
 favour of the Duke of Wellington, and 
 the political necessity Avhich had com- 
 
 * "Les villes sontopposees aux campagnes, 
 dans I'ouest nieme, ou Ton vous flatte de 
 trouver des soldats. Les acquereurs de do- 
 niaines nationaux y rdsisteront a quiconque 
 entreprendrit de les deposseder. Le Eoyal- 
 isme du inidi s'exhale en attentats. Des 
 bandes armies parconrent les campagnes et 
 penfetrent dans les villes. Les pillages, les 
 assassinats se multiplient. Dans Test, I'hor- 
 reur de I'iuvasion et les fautes des precedents 
 ministres out ali6n^ les populations. Dans 
 la majority des d^partements on trouverait 
 seulement une poiguee de Royalistes a opposer 
 a la masse du peuple. Le repos sera difficile 
 a I'armee ; une ambition demesuree I'a rendue 
 aventureuse. 
 
 " II y a deux grandes factions dans I'dtat. 
 L'une defend les principes ; Tautre marche ii 
 la contre-revolution. D'un cote le clerge, les 
 nobles, les anciens possesseurs des biens 
 nationaux aujourd'hui vendus, les membres 
 des anciens parlements, des hommesobstines, 
 qui ne veulent pas croire que leurs idees an- 
 ciennes soient en defaut, et qui ne peuvent 
 pardonner a une R(5volution qu'ils ont mau- 
 dite; d'autres qui fatigues du mouvement, 
 cherchent le repos dans I'ancien regime; 
 quelqucs ^crivains passionn6s flatteurs des 
 opinions triompliantes. Du c6tt5 oppose, la 
 presque total it(5 de la France, les constitu- 
 tionnels, les republicains, rarniee, et le peuple, 
 toutes les classes des m^contents, une multi- 
 tude de Frani^ais nieme attach(5s au Roi, mais 
 qui sout convaincus qu'une tentative, et qui 
 meme une tendance a I'ancien rtJgime, serait 
 le signal d'une explosion semblable a celle de 
 1789."— Memoire de Fouche. Lamartine, v. 
 339, 3-10. 
 
104 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. III. 
 
 pelled the King to get over his repug- 
 nance, he still hoped to overcome the 
 difficulties with which he was sur- 
 rounded. He now openly professed 
 his adherence to the principles of mon- 
 archy. "When one is young," said 
 he, "revolutions please; they excite — 
 they agitate, and we love to mingle in 
 them ; but at my age they have lost 
 their charm : we sigh for repose, order, 
 and security ; we no longer wish to 
 gain, but to enjoy." 
 
 40. Talleyrand now saw that Fouche 
 was no longer necessary to the mainte- 
 nance of his power — that, on the con- 
 trary, the prejudice against him was so 
 violent that it seriously impeded the 
 Government. He consented, therefore, 
 not unwillingly, to the instances of the 
 Count d'Artois and his party, who 
 urged his dismissal. To give a colour 
 to his downfall, he was in the first in- 
 stance appointed minister at the court 
 of Saxony. With his fall from power, 
 Fouche's influence was at once at an 
 end ; and with such violence did the 
 
 Eublic indignation burst forth against 
 im, that he was obliged, m crossing 
 France on his way to the Rhine, to 
 travel in disguise under a false name, 
 and with a false passport. Within a 
 few months after his arrival at Dres- 
 den, he was recalled from that office, 
 forbidden to return to France, and ex- 
 iled to Austria, where he spent the 
 last days of his life in obscurity at 
 Lintz, alike detested and despised by 
 all parties in the world. His vote for 
 the death of Louis XVI., and his atro- 
 cities at Lyons, had for ever shocked 
 the Royalists — his signature of the 
 recent lists of proscription alienated 
 the Republicans. H is only consolation 
 was in the kindness and tenderness of 
 his young wife, who, with a true wo- 
 man's fidelity, clung only the more 
 closely to him from the desei'tion of 
 all the rest of the world. Tormented 
 to the last by the thirst for power, he 
 never ceased to solicit M. Decazes, 
 then minister to Louis XVIII., and 
 Prince Metternich, for leave to reside 
 at Paris or Vienna ; but they both 
 withstood his importunities. Cast 
 away on the shore, he could not, like 
 the sea-bird, live at rest on the strand, 
 
 but ever threw a lingering look on the 
 ocean on whose waves he had been 
 tossed ; and his last thoughts were in 
 anticipation of the storms which were 
 to succeed him.* 
 
 41. Talleyrand and his Ministry did 
 not long survive the disgrace of the regi- 
 cide Minister of Police whom they had 
 introduced into power. Many causes 
 contributed to their downfall, and 
 they were so powerful that, sooner or 
 later, they must have led to that 
 result. The demands of the Allied 
 powers in the negotiations for a 
 general peace — of Avhich an account 
 will immediately be given — had be- 
 come so exorbitant, that they recoiled 
 from the thought of subscribing them, 
 or even making them kno^\^l to the 
 public. The Emperor Alexander, who 
 had so powerfully supported Talley- 
 rand on occasion of the first restoration 
 in 1814, was now cold and reserved 
 towards him ; he had not forgotten 
 his opposition to the demands of Rus- 
 sia at the Congress of Vienna. The 
 King of France, although fully sensible 
 of the great ability and consummate 
 address of the minister Avho had con- 
 trived to keep afloat through all the 
 storms of the Revolution, was in 
 secret jealous of his ascendancy ; he 
 felt the repugnance of high birth at 
 the guardianship of intellect and ex- 
 perience. Though so experienced a 
 courtier, 'M. de Talleyrand could not 
 avoid, on some occasions, letting fall 
 
 * " J'.ai sign'rordinance de la Proscription 
 de Proscription; elle ^tait, et elle fut consi- 
 deree alors coinme le seiil moyen de sauver le 
 jiarti, qui m'en accuse aujourd'hui. Elle 
 I'enlevait a la fureur des Royalistes, et le met- 
 tait a I'abridans I'exil. Je ne desire pas que 
 les partis soient ^cras^s en France ; mais je 
 forme dcs vreux ardents ]iour qu'ils soient 
 contenus. Qu'on reduise les r^volutionnairea 
 a un role d'oppositiou raisonnable ; qu'on ne 
 separe pas le Roi de la Nation, en le consi- 
 derant oomme son adversaire. On est trop 
 en garde contre les Royalistes exag^res : on 
 ne Test pas contre I'autre parti. Relisez 
 I'historie de la Pologne; vous etes menaces 
 du nieine sort, si vous ne vous rendez pas 
 maitres des passions. Je lis une histoire de 
 lacampagnedelSlS, parle General Gourgand. 
 Je ne suispas 6tonn6 du laiigage de son maitre 
 a nion ^gard: 11 est commode a Napoleon 
 d'excuser toutes ses sottises en soutenant 
 qu'il a et^ tralii. Non, il n'y a eu de traitres 
 que ses flatteurs. " — Lamaktine, v. 346, 347. 
 
1815.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 105 
 
 expressions indicating his sense of his 
 own influence with foreign powers, 
 and services under the Empire. But 
 most of all, the elections had now 
 been decided in favour of the extreme 
 Royalists, hy a majority which it was 
 hopeless to -s^dthstand. By the 20th 
 September they Avere all concluded ; 
 and the result was such a preponder- 
 ance on that side as left no doubt that 
 the Ministry could not maintain their 
 ground. Unable to contend with a 
 hostile majority in the Chambers, M. 
 Talleyrand did not yet despair. He 
 desired to engage the King in a con- 
 test with the Legislature, and thought 
 he had influence sufficient to efl'ect 
 that object. But he was much mis- 
 taken. Wlien Talleyrand, at the con- 
 clusion of his speech in the cabinet 
 council, tendered his resignation and 
 that of his colleagues, if the proposed 
 measures were not adopted, the King 
 calmly replied — " You resign, then : 
 very Avell ; I will appoint another 
 ministry," and bowed them out of the 
 apartment. 
 
 42. Along with M. Talleyrand there 
 retired from the Ministry MM. Louis, 
 Pasquier, Jaucourt, and Gouvion St 
 Cyr. It required to be entirely new- 
 modelled ; and Louis, who had long 
 foreseen the necessity of this step, and 
 was not sorry of an opportunity of 
 breaking A\ith his revolutionary men- 
 tors, immediately authorised M. De- 
 cazes, who had insinuated himself into 
 his entire confidence, to off'er the place 
 of President of the Council, corre- 
 sponding to our Premier, to the Duke 
 DE Richelieu. Independent of the 
 high descent and personal merits of 
 that very estimable man, there were 
 peculiar reasons of the most pressing 
 nature which pointed him out as the 
 proper minister of France at that 
 period. An intimate personal friend 
 of the Emperor Alexander, and having 
 acquired his entire confidence in the 
 course of the important government 
 with which he had been intrusted at 
 Odessa, there was every reason to hope 
 that his influence with the Czar would 
 in some degree tend to moderate the 
 severity of the terms which, as the 
 conditions of peace, the Allied powers 
 
 were now insisting for. M. de Riche- 
 lieu felt the painful position in which 
 he would be placed by accepting office, 
 the first step in which would be the 
 signature of a treaty in the highest 
 degree humiliating to France ; but he 
 was clear-sighted enough to perceive 
 the necessity of the case, and too pa- 
 triotic to refuse to serve his country 
 even in the worst crisis of its fate. 
 He accepted office accordingly, and 
 with him the Ministry underwent an. 
 entire change. M. Decazes was ap- 
 pointed Minister of Police, an office 
 which, in those critical times, was of 
 the very highest importance ; the seals 
 were intrusted to M. Barbe-Marbois ; 
 the Duke de Feltre (Clark) was ap- 
 pointed Minister at War ; M. Vau- 
 blanc, Minister of the Interior ; while 
 the Duke de Richelieu discharged the 
 duties at once of President of the 
 Council and Minister of Foreign Af- 
 fairs. 
 
 43. Armand, Duke de Richelieu, 
 grand-nephew by his sister of the car- 
 dinal of the same name, was grandson 
 of the Marshal de Richelieu, so cele- 
 brated in the reign of Louis XV. as 
 the Alcibiades of France. When called 
 to the Ministry in 1815, he was forty- 
 nine years of age. Consumed from 
 his earliest years, like so many other 
 great men, by an ardent thirst for 
 glory, he had joined the Russian army 
 in 1785, and shared in the dangers of 
 the assault of Ismael under Suwarroff". 
 When the French Revolution rent the 
 nobles and the people of France 
 asunder, he hastened from the Crimea 
 to join the army of the emigrant 
 noblesse under the Prince of Conde, 
 and remained with it till the corps 
 was finally dissolved in 1794. He 
 then returned to Russia, where he was 
 at first kindly received by, but soon 
 after shared in the caprices of, the 
 Emperor Paul. On the accession of 
 Alexander, the conformity of their dis- 
 positions, vnth the known abilities 
 and illustrious descent of Richelieu, 
 endeared him to that benevolent mon- 
 arch, and he selected him to carry in- 
 to execution the philanthropic views 
 which he had formed for the improve- 
 ment of the southern provinces of his 
 
106 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. hi. 
 
 vast dominions. During ten years of 
 a wise and active administration, lie 
 more than realised the hope of his 
 illustrious master. The progress of 
 the province intrusted to his care was 
 unparalleled, its prosperity unbroken, 
 during his administration. To his 
 sagacious foresight and prophetic wis- 
 dom Russia owes the seaport of 
 Odessa, the great export town of its 
 southern provinces, and which opened 
 to their boundless agricultural plains 
 the commerce of the world. The 
 French invasion of 1812 recalled him 
 from his pacific labours to the defence 
 of the country, and he shared the 
 intimacy and councils of Alexander 
 during the eventful years Avhich suc- 
 ceeded, till the taking of Paris in 1814. 
 Alternately at Paris, at Vienna, or at 
 Ghent, he represented his Sovereign, 
 and served as a link between the court 
 of Russia and the newly established 
 throne of Louis XVIII. 
 
 44. His character qualified him in a 
 peculiar manner for this delicate task, 
 and now for the still more perilous 
 duty to which he was called — that of 
 standing, like the Je^\ish lawgiver, 
 between the people and the plague. 
 He was the model of the ancient 
 French nobility, for he united in his 
 person all their virtues, and he was 
 free from their weaknesses. He was 
 considered, alike in the army and the 
 diplomatic circles at home and abroad, 
 as the most pure and estimable char- 
 acter which had arisen during ^ the 
 storms of the Revolution. His fortu- 
 nate distance from France during so 
 long, a period at once j)i'eserved him 
 from its dangers, and caused him to 
 be exempt from its delusions ; he had 
 studied mankind in the best of all 
 schools, that of real j)ractical improve- 
 ment, and neither in that of theoreti- 
 cal speculations nor of military ambi- 
 tion. His physiognomy bespoke his 
 character. His talents were not of the 
 first order, but his moral qualities were 
 of the purest kind. A lofty forehead 
 bespoke the ascendant of intellect ; an 
 aquiline nose and high features, the 
 distinctive mark of family; but the 
 limpid eye and mild expression re- 
 vealed the still more valuable qualities 
 
 of the heart. It would seem as if a 
 sad and serious revolution had passed 
 over the hereditary lustre of his race, 
 and impressed upon it the thoughtful 
 and melancholy character of later 
 times. He was adored by his sisters, 
 the Countess of Jumilliac, and the 
 ^larquise de Montcalm, the latter of 
 whom was one of the most charming 
 women in France ; but it required all 
 their influence, joined to the entreaties 
 of the King and the representations of 
 the Emperor Alexander, to overcome 
 his natural modesty, or induce him to 
 take the helm in this crisis of the for- 
 tunes of his country. 
 
 45. ]M. Decazes, who at the same 
 period commenced his brilliant career 
 under the Restoration, had not the 
 same advantage of family as the Duke 
 de Richelieu ; but this deficiency was 
 compensated by his natural abilities, 
 and still more by the address and tact 
 which in so peculiar a manner fitted 
 him to be the minister of a pacific 
 sovereign in arduous times. He rose 
 to greatness neither in the cabinet nor 
 the field ; the bureau of the minister 
 of police was the theatre of his first 
 distinction.* He had already become 
 remarkable for the zeal and activity 
 with which he had discliarged the du- 
 ties of prefect of police at Paris, when 
 
 * " He was the son of a magistrate of Li- 
 bourne, in the department of the Gironde, 
 the district of all others in France which has 
 given birth to the greatest number of emi- 
 nent political men, and made the greatest fig- 
 lu'e since the Revolution in the civil govern- 
 ment of the country. He was at this time in 
 his thirty-fifth year. He had come to Paris 
 in the last days of the Empire, to prosecute 
 his legal studies, when his elegant manners 
 and talent in conversation attracted the re- 
 gard of the daughter of ]\I. Muraire, the Presi- 
 dent of the Court of Cassation, who bestowed 
 upon him her hand. Tliis led to his obtain- 
 ing employment under the Imperial Govern- 
 ment — but he did not share in its fall — and, 
 both during the first Restoration and Hun- 
 dred Days, made himself conspicuous by his 
 steady adherence to Royalist jirinciples, inso- 
 much that he was banished to a distance of 
 forty leagues from Paris by Napoleon. This 
 was the making of his fortune : upon the re- 
 turn of Louis he was immediately selected 
 by Fouche and TallejTand to fill the situation 
 of Prefect of the Police, in which capacity 
 his zeal, activity, and devotion soon attract- 
 ed the regard of Louis XVIII."— Lamartijte, 
 v. 214, 216 ; and Biographie Universelle— 
 Suppl. (Decazes;. 
 
1815. 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 107- 
 
 the skill with which he witlidrew its 
 funds from the rapacious hands of the 
 Prussians had excited general atten- 
 tion. But what chiefly attracted the 
 confidence of Louis was his natural re- 
 pugnance to and distrust of Fouchc, 
 and the experienced necessity of hav- 
 ing some one in the police on whom he 
 could rely, and who might supply in- 
 formation directly on the state of 
 public opinion, and any designs which 
 might be in agitation. In short, he 
 desired a spy on Fouche, who had 
 spies on every one else; and the ad- 
 dress and intelligence of M. Decazes 
 answered this object so completely, 
 that he had already come to be in in- 
 timate daily communication with the 
 Sovereign, before the change of minis- 
 try opened to him the situation of 
 minister of police. His great talent 
 consisted in his knowledge of man- 
 kind, and his ready insight into the 
 prevailing dispositions or weaknesses 
 of the principal personages with whom 
 he was brought in contact. Thus 
 he early divined that the ruling pas- 
 sion of Louis Avas a love of popularity, 
 his prevailing inclination a love of 
 ease, and his favourite amusement 
 hearing and retailmg little anecdotes 
 and scandalous reports, which the 
 agents of police could of course furnish 
 to him in sufl!icient abundance. By 
 these means, joined to his fidelity to 
 the interests of his Sovereign, as well 
 as the indefatigable zeal with which 
 he attended to the duties of his station, 
 he not merely won the confidence of 
 his Sovereign, but the esteem of the 
 nation, and the support of a steady 
 majority in the Chambers, which en- 
 abled him to conduct tJie administra- 
 tion during several years, amidst very 
 great difl&culties, with surprising suc- 
 cess, 
 
 46. The new Ministry had need of 
 all their skill and influence with for- 
 eign powers to weather the difficulties 
 with which they were surrounded, for 
 never did embarrassments to appear- 
 ance more insurmountable overwhelm 
 any government. But here the bene- 
 volent views of the Emperor Alexan- 
 der, and the personal influence of the 
 Duke de Richelieu with that monarch, 
 
 aided by the moderation of England 
 and the justice and firmness of the 
 Duke of Wellington, came to the 
 timely aid of the French adminstra- 
 tion. The principal difficulty was 
 with the lesser powers : the great 
 states, farther removed from the scene 
 of danger, and having more extensive 
 resources to rely on, were more easily 
 dealt with. But in appearance, at 
 least, the Allies were entirely united ; 
 all their deliberations were taken and 
 answers given in common ; and the 
 last answer of M, de Talleyrand, be- 
 fore he went out of oflice, had only 
 called forth an uJtimatuvi of the most 
 desperate severity. Not only were 
 enormous pecuniary sacrifices required 
 of France, but large portions of its 
 territory on the frontier were reclaimed 
 for Flanders, Prussia, and the lesser 
 German states. The Duke de Riche- 
 lieu, in accepting the head of the ad- 
 ministration, had not disguised from 
 the Emperor Alexander that he did so 
 in reliance on his moderation and 
 friendship ; and, in a secret interview, 
 the Czar had assured him that he 
 should not do so in vain. "I have 
 no other interest," said the monarch, 
 " in this negotiation, but to secure the 
 repose of the world, and the stability 
 of the system which we are establish- 
 ing in France, " With that very view, 
 however, he was easily brought to see 
 the necessity of moderating the de- 
 mands of the Allied powers, and not 
 exacting conditions which would prove 
 an ay^'U de mort to the dj^nasty, the 
 stability of which appeared the only 
 guarantee for the peace of Europe. 
 But so keen were the feelings of the 
 Allied sovereigns, that it required all 
 his influence, joined to the energetic 
 co-operation of the Duke of Welling- 
 ton, to obtain any considerable modi- 
 fication of the demands ; and as it was, 
 the Duke de Richelieu said at the 
 time he signed the treaty, and only on 
 the earnest entreaties with tears of the 
 King, that he did so ' ' more dead than 
 alive. ' ' * The Emperor Alexander gave 
 
 * "Tout est consomine! J'ai appose plus 
 mort que vif mon nom a ce fatal traits. 
 J'avals jur^ de ne pas le faire, et je I'avais dit 
 au Rpi. Ce malheureux Prince m'a coujur^. 
 
108 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. hi. 
 
 him at the time a map containing the 
 provinces marked which had been re- 
 claimed by the Allied powers, and 
 which he had prevailed on them to 
 waive their claims to. **Keep it," 
 said the Czar ; "I have preserved that 
 one copy for you alone. It will bear 
 testimony in future times to your ser- 
 \'ices and my friendship for France, 
 and it will be the noblest title of nobil- 
 ity in j'our family. " It is still in pos- 
 session of his successors. 
 
 47. It is remarkable that Austria was 
 the great power with which there was 
 most difficulty in coming to an accom- 
 modation. She openly demanded the 
 cession of Alsace and Lorraine, the first 
 Inheritance of her family ; and in order 
 to induce Prussia to concur in the spo- 
 liation, she offered to support the de- 
 mand for that power of any fortresses 
 on the frontier from Conde and Philip- 
 ville, in the Low Countries, to Joux and 
 Fort Eeluse on the borders of Switzer- 
 land. Finding Prussia too much under 
 the influence of Russia and England to 
 acquiesce in these demands, the cabinet 
 of Vienna addressed itself to the lesser 
 German powers, and conjointly with 
 them prepared a plan by which France 
 was to be shorn of great part of its 
 frontier provinces, and nearly all its 
 strong places on the Rhine. They even 
 went so far as to demand the demolition 
 of the fortifications of Huningen and 
 Strasbourg. When this project was 
 submitted to the Emperor Alexander, 
 he communicated it to the Duke de 
 Richelieu, who exclaimed, " They are 
 determined on another war of twenty- 
 five years' duration : well, they shall 
 have it ! In a few days the army of 
 the Loire could be recalled to its stand- 
 ards and doubled ; La Vendee will join 
 its ranks, and monarchical France will 
 show itself not less formidable than 
 Republican." Louis XVIII. declared 
 that there was no chance of war so 
 terrible or disastrous, which he would 
 
 en fondant en larmes, de ne pas I'abandon- 
 ner. Je n'ai plus hesite! J'ai la confiance 
 de croire que personne n'aurait obtenu au- 
 tant ! La France, expirant sous le poids de 
 calamit^s qui I'accable, reclamait imperieuse- 
 ment une prompte d(51iverance." — M. le Due 
 de Richelieu a Madame la Marquise de 
 Montcalm, saiis date. Lamartine, v. 365. 
 
 not prefer to a treaty so ignominious. 
 But these were vain menaces ; eight 
 hundred thousand armed men were in 
 possession of the French capital, for- 
 tresses, and territory ; its army was 
 disbanded, and it had no resource but 
 in the moderation or policy of the con- 
 querors. At length, by the united 
 efforts of the Emperor Alexander, Lord 
 Castlereagh, and the Duke of Wel- 
 lington, the demands of Austria and 
 the lesser German powers were abated, 
 and a treaty was concluded, which, 
 although much less disastrous than 
 might in the circumstances have been 
 expected, was the most humiliating 
 which had been imposed on France 
 since the treaty of Bretignj'- closed the 
 long catalogue of disasters consequent 
 on the battle of Agincourt. 
 
 48. By this treaty the limits of France 
 were fixed as they had been in 1790, 
 with the following exceptions : the for- 
 tresses of Landau, Sarre-Louis, Phihp- 
 ville, and Marienburg, with the terri- 
 tory annexed to each, were ceded to 
 the Allies ; Versoix, with a small dis- 
 trict around it, was assigned to the 
 canton of Geneva ; the fortifications of 
 Huningen were to be demolished ; but 
 the little territory of Venaisin, the 
 first conquest of the Revolution, was 
 preserved to France. Such was the mo- 
 deration of the Allies, that after so en- 
 tire an overthrow she lost only twenty 
 square leagues of territory, while, by 
 the retention of the Venaisin, she 
 gained fort}^ square leagues. But the 
 payments in money exacted from her 
 were enormous, and felt as the more gall- 
 ing because they were a badge of con- 
 quest. A contribution of 700, 000, 000 
 francs (£28,000,000) was provided to 
 the Allied powers, as an indemnity for 
 the expense of their last armaments, to 
 be paid regularly day by day. In ad- 
 dition to this, France agreed to pay 
 735,000,000 francs (£29,500,000) as 
 an indemnity to the Allied powers for 
 the contributions which the French 
 troops had, at different times dm-ing 
 the war, exacted from them ; besides 
 100,000,000 francs (£4,000,000) to the 
 lesser powers who subsequently joined 
 the Alliance — in all, 1,535,000,000 
 francs, or £61,500,000;— probably the 
 
1815. 
 
 HISTOEY OF EUROPE. 
 
 109 
 
 greatest money payment ever exacted 
 from any one nation since the begin- 
 ning of the world.* Great as these 
 sums were, they were not a tenth part 
 of those which the French, in the days 
 of their conquests, had exacted from 
 the European states ; for, from an 
 authentic document preserved in the 
 Castlcreagli Correspondence, it appears 
 that down to the date of the Consulate 
 of Napoleon only, they had amounted 
 to the enormous sum of 9,126,000,000 
 francs, or £360, 000,000 ; andspoils sub- 
 sequent to that event were, beyond 
 all doubt, twice as great, f" In ad- 
 dition to this it was stipulated, as a 
 measure alike of security to Europe 
 and protection to the newly - estab- 
 lished dynasty in France, that an 
 army of 150,000 men, belonging to 
 the Allies, was to be put in possession 
 of the principal frontier fortresses of 
 France— viz., Cambray, Valenciennes, 
 Bouchain, Conde, Quesnoy, Mau- 
 beuge, Landrecies, Avennes, Rocroy, 
 Givet, Sedan, Montmedy, Thionville, 
 Longwy, Bitche, and Fort Louis — for 
 not less than three, nor more than five 
 years. This army was to be entirely 
 maintained, paid, and clothed at the 
 
 expense of the French nation. The 
 contingent of Great Britain was 30, 000 
 men ; and the seal was put to its na- 
 tional glory, and the personal fame of 
 its great General, by the Allied sove- 
 reigns unanimously conferring the com- 
 mand of the whole upon the Duke of 
 Wellington. 
 
 49. On the same day on which this 
 treaty was signed, another treaty was 
 concluded between Russia, Prussia, 
 Austria, and England, which after- 
 wards became of essential importance 
 in the direction of European affairs. 
 France was no party to this treaty ; it 
 was concluded, like that of Chaumont 
 in 1813, as a measure of security for 
 the Allied powers among each other. 
 By it the four Allied powers rencAved, 
 in all its provisions, the treaties of 
 Chaumont and Vienna, and in an 
 especial manner those which "exclude 
 for ever Napoleon Buonaparte and his 
 family irom the throne of France. " + 
 It was declared that the occupation, 
 during a limited number of years, of 
 the military positions in France, was 
 intended to carry into effect these 
 stipulations ; and, in consequence, they 
 mutually engaged, in case the army of 
 
 * The proportions in which this sum 
 France, were as follows : — 
 
 Austria, .... 
 Prussia, .... 
 Netherlands, . 
 Sardinia, .... 
 Hamburg, 
 
 Tuscany, .... 
 Parma, .... 
 Bremen, .... 
 Lubeck, .... 
 Baden, .... 
 Hanover, . . 
 
 Hesse-Cassel, . 
 Hesse-Darmstadt, (fee. . 
 Mecklenberg-Schwei-in, , 
 Denmark, 
 
 Rome, .... 
 Bavaria, .... 
 Frankfort, 
 Switzerland, . 
 Saxony, .... 
 Prussian Saxony, . 
 
 735,500,000 £29,500,000 
 
 — CAPEFir.uE, i. 227. 
 
 t Castlereagh Correspondence, x. 411, 412. 
 
 t '_' Les hautes puissances renouvellent et confirment particuliferement Vcxchision a per- 
 petuity de Napoleon Buonaparte, et de sa famille, du pouvoir supreme en France, qu'elles 
 s'engagent a maintenir en pleine vigueur, et, s'il ^tait necessaire, avec toutes leurs forces." 
 —Act 2, Convention, 29th November 1S15 ; Schoell, xi. 56c!, and Martens' Sup. 
 
 as claimed by the Allies 
 
 and agreed to be paid by 
 
 Francs. 
 
 £ 
 
 189,000,000 or 
 
 7,360,000 
 
 106,000,000 „ 
 
 4,240,000 
 
 88,000,000 
 
 3,520,000 
 
 73,000,000 
 
 2,920,000 
 
 71,000,000 
 
 2,840,000 
 
 4,500,000 ,, 
 
 180,000 
 
 2,000,000 
 
 80,000 
 
 3,000,000 
 
 120,000 
 
 4,000,000 
 
 160,000 
 
 1,500,000 „ 
 
 60,000 
 
 25,000,000 
 
 1,000,000 
 
 1,500,000 
 
 60,000 
 
 20,000,000 
 
 800,000 
 
 1,000,000 
 
 40,000 
 
 17,000,000 
 
 680,000 
 
 29,000.000 „ 
 
 1,160,000 
 
 72,000,000 
 
 2,120,000 
 
 3,000,000 
 
 120,000 
 
 5,000,000 „ 
 
 200,000 
 
 15,000,000 
 
 600,000 
 
 5,000,000 
 
 200,000. 
 
110 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE 
 
 [chap. hi. 
 
 occupation should be menaced by an 
 attack on the part of France, or if a 
 general war should arise, to furnish 
 without delay, in addition to the forces 
 left in France, each their full contin- 
 gent of 60,000 men. Should these 
 prove insufficient, they engaged to 
 bring each their whole forces into ac- 
 tion, so as to bring the contest to an 
 immediate and favourable issue, and 
 in that event to make such pacific ar- 
 rangements as might effectually guar- 
 antee Europe from a return of similar 
 calamities. This treaty was communi- 
 cated to the Duke de Richelieu, with 
 a letter from tlie four Allied powers, 
 in which they expressed their entire 
 confidence in the wisdom and prudence 
 of the King's government, and his de- 
 termination, without distinction of 
 party, or lending an ear to passionate 
 counsels, to maintain peace and the 
 nile of justice in his dominions. * 
 Finally, it was determined to renew at 
 stated periods these congresses of sove- 
 reigns, to arrange without bloodshed 
 the affairs of Europe ; and the first of 
 these was fixed for the autumn of 1818. 
 50. On the same day on which these 
 important treaties were signed, another 
 one, which acquired still greater cele- 
 brity at the time, but was not destined 
 to produce such durable consequences 
 in the end, was concluded. This was 
 the celebrated treaty of "The Holy 
 Alliance." Its author was the Em- 
 peror Alexander. This sovereign, v/hose 
 
 * " Les Cabinets Allies trouvent la premi- 
 ere garaiitie de cet espoir dans les principes 
 eclaires, les sentimens magnanimes, et les 
 vertus personnelles de sa Majeste trfes Chre- 
 tierine. Sa Majeste a reconnu avec eux, que 
 dans un etat d^chire pendant un quart de 
 siecle, par des convulsions revolutionnaires, 
 ce n'est pas a la force seule a ramener le 
 calme dans les esprits, la confiance dans les 
 ames, et I'equilibre dans les difKrentes par- 
 ties du corps social ; que la sagesse doit se 
 joiudre a la vigueu la moderation a la fer- 
 mete, pour operer des cliangemens lieureux. 
 Loin de craindre que sa Majesty ne pretat 
 jamais I'oreille a des conseils imprudens ou 
 passionn^s, tendant a nourrir les mecontente- 
 mens, a reuouveler les alarmes, a ramener 
 les haines et les divisions, les Cabinets Allies 
 sont complfetement rassur^s, par les disposi- 
 tions aussi sages que genereuses, que le Roi 
 a aunoncues dans toutes les epoques de son 
 regne, et notamment a celle de son retour 
 aprfes le dernier attentat criininel, lis savent 
 
 strength of mind and knowledge of 
 mankind were not equal to the mag- 
 nanimity of his disposition and the 
 benevolence of his heart, had been in 
 some degree carried away by the all- 
 imiK)rtant part he had been called on 
 to play at the first taking of Paris and 
 the Congress of Vienna, and the un- 
 bounded admiration, alike among his 
 friends and his enemies, with which his 
 noble and generous conduct on these 
 occasions had been received. He had 
 come to conceive, in consequence, that 
 the period had arrived wlien these 
 principles might permanently regulate 
 the affairs of the world — when the 
 seeds of evil might be eradicated from 
 the human heart ; and when the peace- 
 ful reign of the Gospel, announced 
 from the throne, might for ever super- 
 sede the rude empire of the sword. In 
 the belief of the advent of this moral 
 millennium, and of the lead which it 
 was his mission to take in inducing it, 
 he was strongly supported by the in- 
 fluence and counsels of iladame Kru- 
 dener, a lady of great talents, elo- 
 quence, and an enthusiastic turn of 
 mind, who had followed him from St 
 Petersburg to Paris, and was equally 
 persuaded with himself that the time 
 was approaching when wars were to 
 cease, and the reign of peace, virtue, 
 and the Gospel, was to commence on 
 the earth. Alexander, during Septem- 
 ber and October of this year, spent 
 whole days at Paris in a mystical com- 
 
 que sa Majeste opposera a tons les ennemis 
 du bien x»ublic, et de la tranquillit(5 de son 
 Toyaume, sous quelque forme qu'ils puissent 
 se presenter, son attachement aux lois consti- 
 UitioneUes, promulguees sous ses propres 
 auspices, sa volonte bien prononcee d'etre le 
 pere de tous ses sujets, sans distinction de 
 classe ni de. religion; d'effacer jusqu'au sou- 
 venir des maux qu'ils ont soutferts, et de ne 
 conseryer des temps passes que le bien que 
 la Providence a fait sortir du sein meme des 
 calamit^s publiques. Ce n'est qu'ainsi que 
 les voeux formers par les Cabinets Allies, pour 
 la conservation de Tautorite constitution- 
 nelle de sa Majestt?, pour le bonheur de soa 
 pays, et le maintien de la paix du monde, 
 seiont couronnes d'un succfes complet, et 
 que la France, rctaUie sur ses anciennes. 
 loses, reprendra la place eminente a laquelle 
 elle est appelee dans le systfeme Europeen." 
 — Lettrcs des Qnatre Puissances a J/. Ic Due 
 de Richelieu, 20tli Nov. 1815. Schoell, xL 
 £65, 566. 
 
1815.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 Ill 
 
 mimication of sentiments with this re- 
 markable lady. Their united idea was 
 the establishment of a common inter- 
 national law, founded on Christianity, 
 over all Euro2)e, which was at once to 
 extinguish the religious divisions which 
 had so long distracted, and the warlike 
 contests which had desolated it. Sove- 
 reigns were to be regulated by the 
 princijiles of virtue and religion, the 
 people to surrender themselves in peace 
 and happiness to the universal regen- 
 eration of mankind. This treaty, from 
 being concluded between the absolute 
 monarchs of Russia, Austria, and Prus- 
 sia, was long the object of dread and 
 jealousy to the Liberal and revolution- 
 ary party throughout Europe. But 
 now that its provisions have become 
 known, it is regarded in a very differ- 
 ent light, and looked upon as one of 
 the effusions of inexperienced enthusi- 
 asm and benevolence, to be classed 
 with the dreams as to the indefinite 
 prolongation of human life of Condor- 
 cet, or the visions of the Peace Con- 
 gress which amused Europe amidst 
 universal preparations for war in the 
 middle of the nineteenth century. 
 
 51. By this celebrated alliance, the 
 three monarchs subscribing — viz., the 
 Emperors of Russia and Austi'ia, and the 
 King of Prussia — bound themselves, 
 "in conformity with the principles of 
 the Holy Scriptures, which order all 
 men to regard each other as brothers, 
 and considering themselves as com- 
 patriots, to lend each other every aid, 
 assistance, and succour, on every oc- 
 casion ; and regarding themselves to- 
 wards their subjects and armies as 
 fathers, to direct them on every occa- 
 sion in the same spirit of fraternity 
 with which they are animated to pro- 
 tect religion, peace, and justice. In 
 consequence, the sole principle in 
 vigour, either between the said govern- 
 ments or among their subjects, shall 
 be the determination to rendeV each 
 other reciprocal aid, and to testify, by 
 continued good deeds, the unalterable 
 mutual affection by which they are 
 animated : to consider themselves only 
 as members of a great Christian nation, 
 and not regarding themselves but as 
 delegates appointed by Providence to 
 
 govern three branches of the same 
 family — viz., Austria, Prussia, and 
 Russia ; confessing also that the Chris- 
 tian nation, of which they and their 
 people form a part, has in reality no 
 other sovereign to whom of right be- 
 longs all power, because He alone pos- 
 sesses all the treasures of love, know- 
 ledge, and infinite wisdom— that is to 
 say, God Almighty, our Divine Saviour, 
 Jesus Christ, the Word of the ]\Iost 
 High, the Word of Life — they recom- 
 mend in the most earnest manner to 
 their people, as the only way of secur- 
 ing that peace which flows from a good 
 conscience, and which alone is durable, 
 to fortify themselves every day more 
 and more in the principles and exer- 
 cise of the duties which the Divine 
 Saviour has taught to men. All the 
 l^owers which may feel inclined to avow 
 the sacred principles which have dic- 
 tated the present treaty, and who may 
 perceive how important it is for the 
 happiness of nations too long agitated 
 that these truths should henceforth 
 exercise on human destinies all the in- 
 fluence which should pertain to them, 
 shall be received with as much eager- 
 ness as affection into the present alli- 
 ance. (Signed) Francis, Frederick- 
 William, Alexander." There is no 
 good Christian, and even no good man 
 with a good heart, who must not feel 
 that the principles recognised in this 
 treaty are those which shoidd actuate 
 the conduct both of sovereigns and 
 their subjects ; and that the real mil- 
 lennium is to be looked for when they 
 shall do so, and not till then. But 
 the experienced observer of mankind 
 in all ranks and ages will regret to 
 think how little likely they are to bo 
 carried j^ractically into effect, and 
 class them with the philanthropic 
 effusions of Freemason meetings, or 
 the generous transports of a crowded 
 theatre, Avhich melt away next morning 
 before the interests, the selfishness, 
 and the passions of tlie world. 
 
 52. This treaty, out of compliment 
 to its knoAvn author, the Emperor 
 Alexander, was ere long acceeded to 
 by nearly all the Continental sove- 
 reigns. But as it was signed by the 
 sovereigns alone, -\Wthout the sanction 
 
112 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [OHAP. III. 
 
 or intervention of their ministers, the 
 Prince-Regent, by the advice of Lord 
 Castlereagh, judiciously declared, that 
 while he adhered to the principles of 
 that Alliance, the restraints imposed 
 upon him as a constitutional monarch 
 prevented him from becoming a party 
 to any convention M'hich was not 
 countersigned by a responsible minis- 
 ter. Several minor treaties, but still 
 of considerable importance in future 
 times, were also concluded in the 
 usual way between the Allied powers 
 in this great diplomatic year. 1. The 
 first of these regarded the seven Ionian 
 Islands, which had been taken posses- 
 sion of by Great Britain during the 
 campaign of 1813, with the exception 
 of Corfu, ceded to them by the treaty 
 of 1814, but the destiny of which had 
 not hitherto been made the subject of 
 a formal treaty between the Allied 
 powers. It was now provided that 
 the Islands should form a separate 
 state, to be entitled the " United 
 States of the Ionian Islands," to be 
 placed under the immediate protection 
 of Great Britain, by whom its fortresses 
 were to be garrisoned and governors 
 appointed— all the other powers re- 
 nouncing any pretensions in that re- 
 spect. 2. In consideration of the vast 
 efforts made by Russia during the 
 preceding campaign, which, it was 
 declared, had moved 100,000 men 
 into the interior of France beyond 
 what she was bound to have done by 
 the existing treaties, of whom 40,000 
 were placed under the immediate com- 
 mand of the Duke of "Wellington, 
 besides a reserve force of 150,000, 
 which had passed her frontier, and 
 advanced as far as Franconia, Great 
 Britain agreed to pay to that power an 
 additional subsidy of 10,400,000 francs 
 (£416,666). 3. A convention was con- 
 cluded between the four Allied powers 
 on the 2d August 1815, for the disposal 
 of the person of Napoleon. By it he 
 was declared a prisoner of the four 
 Allied powers which had signed the 
 treaty of 25th ]\Iarcli preceding, at 
 "Vienna. The custody of his person 
 was in an especial manner intrusted to 
 the British Government ; but the three 
 other powers were to name commis- 
 
 sioners, who should reside at the place 
 which the British Government should 
 assign as his place of residence, with- 
 out sharing the responsibility of his 
 detention. The King of France was 
 to be invited to send a commissioner, 
 and the Prince-Regent of Great Britain 
 pledged himself faithfully to perform 
 the engagements undertaken by him 
 in this treat3^ 
 
 53. Such were the treaties of 1815, 
 for ever memorable as terminating, 
 for a time at least, the revolutionary 
 governments in the civilised world, 
 and closmg in a durable manner the 
 ascendancy of Imperial France in 
 Europe. It is hard to say whether 
 the magnitude of the triumphs which, 
 had preceded it, or the moderation 
 displayed by the victors in the moment 
 of conquest, were the most admirable. 
 France, indeed, was subjected to im- 
 mense pecuniary payments, but that 
 was only in requital of those which 
 she had, in the hour of her triumph, 
 imposed on others ; — and they did 
 not reach a tenth their amount, for 
 £61,000,000 sterling only was im- 
 posed on France, with its 30,000,000 
 of inhabitants ; whereas Napoleon, 
 after the battle of Jena, had imposed 
 £24,000,000, in contributions and 
 military exactions, on Prussia alone, 
 which had only 6,000,000 of souls in 
 its dominions. But as regards durable 
 losses, she not only had no ground of 
 complaint, but the highest reason to 
 be satisfied and grateful. After the 
 most entire conquest and subjugation 
 recorded in history, when her Emperor 
 was a prisoner, her capital taken, her 
 army disbanded, and 1,100,000 men 
 were in possession of her fortresses and 
 territory, she lost only ticenty square 
 leagues of territory, just lialf the area 
 of the Venaisin, the first concpiest of 
 the Revolution, which she was per- 
 mitted to retain ! What did Xapoleon 
 do to Prussia after the battle of Jena ? 
 — Deprived her of half of her domin- 
 ions. What to Austria after the battle 
 of Wagram ? — Cut off a sixth of the 
 whole Austrian States from the house 
 of Hapsburg. If the Allied powers 
 had acted to France as France did to 
 them in the hour of her triumph, they 
 
1815.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 113 
 
 would have reft from her Lorraine, 
 Alsace, Picardy, Tranche Comte, 
 French Flanders, and Roussillon, and 
 reduced the monarchy to what it was 
 in the days of Louis XI. And England, 
 in an especial manner, displayed the 
 magnanimity in prosperity which is 
 the true test of greatness of soul. She 
 made no attempt to retaliate upon 
 France in the moment of its sorrow 
 the successful partition of her domin- 
 ions hy the accession of Louis XVI. 
 to the American War, but when her 
 ancient rival was prostrate at her feet, 
 threw the whole of her weight in 
 diplomacy to moderate the demands of 
 the victors ; and, when the treaty was 
 concluded, took neither one ship nor 
 one village to herself, and bestowed 
 the whole of the war indemnity which 
 fell to her share upon the kingdom of 
 the Netherlands, to reconstruct the 
 barrier which had been cast down by 
 the philanthropic delusions of Joseph 
 II. before the Revolution. 
 
 54. It was in the midst of the ne- 
 gotiations which were to lead to these 
 results that the Chambers met in 
 France, and the strong feelings of the 
 nation found a vent in the resolutions 
 and measures of its representatives. It 
 might have been anticipated, what expe - 
 rience soon proved to be the case, that 
 the greatest difficulties of the Govern- 
 ment in this crisis would be, not with 
 the strangers, but with its own suIj- 
 jects, and that the violence of the legis- 
 lature would call for measures which 
 the wisdom and foresight of the execu- 
 tive would be fain to moderate. This 
 is invariably the case. Great reactions 
 in public opinion never take place from 
 the force of argimient, howsoever con- 
 Tincing, or the evidence of facts affect- 
 ing others, how conclusive soever. 
 Against all such the gi-eat majority of 
 men are always sufficiently fortified, 
 if their passions are inflamed, or their 
 interests, or supposed interests, are at 
 stake. But this very circumstance 
 renders the reaction the more violent, 
 and the more to be dreaded, when 
 these passions or interests are turned 
 the other way, and men are taught by 
 suffering, and above all, by 2^ccuniary 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 losses to themselves, the consequences 
 of the course which they have so long 
 pursued, and to the dangers of which 
 they remained obstinately blind till 
 those consequences were fully devel- 
 oped. That effect had now taken 
 place in France ; events had succeeded 
 each other with more than railway 
 speed ; the last three years had done 
 the Avork of three centuries. The 
 forces which poured into its territory 
 had gone on increasing till they had 
 now reached the stupendous amount 
 of eleven hundred and forty thousand, 
 men. The armed multitude was all 
 fed and maintained by the French 
 people ; and exactions of an enormous 
 and unlieard-of amount were made 
 upon the government, for the expenses 
 which the putting such a crusade in 
 motion had occasioned to the foreign 
 governments. The truths which rea- 
 son and justice would have stinven in 
 vain to impress upon the majority in 
 France, were now brought home to 
 every breast by the irresistible force 
 of mortification and suffering ; and in 
 despair of effecting anything against 
 the Allies, who were the immediate 
 cause of their disasters, the only vent 
 which the public indignation could 
 find was against the party at home 
 which had induced them. 
 
 55. Great as the dangers were which, 
 under any circumstances, must have 
 beset a legislature elected amidst the 
 fervour of such feelings, they were 
 much aggravated in France by the 
 peculiar situation of the provinces, 
 from which a majority of the repre- 
 sentatives had been drawn. The great 
 addition of 133 members made to the 
 Chamber of Representatives by the 
 royal ordinance of July, which raised 
 their number to 389, and the admis- 
 sion by the same ordinance of all the 
 members of the Legion of Honour to 
 the right of voting, joined to the gene- 
 ral excitement and vehemently roused 
 passions of the moment, had immense- 
 ly increased the Royalist majority in 
 the Chamber. So entire had been the 
 defeat of the Imperial and Republican 
 parties in the elections, that the regu- 
 lar opposition — that is, the persons 
 
 H 
 
114 
 
 IIISTOHY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. III. 
 
 attached to the Republican or Impe- 
 rial Government — could never muster 
 above forty or Mty votes. The major- 
 ity was composed of persons about the 
 Court — emigrants, journalists, or pam- 
 phleteers on the side of the ancien 
 regime, nobles from the provinces, or 
 red-hot Royalists from the departments 
 — men Avholly unacquainted with busi- 
 ness, in great part imperfectly edu- 
 cated, but all smarting under the 
 intolerable sense of present Avi-ongs, 
 and conceiving themselves intrusted 
 with one only duty — that of avenging 
 on their authors the sins and sufferings 
 of France. One universal feeling of 
 indignation pervaded this body, and 
 in the vehement passions with which 
 it was animated the women of the 
 highest rank connected with the mem- 
 bers stood pre-eminent, and strongly 
 excited all the men with whom they 
 were connected, or whom they could 
 influence. The human heart is the 
 same at all times, and in all grades of 
 society ; and the same principle which 
 causes two-thirds of the crowd at every 
 public execution to be composed of the 
 humbler part of the softer sex, now 
 rendered many of the highest foremost 
 in the demand for scaffolds which were 
 to cover France mth mourning. 
 
 56. Several men of unquestioned 
 talent were to be found in the ranks 
 of this formidable majority, and some 
 acquired the lead of the several sec- 
 tions of which it was composed. The 
 section of extreme Royalists, of whom 
 the Count d'Artois, the heir- apparent 
 to the throne, was the acknowledged 
 head, and which was known in France 
 by the name of the ''Pavilion Mar- 
 san," from the quarter in the Tuileries 
 where the apartments of that prince 
 were situated, Avas mainly under the 
 direction of M. de Vitrolles, a man of 
 talent, activity, and the most a^ee- 
 able manners, who had acquired an 
 unlimited command over his royal 
 master, and was looked forward to as 
 his future prime minister. Chateau- 
 briand also, in the Chamber of Peers, 
 at that period belonged to the same 
 party, and lent it the influence of his 
 great talents and literary fame ; while 
 M. de Bourrienne, with less genius 
 
 but superior talents for business, and 
 all the zeal of a new convert from the 
 Imperial regime, was a valuable ally, 
 especially in matters of detail, and 
 those connected with the public ad- 
 ministration. Several of the old no- 
 blesse also, particularly M. Armand de 
 Polignac, destined to a fatal celebrity 
 in future times, M. le Vicomte Bruges, 
 and Alexander de Boisgelin, were also 
 numbered among their most Avarm ad- 
 herents, and, without the aid of great 
 talents, possessed considerable influ- 
 ence in the Chamber, from their high 
 rank, and their knoAAOi connection with 
 the heir-apparent to the throne. 
 
 57. Above haK of the Chamber of 
 Deputies was composed of persons who 
 might be considered as representing 
 with fidelity the provinces, the inhabi- 
 tants of which formed a large majority 
 of the people of France. It was to this 
 class that the 133 new deputies, admit- 
 ted by the royal ordinance of 24th July 
 1815, chiefly belonged ; and it was that 
 ordinance which gave them a majority 
 in the Chamber, and rendered it so 
 difficult of management by the Court. 
 Their ideas were peculiar, antiquated, 
 and for the most part at variance with 
 the settled ideas which the Revolution 
 had impressed on the metropolis and 
 great towns. Common hatred of the 
 Napoleonists, and suffermg under the 
 exactions and humiliations of the Al- 
 lies, had for a time united them in 
 common measures ; but it was easy to 
 foresee that this alliance could not 
 long survive the catastrophe which had 
 given it birth. They were at once im- 
 pregnated \n.i\\ Royalist and Republi- 
 can ideas — with the former, in so far 
 as any measures for the support of the 
 monarchy or the Church were concern- 
 ed ; with the latter, in so far as a career 
 might be opened for the intelligence 
 and ambition of the proA^nces, in the 
 offices at the disposal of the central 
 government. Jealousy of Paris and 
 provincial ambition were the leading 
 principles by which they were actuat- 
 ed ; they hoped out of the departments 
 to raise up a counterpoise to the long- 
 established reign of the metropolis. 
 The chiefs of this party were men of 
 remarkable abilities, far superior to 
 
1815.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 115 
 
 those of tlie Pavilion ]\Iarsan for the 
 conduct of affairs, and accordingly ere 
 long they acquired the direction of the 
 country. MM. do Bonald, de Villele, 
 de Corbiere, and Grosbois, were the 
 most remarkable of them, and soon 
 acquired the lead in a large section of 
 the Assembly. The first was a man of 
 decided talent, inflexible integrity, and 
 ready conversation, with the mildest 
 manners, but the sternest and most 
 uncompromising Royalist principles. 
 M. de Villele, as yet unkno-\vn, and 
 a deputy from the south of France, 
 soon gave proof in the committees of 
 the Chamber of those great business 
 talents, and prodigious command of 
 details, which, like similar powers in 
 Sir R. Peel, ultimately gave him the 
 lead in the Assembly, and made him 
 head of the Administration. M. de 
 Corbiere, formerly remarkable by the 
 indolence of his disposition, was roused 
 by ambition to diff"erent habits, and by 
 his talent in drawing reports j?,nd capa- 
 city in business, soon became distin- 
 guished ; while M. de Grosbois was 
 universally respected from his energy, 
 his eloquence, and the power which 
 he evinced not less in business than 
 debate. 
 
 • 58. As is invariably the case after 
 the decisive trium])h of one party in a 
 great political crisis, the minority, to 
 all practical purposes, was entirely 
 unrepresented. The liberal opposition 
 in the Chamber could not at the utmost 
 number above sixty persons in its ranks 
 — not a sixth of the whole, which com- 
 prised 395 members ; and it was rare 
 on a division involving any vital ques- 
 tion that they mustered more than 
 forty -five. But the influence of a 
 minority, and its chances of ultimate 
 success, are not always to be measured 
 by its numbers at the outset of a par- 
 liamentary contest ; the history of Eng- 
 land, especially in later times, aff"ords 
 numerous instances of courageous and 
 united minorities, first commanding 
 respect by their talents and consisten- 
 cy, and ere long acquiring power by 
 the disunion of then- opponents, or the 
 general admiration which their quali- 
 ties have awakened. The reason is 
 that the minoritv are forced to evince 
 
 courage and appeal to principle ; and 
 it is by these qualities that, in the long 
 run, when the passions are excited, 
 mankind are governed. The chiefs of 
 this small party were MM. Royer- 
 Collard, de Serres, Pasquier, and l>ra- 
 quey — men of lofty feelings, ardent 
 minds, and persuasive eloquence, who 
 never ascended the tribune without 
 commanding attention, and seldom left 
 it without having in some generous 
 breast awakened sympathy, in some 
 powerful intellect produced conviction. 
 MM. Royer-CoUard and de Serres, in 
 particular, were gifted with such great 
 powers of oratory, that though they 
 could never win over anything like a 
 majority to their side, they seldom fail- 
 ed to awaken the unanimous admira- 
 tion of the Chamber ; and from admira- 
 tion it is but a step to influence, not 
 less in public assemblies than in affairs 
 of the heart. Such was the power in 
 debate of these very eminent men, that 
 they insensibly won over several of the 
 chief members on the other side to their 
 opinions on many points ; among whom 
 may be named M. Hyde de Neuville, 
 one of the ablest and noblest of the 
 Royalists, whose subsequent career has 
 sufficiently proved the elevation of his 
 mind and purity of his principles, and 
 who has demonstrated, like Chateau- 
 briand, that the warmest devotion to 
 the tlirone, in generous breasts, is 
 consistent with, and in truth proceeds 
 from, the same principles as the most 
 sincere attachment to public liberty. 
 
 59. The Chamber of Peers deserves 
 much less consideration, for unhappily 
 the general want of great and indepen- 
 dent proprietors in its ranks, the ser- 
 vility and frequent tergiversations by 
 which it had invariably been distin- 
 guished in later tiiues, and the recent 
 creation of ninety -two new peers by the 
 King, had nearly deprived it of all con- 
 sideration in the country. The major- 
 ity was decided on the Royalist side ; 
 indeed, the recent numerous creations 
 were made with no other view but to 
 effect that object. But it was less com- 
 pact and decided than the majority in 
 the Chamber of Deputies ; for, being 
 composed for the most part of men 
 experienced in public life, it was more 
 
116 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. hi. 
 
 inclined to moderation — of those in- 
 iired to revolutions, disposed to tem- 
 porise. The leaders of the Royalist 
 majority were the Count Jules de Poli- 
 gnac, the Dukes de Fitzjames,deSerent, 
 d'Uzes, and de Grammont, and the Vis- 
 count de Chateaubriand. The great 
 literary fame and splendid eloquence 
 of the last would have rendered him 
 beyond all question the most powerful 
 man in the Assembly, had his reason 
 been as powerful as his imagination, 
 his consistency as his oratory. But 
 unfortunately these qualities were by 
 no means equally strong in his ardent 
 mind ; and he adds another to the 
 numerous examples which go to prove 
 that in public life the judgment is a 
 more important faculty than even 
 genius, and that it is not so much the 
 pre-eminence of any one mental quali- 
 ty, as their happy combination, which 
 is the secret of success. Ever energetic 
 and eloquent, he was not always con- 
 sistent : on reviewing his political life, 
 it is not easy to say what his opinions 
 really were ; and no better refutation 
 can sometimes be sought for his argu- 
 ments at one period, than his speeches 
 at another. 
 
 60. The session was opened by the 
 King in person, with great pomp, on 
 the 7th October. The restoration of 
 the Bourbons, the unparalleled mis- 
 fortunes which had befallen the coun- 
 try, the still greater evils which it was 
 feared were impending over it, all tend- 
 ed to invest the ceremony with a mel- 
 ancholy and absorbing mterest. The 
 Sovereign appeared, surrounded by his 
 brothers, his nobles, the marshals of 
 the empire, and all the pomp of the 
 monarchy ; and the speech Avhich he 
 delivered is memorable, not only as an 
 important state paper in an unpar- 
 alleled crisis, but as kno^\ai to have 
 been his unaided composition.* He 
 spoke as follows : " When, last year, I 
 
 * " J'ai eu ce dlseours tout entier ecrit de 
 la niaiu du Roi, sur une petite feuille de pa- 
 pier a lettre, avec cette eeriture si nette qu'il 
 employait a la correspondance. II se reser- 
 vait la redaction claire et elegante de ses dis- 
 cours ; 11 y mettait un soin infini ; c'etait pour 
 lui une affaire litteraire a laquelle il attachait 
 de rimportance, meme sous le rapport du 
 style." — C.4PEFIGUE, iii. 203. 
 
 for the first time convoked the Cham- 
 bers, I congratulated myself upon hav- 
 ing, by an honourable treaty, restored 
 peace to France. It was beginning to 
 taste the fruits of it ; all the sources 
 of public prosperity were reopening, 
 when a criminal enterprise, seconded 
 by the most inconceivable defection, 
 arrested their course. The e\'ils which 
 that ephemeral usurpation have caused 
 to my country afflict me profoundly ; 
 but I must declare, that if it had been 
 possible they could have reached me 
 alone, I should have returned thanks 
 to Providence. The marks of attach- 
 ment which my people have given me, 
 in the most critical moments, have 
 been a solace to my personal distresses ; 
 but those of my subjects, of my chil- 
 dren, press upon my heart. It is in 
 order to put a period to that state of 
 suspense, more trying than war itself, 
 that I have felt it ni)^ duty to conclude 
 with the powers who, after having 
 overturned the usurper, occupy at pre- 
 sent a great part of our territor}'-, a 
 convention which will regulate our pre- 
 sent and future relations with them. 
 It will be communicated to you, with- 
 out any reservation, when it has re- 
 ceived the last formalities. You will 
 feel, the whole of France will feel, the 
 profound grief which I must have felt 
 on the occasion ; but the salvation of 
 my kingdom rendered that gi-eat deter- 
 mination necessary ; and when I took 
 it, I felt the whole duties which it 
 imposed upon me. I have directed 
 that this year there should be trans- 
 ferred from my privy purse to the 
 general exchequer a considerable part 
 of my revenue ; my family, the moment 
 they heard of my resolution, have done 
 the same. I have ordered similar reduc- 
 tions on the salaries of all my servants, 
 without ex("eption ; I shall ever be 
 ready to share in the sacrifices which 
 mournful circumstances have imposed, 
 upon my people. The public accounts 
 \n\l be laid before you ; you will at 
 once see the necessity of the economy 
 which I have prescribed to my minis- 
 ters in all branches of the administra- 
 tion. Happy if these measures shall 
 meet the exigencies of the State ; but, 
 in any event, I reckon on the devotion 
 
1815.] 
 
 HISTOEY OF EUROPE. 
 
 117 
 
 of the nation, and the zeal of the Cham- 
 bers. But other sweeter and not less 
 important cares await your attention. 
 It is to give weight to your delibera- 
 tions, and to obtain myself the ad- 
 vantage of greater light, that I have 
 created new peers, and augmented the 
 number of the deputies. 1 hope 1 have 
 succeeded in my choice ; and the zeal 
 of the deputies, in such a difficult con- 
 juncture, is a proof alike that they are 
 animated by a sincere aftection for my 
 person and an ardent love for our coun- 
 trJ^ It is therefore with a heart-felt 
 joy and entire confidence that I behold 
 you assembled around me, certain that 
 you will never lose sight of tlie funda- 
 mental basis of tlie felicity of the State, 
 a cordial and loyal union of the Cham- 
 bers with the King, and respect for 
 the constitutional Charter, That Char- 
 ter — on which I have meditated with 
 care before giving it — to which reflec- 
 tion every day attaches me more — 
 which I have sworn to maintain, and 
 to which you all, beginning wdth my 
 family, are about to swear obedience 
 — is, without doubt, like all human 
 institutions, susceptible of improve- 
 ment ; but I am sure none of you will 
 ever forget that side by side with the 
 advantage of amelioration is the dan- 
 ger of innovation. To cause religion 
 to flourish, to purify the public morals, 
 to found liberty on a respect for the 
 laws, to give stability to credit, re- 
 organise the army, heal the wounds 
 which have too much wounded our 
 country, to secure internal tranquillity, 
 and cause France to be respected with- 
 out : these are the ends to which all 
 our efforts should tend." 
 
 61. These were noble and dignified 
 expressions, worthy of a king of France 
 meeting the representatives of his peo- 
 I)le in a period of unequalled gloom 
 and difficulty. Inexpressibly striking 
 Avas the scene which the Chamber pre- 
 sented during their delivery. There 
 was none of the enthusiasm usually 
 exliibited on these occasions ; none of 
 the transports which in general attend 
 the restoration of a monarch of an an- 
 cient race to the throne of his fathers. 
 The Chamber was profoundly loyal, 
 but the public misfortvmes crushed 
 
 every heart. It was known that a 
 treaty of peace was in progress, that 
 grievous exactions would be made by 
 the Allies, and that probably a consid- 
 erable portion of the teriitory on the 
 frontier would require to be abandon- 
 ed. Sadness, consternation, despair, 
 were on every countenance as the 
 words so prophetic of evil were pro- 
 nounced by the King. The obscurity 
 of the expressions rendered them more 
 terrible : no one knew what the im- 
 pending calamity would be, or on 
 whom it would fall. The deputies of 
 the departments which it was feared 
 would be ceded, on the frontier, shed 
 tears at the thoughts of their approach- 
 ing severance from their country. It 
 was felt by all that a family long united 
 was about to be broken up ; the well- 
 known halls would be deserted — the 
 gladsome hearth become desolate. 
 
 62. The King, before even the ses- 
 sion began, had a convincing proof of 
 the thorns with which his path was to 
 be beset. The oath of fidelity to the 
 King and the Constitution required 
 to be taken by the whole of the legis- 
 lature, beginning with the peers of 
 the blood-royal. But here a difficulty 
 at once arose. The Count d'Artois at 
 first refused to take the oath, and it 
 was only after a long and difficult 
 negotiation that his scruples were 
 overcome. The Prince of Conde made 
 similar difiiculties, and feigned sick- 
 ness to avoid taking it. M. Jules de 
 Polignac and M. de la Bourdonnaye 
 refused to take it altogether, though 
 they were among the newly-created 
 peers. The deputy of Montauban, 
 when called on, insisted on making 
 some reservations. These incidents 
 were not material, but they indicated 
 the strength of the prevailing feeling, 
 and in what quarter it was that the 
 principal difficulties of the session 
 would arise. When the vote came to 
 be taken for the president of the 
 Chamber, the strength of the several 
 parties was at once demonstrated. M. 
 Laine, the president during the former 
 year, and whose intrepid conduct on 
 more than one eventful crisis had won 
 for him the esteem of all parties, was 
 indeed called to the chair by a large 
 
118 
 
 HISTORY OF EUEOPE. 
 
 [chap. hi. 
 
 majority ; he had 328 votes out of 346. 
 But the strength of the opposition 
 was tried and appeared on the vote for 
 the second canditates, or siqjpleans. 
 The Prince de la Tremouille, who re- 
 presented the opinions and was sup- 
 ported by the whole strength of the 
 Count d'Artois's party, had 229 votes ; 
 while M. de la Rigaudie, who united 
 the suffrages of the united Liberals and 
 moderate Royalists, had only 169 votes. 
 63. The answer of the Chambers, 
 though upon the whole, as the speeches 
 of the mover and seconder of the Ad- 
 dress are in England, an echo of the 
 speech from the Throne, yet gave proof 
 of the profound feelings of indignation 
 with which the representatives were 
 animated. "The evils of the coun- 
 try," said M. de Laine, "are great, 
 but they are not irreparable. If the 
 nation, albeit inaccessible to the seduc- 
 tion of the usurper, must nevertheless 
 bear the burden of a defection in which 
 it has taken no share, it will submit. 
 But in the midst of our wishes for 
 imiversal concord, and even to cement 
 it, it is our duty to solicit your justice 
 against those who have imperilled alike 
 the throne and the nation. Your clem- 
 ency, Sire, has been without bounds ; 
 we do not come to ask you to retract 
 it ; the promises of Kings, we know 
 well, should be held sacred. But we 
 do supplicate you, in the name of the 
 people, who have been overwhelmed 
 by the weight of their misfortunes, to 
 cause justice to march when clemency 
 is arrested ; and let those who, now 
 encouraged by the impunity they have 
 enjoyed, are not afraid to make a par- 
 ade of their rebellion, he delivered over 
 to the just severitij of the tribunals. 
 The Chamber will zealously concur in 
 the passing of such laws as may be 
 necessary to effect that object. We 
 will not speak of the necessity of in- 
 tnisting to none but pure hands the 
 different branches of your authority. 
 The ministers who surround you pre- 
 sent sufficient giiarantees in that re- 
 spect. Their vigilance in its prosecu- 
 tion will be the more easily exercised 
 that the events which have occurred 
 have sufficiently revealed every senti- 
 ment, and laid bare every thought." 
 
 64. The first measures proposed in 
 the Chamber Avere nothing but an at- 
 tempt to carry into execution these 
 ulcerated feelings. They were chiefly 
 three : a law against seditious cries ; 
 one suspending individual liberty, and 
 investing Government with extraor- 
 dinary power of arrest ; and one estab- 
 lishing Prevotal Courts, or courts with- 
 out juries, for the summary trial of 
 political offenders. The first was in- 
 troduced by M. Barbe-Marbois, the 
 Keeper of the Seals, who thus ex- 
 pressed the gi'ounds on which Govern- 
 ment proceeded in bringing forward 
 the measure : " If great atrocities have 
 been committed ; if, to avoid his own 
 destruction, the loyal citizen has been 
 compelled to remain a passive specta- 
 tor of the deeds of seditious mobs ; if 
 crime has enjoyed for some time fatal 
 triumphs, these calamities are pro- 
 longed even when their success has 
 been interrupted. Then it is that the 
 insurgents endeavour, by the force of 
 audacity, to recover their lost ground ; 
 the seditious mutiially encourage each 
 other, and exert themselves to be seen 
 in every place, and at every hour, as 
 if advancing to an assured victory. 
 If they succeed in inspiring fear, they 
 associate in their ranks all whom the 
 army has expelled with indignation, 
 and all the criminals whom their ob- 
 scurity has screened from the ven- 
 geance of the laws. Should the force 
 of the Government arrest their de- 
 signs, they never think of renouncing 
 them, but take refuge in libellous dis- 
 courses, calumnious publications. Im- 
 punity encourages them. Many of 
 them show themselves without dis- 
 giiise ; and although their indiscretion 
 reveals their weakness, it is not the 
 less certain that their proceedings dis- 
 turb the social order, and the public 
 interest requires that their turbulent 
 designs and detestable enterprises 
 should be effectually repressed. There 
 are some men whose sole morality is 
 the fear of punishment. It is against 
 culprits of that stamp that our laws 
 are in many respects powerless. To 
 the necessity of a positive law for such 
 cases is joined that of a rapid proced- 
 ure, and of a punishment inflicted im- 
 
1815.] 
 
 HISTOEY OF EUROPE. 
 
 tW 
 
 mediately after the offence." In pur- 
 suance of tliese reasons, the proposed 
 law, after defining what should be 
 deemed seditious cries, punished them 
 with imprisonment not below three 
 months, nor exceeding five years. 
 Severe as these penalties may appear 
 for mere seditious ivords, irrespective 
 of overt acts of treason, they fell so 
 far short of the vindictive feelings of 
 the Assembly that the proposal was 
 very coldly received ; and though it 
 passed into a law, it by no means gave 
 vent to the public indignation. 
 
 65. The next law proposed (that on 
 individual liberty) was much more 
 favourably received, and may be con- 
 sidered as faithfully expressing the 
 opinions and feelings of the majority 
 of the Assembly. M. Decazes brought 
 forward the proposition ; and it was 
 loudly applauded as "full of hatred 
 at the Revolution." "The law pro- 
 posed," said he, "has no other object 
 but to reach the great criminals — to 
 prevent the attempts of those men 
 who are strangers to remorse, whom 
 pardon cannot conciliate, whom clem- 
 ency offends, whom nothing can re- 
 assure, because their consciences will 
 never permit it. These are men whom 
 justice cannot overtake, because its 
 forms, salutary but slow, render it im- 
 potent to prevent, often even to re- 
 press ; and because that species of de- 
 linquencies are executed by unseen 
 springs, hidden even from their au- 
 thor. By the law now proposed, the 
 weak will be reassured. They mil 
 range themselves with confidence 
 under the shield of a strong Govern- 
 ment, which has given proof of its 
 resolution to defend others and itself. 
 The people wish, above all things, to 
 be saved. The impotence to which 
 the factions have been reduced since 
 the fall of the usurper, so far from 
 moderating, has only increased their 
 audacity. Like the evil spirit which 
 inspires them, they ruminate on crime 
 to shun oblivion." On this preamble 
 the law proposed enacted that every 
 individual, without exception, who 
 had been arrested on any charge of 
 being concerned in attempts against 
 "the authority of the king, the per- 
 
 sons of the royal family, or the safety 
 of the state, might be detained in 
 custody until the expiry of the law, 
 the termination of which was to be 
 the end of the next session of parlia- 
 ment, if not then renewed." The 
 execution of this law was committed 
 to all the public functionaries to whom 
 the constitution intrasted the cogni- 
 sance of the crimes to which it refers. 
 
 QQ. Disguised imder an appearance 
 of severity which might render it ac- 
 ceptable to the feelings of the majority 
 of the Chambers, a humane feeling 
 had really dictated the proposal of 
 this law to the Government. It was 
 brought forward at the time when 
 popular murders had stained all the 
 south of France with blood, and when 
 there seemed no way of saving the 
 victims but by subjecting them to a 
 temporary confinement. It was de- 
 sired, too, to legalise, in some degree, 
 the numerous arrests which had taken 
 place over the country during the last 
 few months, and to secure the deten- 
 tion of a number of persons during a 
 critical period, whose seditious inten- 
 tions were beyond a doubt, but against 
 whom it might be difficult to adduce 
 complete legal proof. It met, how- 
 ever, with a much greater resistance 
 than the law against seditious cries, 
 because it threatened to affect S much 
 superior class of persons. But if the 
 resistance was determined, the support 
 was still more impassioned, and at 
 length it was earned by a majority of 
 294 to 56, amidst cries and shouts 
 resembling rather the enthusiasm of 
 the theatre than the sober deliberations 
 of a legislative assembly. 
 
 67. The discussion of the law on 
 seditious cries revealed in a still more 
 painful manner the impassioned feel- 
 ings of the Assembly. It was moved 
 as an amendment in committee, that 
 the penalty of raising seditious cries, 
 or hoisting any other flag but the 
 white one, should be not imprison- 
 ment, but transportation, accompanied 
 by confiscation of any public pension. 
 Even this addition to the punishment 
 did not seem to the majority to be 
 adequate to the offence. M. Josse de 
 Beauvois exclaimed — " After what we 
 
120 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. III. 
 
 have seen, is this the time for vain 
 indulgences ? Since the return of the 
 King, we have been caressing crime 
 rather than punishing it : I propose 
 forced labour for life, in addition to 
 transportation." "Death! death!" 
 exclaimed J\I. Humbert de Lesmais- 
 cons : "we must strike at the great 
 culprits. The punishment of death 
 seems to me the only penalty for those 
 who hoist any other flag but the white 
 one ; and it should extend not onlj'- 
 to the actors, but the instigators of 
 that offence." "The pains of parri- 
 cide," added M. Boin, "if the act has 
 been begim to be carried into execu- 
 tion ! " These vehement apostrophes 
 in a manner secured the adoption of 
 the amendments in the committee : 
 the Government were too happy to 
 avoid the extreme penalty by adopting 
 the milder punishment of transporta- 
 tion, which was accordingly agreed to. 
 68. The law for the establishment of 
 Prevotal Courts for the punishment of 
 political offences, which might dispose 
 of cases summarily, without the inter- 
 vention of a jury, came on on the 17th 
 November. It was deemed essential 
 by the Government, as it ever will be 
 by right-thinking ministers in similar 
 circumstances, to take the cognisance 
 of political offences entirely out of the 
 hands of juries ; for so completely Avas 
 the country divided, and so vehement 
 were the passions excited on both sides, 
 that in some departments the guilty 
 were certain to escape, in others the 
 innocent ran the greatest risk of being 
 convicted. The Duke de Feltre brought 
 forward the proposed measure, and 
 the motives prompting to it were thus 
 stated by him : " Those are unhappy 
 epochs when society, assailed with 
 violence, is obliged to treat as enemies 
 those who, placed in its own bosom, 
 have declared against a sort of open 
 law. It is to that imperious law of 
 necessity that we owe the introduction 
 of Prevotal Courts, created by the 
 genius of the greatest magistrates. 
 Its object is to restore in the kingdom 
 that tranquillity which similar estab- 
 lishments have produced in former 
 times ; to intimidate the wicked, and 
 isolate them, in a manner, from the 
 
 weak crowd whom they make their 
 instruments." The law proposed, 
 which was supported in the Chamber 
 of Deputies by the eloquence of M. 
 Royer-Collard and the scientific fame 
 of M. Cuvier, enacted that "every 
 department was to have a provost- 
 marshal and Prevotal Court, composed 
 of the provost and four assessors, 
 chosen among the members of the 
 Tribunals of the First Instance. It 
 was to be competent to try all political 
 crimes, seditious assemblages, cries, or 
 attemjDts against the King or the royal 
 family. It Avas empowered to apply 
 all the criminal and correctional pains. 
 The provost was the public prosecutor. 
 The procedure was to be as brief as 
 possible ; the accused, in twenty-four 
 hours after apprehension, was to be 
 brought before the Prevotal Court, 
 which was to determine on the case, 
 and pronounce sentence without sepa- 
 rating. The sentence Avas to be in- 
 stantly carried into execution, and not 
 to be subject to the re Anew of the 
 Court of Cassation, or any superior 
 court. 
 
 69. Broad as were the powers con- 
 ferred by these acts on the magistracy 
 and the GoA^ernment, they fell short 
 of Avhat the majority deemed indispen- 
 sable for the necessities of the case. 
 They feared that the judges in the 
 inferior tribunals, holding their situa- 
 tions for life, should not be sufficiently 
 pliant to the Avdshes of the Govern- 
 ment, or of the majority in the Cham- 
 bers. M. Hyde de NeuAdlle, accord- 
 ingly, proposed that a considerable 
 part of the inferior tribunals should be 
 suppressed, and that the Avhole judges 
 in those AA-hich Avere retained should 
 hold their situations during pleasure, 
 only for the period of a year. Thus 
 the reaction had become so violent 
 that the Royalist Chamber Avas adopt- 
 ing the measures of the regicide Con- 
 vention, and evincing that predilection 
 for appointments during pleasio'e, 
 Avhich in every age and country has 
 been the characteristic of tyranny, 
 Avhether ciAdl or ecclesiastical, alike 
 in monarchs, aristocracies, democra- 
 cies, or congregations. It was with 
 considerable difficulty that Govern- 
 
1815.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 121 
 
 ment succeeded in throwing out these 
 extreme propositions, which went to 
 destroy the very foundations of free- 
 dom in the lana ; — and it is a striking 
 proof of the danger of intrusting power 
 during periods of excitement to po- 
 pular assembUes, that such a man as 
 M. Hyde de Neuville could be led to 
 bring forward such a measure ; and 
 the Assembly of representatives of the 
 people, but for the interposition of the 
 Crown, would have adopted it, 
 
 70. Thus these bills, as we should 
 call them in England, having all pass- 
 ed the Lower House, the discussion of 
 them began in the Chamber of Peers. 
 That conferring the power of unlimit- 
 ed arrest was the first which came on. 
 Then M. Lanjuinais, who had been 
 created a peer by the King, evinced 
 the same intrepidity in combating the 
 encroachments on public freedom by 
 the Royalists, which he had formerly 
 done in resisting the savage measures 
 of the majority in the Convention. 
 "The law proposed," said he, "is 
 unjust, because it goes to elevate sus- 
 picion into proof, and render it a 
 sufiicient ground for arrest and deten- 
 tion ; because it takes away from the 
 accused the most important and sacred 
 of all rights, that of being tried by 
 the constitutional and immovable 
 judges ! What must be the effects of 
 such a law? What but the law against 
 ' suspected persons, ' with all its ter- 
 rors, and better combined even than 
 that tyrannical enactment to enslave 
 the imagination, extirpate the con- 
 science? You have spoken of Rome 
 and England ; but what have they in 
 common with this proposal ? — the sus- 
 pension of the Habeas Corpus Act, 
 and the Caveant Consulcs, with such a 
 law as the present ? I demand, at least, 
 that it should be referred to a com- 
 mittee, to soften its more objectionable 
 clauses. Doubtless the circumstances 
 are imperious ; perhaps some such law 
 may be indispensable ; but a thousand 
 circumstances of detail, which require 
 to be limited and defined, are unex- 
 plained by it. It is even uncertain by 
 what functionaries it is to be executed ; 
 and what a host of doubts and diffi- 
 culties will that single circumstance 
 
 create ! Every locality, every depart- 
 ment, will execute it in a 'different 
 manner ; and possibly its execution 
 may be mildest in the very places 
 where rigour is most called for." 
 
 71. "The proposed law," answered 
 M. de Fontanes, "can alone give ef- 
 fect to the feeling of the Chamber, as 
 expressed in the address to the Sove- 
 reign. That address recommended to 
 the King to exercise his justice ; it 
 seemed to dread the excess of his cle- 
 mency. Some say they will vote 
 against it from feelings of humanity : 
 I will vote for it from the same senti- 
 ment. We must inspire terror if we 
 would avoid doing evil. Factions 
 agitate and declaim against oppression 
 only under a weak government ; if it 
 is strong, they are peaceable and si- 
 lent. You can, I know well, in the 
 name of liberty, move everything that 
 is most profound in the human heart 
 — its finest feelings, its noblest senti- 
 ments ; but whatever may be said, it 
 is not liberty, but order, which is the 
 first necessity of society— the first end 
 of its establishment. It is in the name 
 of order that I vote for the simple and 
 unmodified adoption of the law. The 
 law proposed is a measure of indulgence. 
 All that Government required to do 
 was to take from a certain number of 
 individuals the power of injuring them- 
 selves or others, without giving them 
 the liberty which could lead only to 
 their being seated on the accused bench, 
 to enable all the rest to enjoy their 
 freedom in peace and tranquillity^" 
 The law was passed by a majority of 
 55, the numbers being 167 to 112. 
 
 72. The discussion of the law on the 
 raising of seditious cries excited a Avarm 
 discussion in the Assembly, remark- 
 able chiefly for the violence of the 
 sentiments which it elicited. "What,'' 
 said the Marquis de Froudeville, "are 
 the ofi"ences against which the law is 
 directed ? Are they not the most seri- 
 ous which can threaten society ? They 
 comprehend menaces against the life 
 or person of the King and royal fomily, 
 provocations against the Government, 
 incitement to take up arms to resist 
 the royal authority. Is the punish- 
 ment of transportation an adequate 
 
122 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 mode of repressing such offences ? For 
 Avliat crimes is the punishment of deatli 
 to be reserved, if Government fears to 
 strike the miserable wretches who are 
 trying to overturn the throne, the gov- 
 ernment, society itself ? If transport- 
 ed, Avliere are they to be taken to ? 
 Have we islands in distant seas, like 
 the English, whither to send such 
 monsters to league with their kind ? 
 They may, says the law, be banished 
 from the European continent — that is 
 to say, they may settle themselves 
 within a few leagues of its shores, and 
 there enjoy the tranquillity which 
 they have \ATested from us. Do you 
 really suppose that by such means you 
 can repress the conspiracies, of the ex- 
 istence of which we have received such 
 frightful proof? It is in vain to say 
 you must apply a different measure of 
 punishment to provocations to crime 
 and their actual commission. True ; 
 but the penal code has itself shown 
 how this is to be done, by denouncing 
 the simple penalty against an expres- 
 sion of intention, and the penalty ag- 
 gravated by the pains of parricide 
 against the completed act. " 
 
 73. "The proposed law,' said Cha- 
 teaubriand, "in the fifth article, de- 
 nounces a penalty against any one who 
 utters an expression which might ex- 
 cite alarm in the holders of national 
 domains. That enactment is barbar- 
 ous, for it menaces with the same pen- 
 alty an excusable regret and a sacrile- 
 gious machination. It will reach the 
 poor emigi-ant despoiled of his inherit- 
 ance, whom a jealous acquirer of his 
 property may surprise exhaling some 
 regrets, shedding some tears over the 
 tomb of his fathers. Dragged before 
 the tribunal by calumny, he will be 
 judged by passion ; he will there lose 
 his honour, the only possession which 
 the Revolution has"^left him; and all 
 that to calm apprehensions which 
 should have been for ever set at rest, 
 if anything could do so, by the solemn 
 promises in the Charter. Wherefore 
 is all this done ? — to stifle those mur- 
 murs, the inevitable consequence of a 
 great injustice — to impose a silence 
 which, to be effectual, should ordain 
 at the same time the demolition of the 
 
 [chap. III. 
 
 stones which mark the boundaries of 
 the heritages of which you are so anxi- 
 ous to reassure the possessors. " These 
 extreme opinions did not influence the 
 majority ; and the law, as it was sent 
 up from the Chamber of Deputies, as 
 well as that establishing the Prevotal 
 Courts, was adopted in the Peers with- 
 out alteration, by large majorities— the 
 latter with scarce any discussion. 
 
 74. It is necessary to consider and 
 reflect on these debates, if we would 
 judge with impartiality the conduct of 
 the French Government in the great 
 tragedy in which the Hundred Days 
 terminated — the deaths of Marshal 
 iSTey and Colonel Labedoyere. It is 
 impossible to approach this subject 
 without painful emotions : to an Eng- 
 lishman, especially, Avho recollects that 
 the former was a great and glorious 
 enemy, and that his mournful fate 
 is in some sort wound up with our 
 triumphs, and could not have hap- 
 pened but for the conquest of Water- 
 loo, it will always be the subject of 
 the most poignant regret. How much 
 more gladly would every generous heart 
 in Britain have joined in celebrating 
 the heroism of the bravest of the brave, 
 and doing honour to his grey hairs, 
 tlian in weaving the chaplet which is 
 to express regret upon his tomb ! The 
 very circumstance of his having been 
 our enemy, of his having combated 
 Wellington in Portugal, headed the 
 charge of the Old Guard at Waterloo, 
 only augments the sorrow with which 
 his fate must ever be regarded. Those 
 who are most attached to principles 
 will ever be most indulgent to indivi- 
 duals ; and it is the glory of modern 
 civilisation to behold in an enemy 
 only a friend, when he has ceased to 
 combat in the hostile ranks. Yet this 
 very feeling of equanimity should lead 
 us to do justice to the Government 
 upon whom those melancholy acts 
 were imposed as a species of state ne- 
 cessity ; we must consider its situation, 
 measure the diflfiiculties with which it 
 was surrounded, and the weight of the 
 influence, external and internal, which 
 was brought to bear upon its deliber- 
 ations. If any decided opinion results 
 from these considerations, it will pro- 
 
1815.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUEOPE. 
 
 123 
 
 bably be against the system of public 
 law under wliicli those melancholy 
 executions took place ; and even the 
 blood of ^larshal Ney will not have 
 been shed in vain if it leads, in all civ- 
 ilised nations, to the abolition of the 
 punishment of death in all purely poli- 
 tical ofiences. 
 
 75. External influences of no ordi- 
 nary kind were exerted to impel the 
 Government into measures of severity 
 on this occasion. The opinion of the 
 Allies and their sovereigns, not even 
 excepting the mild and benevolent 
 Alexander, was unanimous, that there 
 could be no peace in Europe till the 
 military spirit was checked in France ; 
 and that, in Wellington's Avords, "a 
 great moral lesson" Avas more requisite 
 for the French army than the French 
 people. It was the insatiable ambition 
 of the army Avhich he commanded, 
 more even than his OAvn disposition, 
 which had impelled Napoleon into the 
 career of conquest ; it was their rap- 
 acious and covetous desires which had 
 rendered their ascendancy so insup- 
 portably odious to every people they 
 had come among. The Hundred Days 
 had sufficiently demonstrated that no 
 reliance could be placed on the fidelity 
 of their chiefs ; that their submission 
 was merely forced, their loyalty feign- 
 ed ; and that the leopard would change 
 his spots, the Ethiopian his skin, be- 
 fore they would be influenced by any 
 other passion but the lust of conquest. 
 It was for that reason that it was 
 deemed indispensable to insist on the 
 dissolution of the army of the Loire, 
 the exile of the principal military lead- 
 ers, and the change of the national 
 colours of France : steps, and not un- 
 important ones, in the formation of a 
 new national spirit. But, in addition 
 to this, it was necessary to affect the 
 imagination by great examples ; to 
 strike, and to strike boldly, and prove 
 by decisive acts that, if this had not 
 hitherto been done, it was owing to 
 humanity, not fear, " We must 
 strike," said M. Gentz, "the chiefs of 
 the conspiracy, or we have no security 
 for the peace of Europe for a year." 
 
 76. Still more exasperated was the 
 Royalist party at the Court, and in the 
 
 Chambers, which called out aloud for 
 great examples. It was no wonder it 
 was so, for they had humiliation to 
 deplore, losses to revenge. If the feel- 
 ing of the necessity of punishment was 
 strong in the conquerors — in those to 
 whom treachery had only opened the 
 avenue to conquest, — what might it be 
 expected to be in the conquered — in 
 those to whom it had opened only the 
 gates of perdition? — among whom it 
 had brought the disgrace of defeat, tlic 
 tarnishing of glory, the overthrow of a 
 dynasty, the loss of frontier towns, the 
 oppression of a million of armed men, 
 the imposition of humiliating and in- 
 supportable exactions? Generosity had 
 been tried, magnanimity had had its 
 day, and what had been the result? 
 Nothing but a repetition on a still 
 greater scale of treachery and ti-eason. 
 Not a head had fallen, not an estate 
 had been confiscated, not a human 
 being banished on the first restoration, 
 and the only consequence had been the 
 formation of a vast conspiracy to over- 
 turn the Government and destroy their 
 benefactors. Humanity Avas, as usual 
 in such cases, ascribed to fear ; modera- 
 tion considered as a proof of imbecility^ 
 The time had noAv come Avhen it was 
 necessary to undeceive the conspirators 
 by great examples, and, after the man- 
 ner of Napoleon, vindicate the author- 
 ity of Government by the condign 
 punishment of those Avho had alike in- 
 sulted it, and all but mined their 
 country. 
 
 77. Strong as these considerations 
 in themselves were, and poAverfully as 
 they spoke to the feelings of a Govern- 
 ment Avhich had been overturned by 
 a conspirac)'-, and only reinstated by 
 conquest, they did not SAvay the hu- 
 mane breast of the King, or move the 
 enlightened minds of his ministers. 
 Louis XVIIL, M. Talleyrand, M. 
 Fouche, the Duke de Richelieu, and 
 M. Decazes, were alike impressed Avith 
 the necessity of a great act of amnesty, 
 and of avoiding the most fatal of all 
 inaugurations for the commencement 
 of a ncAV government — the inaugura- 
 tion of blood. They did everything in 
 their poAver to furnish the accused per- 
 sons Avith the means of escape, design- 
 
124 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. III. 
 
 edly in order to avoid the embarrass- 
 ment of their trial. When the lists 
 prepared and signed by Fouche on the 
 24th July appeared, the execution of 
 the warrants of arrest was delayed for 
 several weeks, purposely to give the 
 accused persons an opportunity of es- 
 cape. Passports were furnished to all, 
 or nearly all, the proscribed persons ; 
 and not only were they earnestly en- 
 treated to withdraw, but lar^e sums of 
 money were placed at the disposal of 
 the Minister of Police to enable them 
 to do so. No less than 459,000 francs 
 (£18,360) Avere expended by that min- 
 ister in this humane attempt. But 
 the benevolent and wise intentions of 
 the Government were in some instances 
 frustrated by the zeal of the provincial 
 authorities, who arrested the pro- 
 scribed persons as they were making 
 their escape — in others rendered nuga- 
 tory by the devotion of the persons en- 
 dangered themselves, who in a heroic 
 spirit preferred remaining at home, 
 and undergoing all the risks of trial, 
 to taking guilt to themselves by mak- 
 ing use of the means of escape. 
 
 78. The first of the persons who 
 were arrested from the latter cause, 
 and forced upon the Government for 
 tiial, was Colonel Labedoyere. This 
 ardent and gallant young man, whose 
 defection at Grenoble first opened to 
 Napoleon the gates of France, and 
 whose subsequent fate has made his 
 name imperishable in history, was 
 connected with several of the first 
 families of the Court, but had been 
 involved in the meshes of the Napo- 
 leonist consph'acy by the influence of 
 Queen Hortense, whose saloons in 
 Paris, under the name of the Duchess 
 de St Leu, were the chief rendezvous of 
 the Imperial party. Even so early as 
 8th February 1815, he had assured M. 
 Fleury de Chaboulon, a confidential 
 agent of Napoleon, then on his route 
 to Elba, that the Emperor might 
 reckon on him. Being in command 
 of the 7 th regiment at Grenoble, the 
 first fortified town between Cannes 
 and Paris, his defection was of the 
 highest importance to Napoleon ; and 
 it was mainly from knowing that he 
 might be relied on, that the Emperor 
 
 had chosen the mountain road which 
 lay through that town. 
 
 79. After the capitulation of Paris, 
 Fouche sent for Labedoyere, and said 
 to him, "I advise you to leave France ; 
 here are your passports : if you want 
 money, here are 25,000 francs (£1000) 
 in gold; but set oftV He left Paris 
 in pursuance of this advice, but re- 
 pented before he had passed Clermont, 
 where he stopped. The Paris police 
 were aware of his residence, and 
 Fouche repeatedly warned him of the 
 necessity of remaining concealed; but, 
 instead of doing that, he returned to 
 the capital, resisting all the eff"orts of 
 General Excelmans and Count Fla- 
 hault, who did their utmost to prevent 
 him, and repaired to the house of a 
 lady to whom he was attached. His 
 fine and martial figure revealed him to 
 an agent of the police who was in the 
 carriage, who tracked him to the place 
 where he had hoped to remain con- 
 cealed, screened by the vigilance and 
 guarded by the fidelity of love. The 
 agent communicated the circumstance 
 to the prefect; and as the Government 
 could not overlook the retm-n of so 
 great a criminal to Paris, after he had 
 been furnished with the means of 
 escape, he was arrested in the night 
 and conveyed to prison, 
 
 80. He was brought to trial before 
 a council of war on the 14th August. 
 There could be no difiiculty in proving 
 his guilt ; it was notorious to all the 
 world, and admitted in the most ex- 
 press manner by himself, in his decla- 
 ration when brought before the police 
 magistrate. It was established in the 
 clearest manner that he set out from 
 Grenoble, at the head of the 7th regi- 
 ment of infantry, to meet Napoleon, 
 notwithstanding all the instances of 
 his commander, General Devilhers, 
 who endeavoured to dissuade him ; 
 that this was a premeditated act; that 
 he had intimated his intention to his 
 officers, harangued the soldiers, and 
 prepared the tiicolor cockades, which 
 were concealed in a drum, and distri- 
 buted when the period for action had 
 arrived; that he had alike disobeyed 
 the orders and resisted the supplica- 
 tions of his general, who remained 
 
1815.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 125 
 
 faithful to his allegiance ; and that 
 when he met the Emperor, instead 
 of attacking, he embraced him, and 
 brought him back in triumph to the 
 foot of the ramparts of Grenoble. The 
 public prosecutor called on the judges, 
 as these facts were clearly established, 
 to pronounce the sentence of the law 
 on so gi-eat a criminal, whose defection 
 had di'awn after it that of the whole 
 army. Labedoyere did not controvert 
 the facts proved; he only sought to 
 vindicate his memory by explaining 
 his motives. "If my life only Avas at 
 stake, I would not detain you a mo- 
 ment : it is my profession to be ready 
 to die. But a wife, the model of every 
 virtue, a son as yet in the cradle, will 
 one day demand of me an account of 
 my actions. The name I leave them 
 is their inheritance; I am bound to 
 leave it to them, unfortunate but not 
 disgraced. I may have deceived my- 
 self as to the real interests of France ; 
 misled by the recollections of camps, 
 or the illusions of honour, I may have 
 mistaken my oaati chimeras for the 
 voice of my country. But the great- 
 ness of the sacrifices which I made, in 
 breaking all the strongest bonds of 
 rank and family, prove at least that 
 no unworthy or personal motive has 
 influenced my actions. I deny no- 
 thing ; I plead only guiltless to having 
 conspired. When I received the com- 
 mand of my regiment, I had not a 
 thought that the Emperor could ever 
 return to France. Sad presentiments, 
 nevertheless, overtook me at the mo- 
 ment when I set out for Chambery ; 
 they arose from the weight of public 
 opinion pressing on me. I confess 
 with grief my error ; I confess it vnth. 
 anguish, when I cast my eyes on my 
 country. My fault consisted in having 
 misunderstood the intentions of the 
 King, and his return has opened my 
 eyes. I shall not be permitted to en- 
 joy the spectacle of the constitution 
 completed, and France still a great 
 nation united around its King. But 
 I have shed my blood for my countr}' ; 
 and I wish to persuade myself that my 
 death, preceded by the abjuration of 
 my errors, may be useful to France ; 
 that my memory will not be held in 
 
 detestation, and that when my son may 
 be of an age to serve his country, he will 
 not be ashamed of his father's name." 
 81. As a matter of necessity he was 
 condemned to death, though the judges 
 themselves shed tears when sentence 
 was pronounced. His relations offered 
 in vain 100,000 francs (£4000) to the 
 keeper of the prison if he would favour 
 his escape. As a last resource, his 
 young wife threw herself at the feet of 
 the King, whom she reached as he was 
 descending the gi'eat stair of the Tuil- 
 eries to enter his carriage. "Grace, 
 grace !" exclaimedthe unhappy woman, 
 her voice broken by sobs. ' ' Madam, " 
 replied the monarch with deep emotion, 
 ' ' I know your sentiments, and those 
 of your family, for my house ; I deeply 
 regret being obliged to refuse such 
 faithful servants. If your husband 
 had off'ended me alone, his pardon 
 would have been already given ; but I 
 owe satisfaction to France, on which 
 he has induced the scourge of rebellion 
 and war. My Anty as a king ties my 
 hands. I can only pray for the soul 
 of him Avhom justice has condemned, 
 and assure you of my protection to 
 yourself and your child." At these 
 words the suppliant fell in a swoon at 
 his feet. Labedoyere's mother, clad 
 in the deepest mourning, awaited the 
 monarch on his return, but the strict- 
 est orders had been given to prevent 
 her gaining admittance into the royal 
 presence, and her cries alone reached 
 his ears. Meanwhile Labedoyere, re- 
 called by solitude and misfortune from 
 the illusions which had misled him, 
 had regained the sentiments of his 
 youth. He received with gi-atitude 
 the consolations of religion, and pre- 
 pared in a worthy spirit to undergo 
 his fate. AVhen brought out for exe- 
 cution, his eyes met those of M. C§sar 
 de Nervaux, a faithful friend and 
 companion in arms, who had come to 
 support him in his last moments. They 
 pressed each other's hands in silence. 
 When the soldiers who were to perform 
 the painful duty took their stations 
 opposite the wall before which he was 
 placed, he advanced a few steps, and 
 took his station in the middle of 
 the intervening space ; then suddenly 
 
126 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. III. 
 
 turning round, as if lie had forgot 
 something, he whispered for a few 
 seconds to the priest who accom- 
 panied him. Then cahnly resuming 
 his place, he refused to have his eyes 
 bandaged, and looking straight at the 
 levelled muskets, exclaimed in a loud 
 voice, "Fire, my friends!" He fell 
 pierced by nine balls ; and when the 
 smoke of the discharge had passed 
 away, the priest approached and steeped 
 his handkerchief in the blood which 
 flowed from his breast, which he took 
 with him as a relic to the wife of the 
 fallen officer. 
 
 82. The next person selected for 
 trial was Marshal Ney, who had at 
 the head of his corps betrayed the royal 
 cause as effectually as Labedoyere had 
 done at the head of his regiment. His 
 flagrant defection, and the decisive 
 consequences with which it was at- 
 tended, were too deeply impressed on 
 the mind of the Royalists to give the 
 Government any option in dealing with 
 so great a criminal. He had said in 
 the Chamber of Peers, before the de- 
 parture of Napoleon for Rochefort, 
 that he had ever3i;hing to fear from 
 the resentment of the Royalists, and 
 that he was about to set out for the 
 United States. It was undoubtedly 
 true that he had used the famous ex- 
 pression to the King, before he set out 
 from Paris to take the command at 
 Melun, * ' I will bring Buonaparte back 
 in an iron cage." The remarkable 
 words had been overheard by the 
 Prince de Poix and the Duke de Duras 
 as well as his Majesty, who was sur- 
 prised at them coming from a marshal 
 who had risen so high in the Imperial 
 service. He himself admitted in his 
 judicial declaration that he had used 
 the words "Cage de fer." He also 
 admitted that, in a transport of royal- 
 ist enthusiasm, he had said, " If I see 
 the least hesitation in the troops, I 
 will seize the first grenadier's musket, 
 make use of it, and give an example to 
 others," * He admitted having signed 
 
 * "Je dis au Roi que la demarche de 
 Buonaparte etait si insens^e qu'il meritait, 
 s'il 6tait pris, d'etre conduit a Paris dans une 
 cage de fer. On a pretendu que j'avais dit 
 que je le conduu-ais moi-meine, si je le pren- 
 ais, dans une cage de fer. Je ne me rappelle 
 
 the fatal proclamation of the 14th 
 March, in which the cause of Napoleon 
 was openly espoused, and which was 
 immediately followed by the defection 
 of the whole army. He said in his 
 declaration that it was written by 
 Napoleon, and sent to him by means 
 of his brother Joseph, who was at 
 Prague. Yet so strong had been his 
 protestations of fidelity, that down to 
 the very last moment the royal family 
 had more confidence in him than in 
 any man in France.* 
 
 83. Ney was in Paris, though not 
 employed with the army, when the 
 capitulation with the Duke of Welling- 
 ton and Marshal Blucher was signed, 
 — a circumstance which led to a pain- 
 ful difficulty, so far as this country 
 was concerned, in the trial which en- 
 sued. He received passports under a 
 feigned name from Fouche, which were 
 endorsed by the Austrian and Swiss 
 embassies at Paris, and by Count Bub- 
 na, the Austrian commander at Lyons. 
 He was just leaving France in pursu- 
 ance of Talleyrand's advice, and had. 
 reached Nantua, within a few leagues 
 of the Swiss frontier, when he was 
 seized, like Labedoyere, with a fatal 
 deshe to return to his own country. 
 He was haunted by the idea of a sen- 
 tence of death par contumace, which 
 would weigh upon his memory and the 
 interests of his relations. He returned 
 accordingly, and took up his residence 
 at the chateau of Bossonis, which be- 
 longed to his family. There he made 
 no attempt at concealment, and was 
 discovered by a magnificent sabre, 
 
 pas bien ce que j'ai dit. Je sais que j'ai pro- 
 nonce ces mots, * Cage de fer.' Je dis aussi 
 que Buona]iarte me paraissait bien coupable 
 d'avoir rompu son ban. J'ai eerie, ' Si je vois 
 de rii^sitation dans la troupe, je prendrai 
 moi-meme le fusil du premier grenadier, pour 
 m'en servir, et donner I'exemple aux autres.' 
 J'ai entrain^ ; j'ai eu tort, il n'y a pas le 
 nioindre doute." — Proch du Marcchal Ney — 
 Moniteur, No. 515, Nov. 11, 1S15. 
 
 * "Tout depend des premiers coups de 
 fusil, car enfin il n'y en a pas encore de tir^s. 
 J'attends tout deNey, jiuisque c'estle seulqui 
 corabattra cet homme. Ne perdez pas de 
 temps a ee vilain Paris ; nion beau frfere est 
 assez pour le contenir ; mais vous, pourquoi 
 n'ctes vo^ts pas avec Oudinot ou Ney ?" — Madame 
 la Duchesse d'ANGOULEME d M. le Comtc d'Ar- 
 TOis, Bordeaux, 29 Mars 1815.— Cafefigue, 
 iv. 424 — Appendix. 
 
1815.] 
 
 with liis name engraven on the hilt, 
 which liad been given liim by the 
 Emperor in the days of his glory. He 
 was in consequence seized, without any 
 instructions from headquarters, by JM. 
 Locard, the prefect of the department, 
 a zealous Koyalist, and sent to Paris, 
 where his arrival occasioned no small 
 regret and consternation among the 
 members of the Government. 
 
 84. But, once taken, it was out of the 
 power of Government not to bri)ig him 
 to trial ; for, if so great a traitor es- 
 caped, how could any inferior criminal 
 "be brought to j ustice ? Great difficulty, 
 how^ever, was experienced in finding a 
 court to undertake the responsibility 
 of his trial. He was, in the first in- 
 stance, sent to be tried by a military 
 commission, presided over by Marshal 
 Moncey ; but that veteran recoiled 
 from the idea of trying an old com- 
 panion in arms, and declined the duty 
 on the plea of having no jurisdiction 
 over a peer of the realm. This refusal, 
 which was considered by the Eoyalists 
 a decisive proof of a general conspiracy 
 in the army, gave profound mortifica- 
 tion to the Court, and was punished 
 by three months' imprisonment, in- 
 flicted on the recusant marshal. Ney 
 was next sent to the Chamber of Peers, 
 which, how unwilling soever to under- 
 take the painful duty, could find no 
 pretext to evade it. The Duke de 
 Kichelieu, in introducing the accusa- 
 tion on behalf of the Government, ob- 
 served : " It is not only in the name 
 of the King that we discharge this 
 duty— it is in the name of France, 
 long indignant, and now stupified ; it 
 is even in the name of Europe that we 
 at once conjure and reqt:ire you to im- 
 dertake the trial of Marshal Ney. We 
 accuse him before you of high treason 
 and crimes against the State. The 
 Chamber of Peers owes to the Avorld a 
 conspicuous reparation ; and it should 
 be prompt, if it is to be effectual. The 
 King's ministers are obliged to say 
 that the decision of the council of war 
 has become a triumph to the factions. 
 AVe conjure you, then, and in the 
 name of the King require you, in terms 
 of the ordinance of his Majesty, to 
 proceed to the trial of Marshal 'Ney. " 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 127 
 
 The trial proceeded accordingly, the 
 defence of the marshal being intrusted 
 to the experienced hands of MM. 
 Berryer and Dupin. 
 
 85. These able counsellors could not 
 deny the facts proved against him, the 
 most important of which were admitted 
 by himself in his judicial declaration. 
 They confined themselves, tlierefore, 
 to the plea that ho was no longer a 
 free agent when he signed the pro- 
 clamation of the 14th March, sent to 
 him by Napoleon;* that he was car- 
 ried away by the torrent, and that the 
 cause of Napoleon had been by the 
 soldiers so warmly embraced before it 
 was isstied, that to have taken any 
 other course had become impracticable. 
 But to this it Avas justly replied, that 
 difficulty will never justify crime ; that 
 if he could not control his tioops, he 
 might at least have ^rithdrawn from 
 the command, and not employed the 
 power confided to him by the King 
 for the destruction of his authority. 
 And the defence of being carried away, 
 such as it was, was entirely overturned 
 by the evidence of Generals Lecourbe 
 and Bourmont, who were with him at 
 the time of his defection — who con- 
 
 * "Officiers, sous-officiers, et soldats, — La 
 cause des Bourbons est a jamais perdue ! Le 
 dynastie legitime que la nation Frangaise a 
 adoptee va remonter sur le Trone ; c'est a 
 I'Empereur Napoleon notre Souveraiu qu'il 
 appartient seul de r^gner sur ce beau paj's ! 
 Que la Noblesse des Bourbons prenne le parti 
 de I'expatrier encore, ou qu'elle consente a 
 vivre au milieu de nous, qu'importe? La 
 cause sacree de la liberte et de notre inde- 
 pendance ne souffrira plus de leur funeste 
 influence. lis ont voulu avilir notre gloire 
 militaire, mais ils se sent trompds; cette 
 gloire est le fruit de trop nobles travaux pour 
 que nous puissions en perdre la niemoire. 
 Soldats, les temps ne sont plus oil on gou- 
 vernait les peuples en etouffant tous leurs 
 droits : la liberte triomphe enfin, et Napoleon 
 notre auguste Empereur va Taffermir a ja- 
 mais ! Que desormais cette cause si belle 
 soit la notre et celle de tous les FrauQais ! 
 Que tous les braves que j'ai I'honneur de 
 commander se penetrent de cette grande 
 verity. Soldats, je vous ai si souvent men^s 
 a la victoire, maintenant je veux vous con- 
 duire a cette phalange immortelle que I'Em- 
 pereur Napoleon conduit a Paris, et qui y 
 sera sous pen de jours, et la, notre esperance 
 et notre bonheur seront a jamais ^galis^s. 
 Vive VEmpeTexiTl—Lons-le-Saulnier, le 13 
 Mars 1815. — Le Marechal de l'Empire, 
 Prince de la Hoskov a."— MonUeur, 22d 
 Nov. 1815. 
 
128 
 
 HISTOEY OF EimOPE. 
 
 [chap. III. 
 
 curred in stating, the one in oral testi- 
 mony, the other in a deposition emit- 
 ted before death, that Ney had himself 
 said, in their presence, that it was all 
 over ; that everything had been agreed 
 upon for three months, and they would 
 have known it, if they had been at 
 Paris ; that no violence was to be 
 done to the King, but that he was to 
 be dethroned, put on board a vessel, 
 and conducted into England. * It 
 appeared, from what fell from General 
 Bourmont, that Ney's words led to the 
 belief that, like many other of the 
 most terrible catastrophes recorded in 
 history, from the siege of Troy down- 
 wards, his conduct on this occasion 
 had been mainly instigated by female 
 jealousy and mortifications. 
 
 86. It now remained only to the 
 
 * " ' C'est une cliose absolnment finie,* dit 
 le Marechal. Je ne Tavais pas compris. Le 
 General Lecourbe entra; 'je lui disais que 
 tout est fini, ' dit - il au General Lecourbe : 
 celui-ci parut ^tonn^. ' Qui, ' ajouta le Mare- 
 chal, 'c'est une affaire arrangee, il y a trois 
 mois que nous sommes toux d'accord; si vous 
 aviez ete h Paris, vous I'auriez .su comme 
 moi. Les troupes sont divisees par deux ba- 
 taillons et trois escadrons, les troupes d'Al- 
 sace de meine, les troupes de la Lorrame de 
 meme ; le Roi doit avoir quitte Paris, ou 11 
 sera enleve, mais on ne lui fera pas de mal ; 
 maUieur a qui ferait du mal au Roi ; on 
 n'avait I'intention que de lo detroner, de 
 Tembarquer sur nn vaisseau et de le faire 
 conduire en Angleterre. Nous n'avons plus 
 luaintenant qu'a rejoindre" I'Empereur.' Je 
 dis au Slarechal qu'il 6tait ti'fes extraordi- 
 naire qu'il proposal d'aller rejoindre celui 
 contre lequel il devoit combattre. II me re- 
 pondit qu'il m'engageait a le faire, 'mais vous 
 etes libre.' Le General Lecourbe lui repon- 
 dit — 'Je suis i^i pour servir le Roi, et non 
 pour servir Buonaparte. Jamais il ne m'a 
 fait que du mal, et le Roi ne m'a fait que du 
 bien. Je veux ser\ir le Roi, j'ai de I'honneur.' 
 'Et moi aussi, ' repondit le Marechal, * pareeque 
 je ne veux pas etre humilie. Je ne veux 
 pas que ma femme retourne chez moi les 
 larmes aux yeux des humiliations qu'elle a 
 reQues dans la journee. Le Roi ne veut pas 
 de nous, c'est indent; ce n'est qu'avec 
 Buonaparte que nous pouvons avoir de la 
 consideration; ce n'est qu'avec un homme 
 de I'armee que pourra en obtenir I'arm^e.' 
 Une demi-heure apres, 11 prit un papier sur 
 la table — 'Voila ce que je veux lire aux 
 troupes.' Et il lut la Proclamation. . . . Le 
 Marechal etait si bien determine d'avance a 
 prendre son parti qu'une demi-heure aprfes il 
 portait la decoration de la Legion d'Honneur 
 avec I'Aigle, et a son grand cordon la decora- 
 tion a I'Effigie de Buonaparte." — Deposition 
 du General Bourmont — Monitev.r,'Dec. 6, 1S15. 
 
 counsel for the accused to appeal to 
 the capitulation of Paris ; and here, 
 it must be admitted, they had a much 
 stronger case to rest upon. By the 
 twelfth article of the capitulation of 
 that city, concluded at St Cloud, it 
 had been stipulated that no person 
 then in Paris should be disquieted in 
 his person or estate on account of his 
 conduct during the Hundred Days ; 
 and by another article, that if an}'- 
 doubt arose concerning the interpre- 
 tation to be put on any part of the 
 convention, it should be construed 
 in favour of the part}"- capitulating. * 
 Three Avitnesses of the highest respec- 
 tability, who took part in the capitu- 
 lation — Marshal Davoust, General 
 Guillimont, and M. Bignon — con- 
 curred in deponing that this article 
 was intended to cover the military as 
 Avell as the ordmary inhabitants of 
 Paris ; and that had this not been 
 agreed to, they would have broken off 
 the negotiation. " 1 had," said Mar- 
 shal Davoust, "25,000 cavalry, 400 
 or 500 guns ; and if the French are 
 ready to fl}', they are not less ready 
 to rally under the walls of Paris." 
 Marshal Ney exclaimed upon this — 
 "The article was so entirely protec- 
 tive, that I relied on it ; but for it, 
 can it be believed I would not have 
 died sword in hand ? It was in defi- 
 ance of that capitulation that I was 
 arrested, and on its faith that I re- 
 entered France." The Peers, by a 
 majority, held that they could listen 
 to no defence founded on the military 
 convention of July 3, concluded be- 
 tween foreign generals and a provi- 
 sional government not emanating from 
 the King, and to which he was so en- 
 tu'e a stranger that two-and-twenty 
 
 * " Seront respect^es les personnes et les 
 proprietes particuliferes ; les habitans, et, en 
 g^n^ral, tons les individus qui se trouvent 
 dans la capitale, continueront a jouir de leurs 
 droits et libertes, sans pouvoir etre ni en- 
 quifetes nl recherches, meme relativement 
 aux fonctions qu'ils occupent ou auraient 
 occupees, a leur conduite et a leur opinion 
 politique. S'il sur\ient quelques difficultes 
 sur I'execution de quelques-uns des articles 
 de la convention, I'interpretation en sera 
 faite en faveur de I'armee Frangaise, et de 
 laville de Paris. "—Arts. 12 et 15, Capitula- 
 tion de Paris— ilfoni^ew?-, July 9, 1S15. Cap. 
 iii. 306, 307. 
 
1815.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 129 
 
 days after he signed an ordinance, 
 directing a certain number of indivi- 
 duals to be brought to trial, Avhicli was 
 signed b}^ the very minister who had 
 been president of the provisional gov- 
 ernment. As a last resource, M. Ber- 
 ryer objected that Ney Avas no longer 
 a Frenchman, or subject to the laws 
 of that country ; for, hy the treaty of 
 20th November last, the place of his 
 birth had been detached from France. 
 But the mar.shal stopped that defence 
 in a noble manner — " I am a French- 
 man," exclaimed he, " and will die as 
 such. Hitherto my defence has ap- 
 peared free ; it is no longer so. I 
 thank my generous defenders, but I 
 would rather not be defended than 
 have the shadow only of a defence. I 
 am accused in opposition to the faith 
 of treaties, and 1 am precluded from 
 appealing to them. I imitate Moreau 
 — I appeal from Europe to posterity. " 
 87. When the appeal to the capitula- 
 tions was refused, the counsel for Ney 
 had no longer any defence. He was 
 accordingly found guilty — 1st, By a 
 majority of 107 to 47, of having, in the 
 ni^ht of the 13th and 14th March, re- 
 ceived the emissaries of the usurper ; 
 2d, Unanimously, of having, on the 
 14th JVIarch, read a proclamation in the 
 (jhief square of Lons-le-Saulnier, tend- 
 ing to excite his troops to rebellion, 
 and immediately giv^i orders to them 
 to unite their forces with those of 
 the usurper, and of having himself 
 effected that junction ; 3d, By a major- 
 ity of 157 to 1, of haA-ing committed 
 high treason. It remained to deter- 
 mine on the punishment to be inflicted, 
 the determination of which the French 
 law, in the case of that high tribunal, 
 gives to the judges — A-iz., whether it 
 should be that prescribed Ijy the penal 
 code or the military law : 142 voted 
 for death, according to the martial law, 
 13 for transportation, 5 declined vot- 
 ing. The sentence was pronounced in 
 absence of the accused, the privilege 
 of doing so having been given to the 
 Peers by the royal ordinance directing 
 the trial. In the majority who voted 
 for death were found the names of ilar- 
 mont, Serrurier, the Duke of Yalmv, 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 Latour-lMaubourg. and many others of 
 Xey's old companions in arms. 
 
 88. The marshal himself supped 
 calmly that night, and, after smok- 
 ing a cigar, slept for some hours. 
 He was wakened by M. Cauchy, who 
 came to announce to him the deci- 
 sion of the House of Peers. "Marshal," 
 said he, "I have a melancholy duty 
 to perform." "Do your duty, M. 
 Cauchy ; we all have ours in this world. " 
 Then, as the preamble began, he said 
 — "To the point, to the point." 
 When the numerous titles of the ac- 
 cused—Prince of the Moskwa, Duke of 
 Elchingen — began, he interrupted him 
 again : ' ' Say simply Michel Key, soon 
 a little dust'; that is all." Never did 
 execution succeed a sentence more 
 rapidly. The King's ministers were 
 in a state of extreme anxiety ; the state 
 of the metropolis was reported to them 
 every quarter of an hour. In the even- 
 ing a conference of the royal family 
 was held, at which it was resolved by 
 all that a great example was necessaiy : 
 the Duchess d'Angouleme was particu- 
 larly vehement in inculcating this 
 opinion. At midnight the ministers 
 had a meeting, at which it was deter- 
 mined, after anxious deliberation, to 
 petition the King in favour of a com- 
 mutation of the sentence to one of ban- 
 ishment to America. The Duke dc. 
 Richelieu was, with some difficulty, 
 brought to accpiiesce in this resolution ; 
 but, having done so, lie exerted him- 
 self to the utmost to carry it into efi"ect, 
 and besought the King to exercise his 
 clemency by acceding to the wishes of 
 the cabinet. But he found the mon- 
 arch immovable. He had not courage 
 enough to be magnanimous ; the heroic 
 only have such. It is those who could 
 themselves confront death that can 
 forgive it to others. It was doubtless 
 a matter of extreme difficulty for the 
 King to resist the unanimous voice of 
 the European powers, who concurred 
 in demanding the punishment of a 
 great delinquent, and the impassioned 
 feelings of the vast majority of both 
 the Chambers, who concurred in that 
 requisition. But there is a voice in 
 the human heart superior to that of 
 I 
 
130 
 
 HISTOEY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. hi. 
 
 public opinion, and that voice is the 
 voice of God. Condemned by the great 
 majority of men at the moment, the 
 forgiveness of ISTey, by one whom he 
 liad so deeply injured, would have 
 been the noblest inauguration of the 
 monarchy for all future times. 
 
 89. At three in the morning of the 
 8th, the palace of the Luxembourg, 
 where ISTey Avas confined, was taken 
 possession of by M. de la Rochechouart 
 with two hundred soldiers, chiefly gen- 
 darmes and vetei'ans. At nine in the 
 morning, the marshal, having drunk 
 a little claret, entered a carriage, ac- 
 companied by the Cure of St Sulpice : 
 two gendarmes occupied the front seat 
 of the vehicle. It drew up in the gar- 
 dens to the left of the entrance, about 
 fifty yards from the gate. Ney got 
 out with a rapid step, and placing him- 
 self eight paces from the wall, said, 
 addressing the officer in command, "Is 
 it here, sir ? " " Yes, M. le Marechal," 
 was the reply. He refused to have his 
 eyes bandaged. ' ' For five-and-twenty 
 years," said he, "I have been accus- 
 tomed to face the balls of the enemy." 
 Then taking off his hat with his left 
 hand, and placing his right upon his 
 heart, he said in a loud voice, fronting 
 the soldiers, "My comrades, fire on 
 me." The officer in command gave 
 the signal, and he fell "without any 
 struggle : death was instantaneous ; 
 three balls had penetrated the head, 
 and four the breast. The place of exe- 
 cution may still be seen in the gardens 
 of the Luxembourg ; and no spot in 
 Europe will ever excite more melan- 
 choly feelings in the breast of the 
 spectator. 
 
 90. The death of Ney was one of the 
 greatest faults that the Bourbons ever 
 committed. His guilt was self-evident ; 
 never did criminal more richly deserve 
 the penalties of treason. Like Marl- 
 borough, he had not only betrayed his 
 Sovereign, but he had done so when in 
 high command, and when, like him, 
 he had recently before been prodigal 
 of protestations of fidelity to the cause 
 he undertook. His treachery had 
 brought on his country unheard-of 
 calamities — defeat in battle, conquest 
 by Europe, the dethronement and cap- 
 
 tivity of its sovereign, occupation of 
 its capital and provinces by 1,100,000 
 armed men, contributions to an unparal- 
 leled amount from its suffering people. 
 Double treachery had marked his ca- 
 reer : he had first abandoned in adver- 
 sity his fellow-soldier, benefactor, and 
 emperor, to take service with his ene- 
 my, and, having done so, he next be- 
 trayed the trust reposed in him, and 
 converted the power given him into 
 the means of destroying his Sovereign. 
 If ever a man deserved death, accord- 
 ing to the laws of all civilised countries 
 — if ever there was one to whom con- 
 tinued life would have been an oppro- 
 brium— it was Ney. But all that will 
 not justify the breach of a capitulation. 
 He was in Paris at the time it was con- 
 cluded — he remained in it on its faith 
 — he fell directly under its word as 
 Avell as its spirit. To say that it was 
 a military convention, which could not 
 tie up the hands of the Iving of France, 
 who was no party to it, is a sophism 
 alike contrary to the principles of law 
 and the feelings of honour. If Louis 
 XYIII. was not a party to it, he be- 
 came such by entering Paris, and re- 
 suming his throne, the very day after 
 it was concluded, without firing a 
 shot. True, the magnitude of the 
 treachery called for a great example ; 
 true, Europe in arms demanded his 
 head as an expiation ; — but what then ? 
 The very time when justice is shoAvn 
 in harmony with present magnanimity 
 and ultimate expedience, is when a 
 great crime has been committed, a great 
 criminal is at stake, and a great sacri- 
 fice must be made to secure that har- 
 mony. Banished from France, Avith 
 his double treason affixed to his name, 
 Ney would for ever have been an object 
 of scorn and detestation to every hon- 
 ourable mind. Slain in defiance of 
 the capitulation, in the gardens of the 
 Luxembourg, and meeting death in a 
 heroic spirit, he became an object of 
 eternal pathetic interest ; and the deco- 
 ration of the Legion of Honour, which 
 his sentence directed to be torn from 
 his neck, was for ever replaced around 
 it by the volley of the platoon which 
 consigned him to the grave. 
 
 91. During the trial, and when his 
 
1815.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 131 
 
 counsel had appealed to the capitula- 
 tion of Paris as protecting him, great 
 efforts were made with foreign powers 
 to save his life. Notes were addressed 
 to all their ambassadors then at Paris, 
 and the intervention of the military 
 chiefs who concluded that convention 
 waS in an especial manner invoked. 
 Madame ISTey applied for and obtained 
 an interview with the Duke of AVelling- 
 ton on the subject, and in the most 
 passionate manner invoked the protec- 
 tion of the 12th article. "Madam," 
 answered the Duke, "that capitula- 
 tion was only intended to protect the 
 inhabitants of Paris against the venge- 
 ance of the Allied armies ; and it is not 
 obligatory except on the powers which 
 have ratified it, which Louis XVIII. 
 has not done." "My Lord," replied 
 Madame Ney, "was not the taking 
 possession of Paris, in virtue of the 
 capitulation, equivalent to a ratifica- 
 tion ?" "That," rejoined the Duke, 
 ' ' regards the king of France ; apply 
 to him." Wellington expressed him- 
 self in the same terms to Marshal Ney, 
 in answer to a letter addressed to him 
 by the marshal on the subject.* The 
 whole case rests on both sides on this 
 brief dialogue : all the wit of man 
 to the end of time can add nothing 
 to its force. Strictly speaking, the 
 Duke of Wellington was undoubtedly 
 right : the capitulation bound him, 
 and had been observed by him ; if the 
 king of France violated it, that was 
 the affair of that monarch and his 
 
 * " I have had the honour of receiving the 
 note which you addressed to me on the 13th 
 November, relating to the operation of the 
 capitulation of Paris on your case. The ca- 
 pitulation of Paris, on the 3d July, was made 
 between the commander-in-chief of the allied 
 British and Prussian armies, on the one part, 
 and the Prince of Echmuhl, commander-in- 
 cliief of the French armies, on the other, and 
 related exclusively to the military occupation 
 of Paris. The object of the 12th article was 
 to prevent the adoption of any measures of 
 severity, under the military authority of those 
 who made it, towards any persons in Paris, 
 on account of offices which they had filled, or 
 their conduct, or their political opinions. But 
 it never was intended, and could not be in- 
 tended, to prevent either the existing French 
 Government, or any French Government which 
 might succeed it, from acting in this respect 
 as it might deem fit."— Wellington to Mar- 
 shal Ney, Nov. 19, 1815 : Gurwood, xii. 694. 
 
 ministers ; and there was a peculiar 
 delicacy in a victorious foreign general, 
 in military possession of the capital, 
 interfering Avith the administration of 
 justice by the French Government. In 
 private, it is said, Wellington exerted 
 himself much, though unhappily with- 
 out eflect, to save the life of his old 
 antagonist in arms ; but, in the face of 
 the united opinion of the whole powers 
 of Europe, he did not conceive himself 
 at liberty to make any i)ublic demon- 
 stration in his favour. His situation 
 was doubtless a delicate one, .surround- 
 ed with difiiculties on every side ; but 
 there is an instinct in the human heart 
 paramount to reason, there is a wisdom 
 in generosity which is often superior to 
 that of expedience. Time will show 
 whether it would not have been wiser 
 to have listened to its voice tlian to 
 that of unrelenting justice on this occa- 
 sion ; and whether the throne of the 
 Bourbons Avould not have been better 
 inaugurated by a deed of generosity 
 which would have spoken to the heart 
 of man through every succeeding age, 
 than by the sacrifice of the greatest, 
 though also the most guilty, hero of 
 the Empire, 
 
 92. Another trial took place at the 
 same period before the ordinary courts 
 of justice in Paris, which, although 
 not terminating in the same mournful 
 catastrophe, was attended with cir- 
 cumstances of perhaps greater romantic 
 interest. M. Lav alette was in civil 
 administration what Marshal Ney had 
 been in military — the great criminal 
 of the Hundred Days. Accompanied 
 by General Sebastiani, he had taken 
 forcible possession, in the name of the 
 Emperor, of the important situation 
 of Director-General of the Post-Office, 
 which he had formerly held under 
 Napoleon, and had used the power 
 thus acquired to the worst purposes. 
 On the 20th March, before the entry 
 of the Emperor into Paris, he had 
 addressed a treasonable circular to the 
 inferior postmasters, which had a 
 powerful effect in tranquillising the 
 provinces, and facilitating Napoleon's 
 peaceable resumption of the throne.* 
 
 * "L'Empereur sera a Paris dans deux 
 heures et peut-etre avant. La capitale est 
 
1S2 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 In addition to this, he had ^n■itten 
 to Napoleon at Fontainebleau, urging 
 his immediate advance to Paris, and 
 refused jiost-horses to several of the 
 persons in the suite of Louis XVIII., 
 in particular Count Ferrand, the for- 
 mer postmaster, on the departure of 
 that monarch for Lille. His guilt, 
 therefore, was self-evident ; indeed, it 
 has been confessed by himself ; * but, 
 like so many others of the persons 
 implicated in the treason of the Hun- 
 dred Days, he made no attempt at 
 escape. He remained, on the contrary, 
 at his own hotel, or the country house 
 of his mother-in-law, near Paris, after 
 the return of the King, and even after 
 the fate of Labedoyere might have 
 taught him the expedience of consult- 
 ing his safety by flight, the more esj^e- 
 cially as he was not in Paris at the 
 time of the capitulation, and could 
 not appeal to its protection. He had 
 even the extreme imprudence to 
 disregard a significant hint sent him 
 by Fouche, and remained at his 
 
 dans le plus grand enthousiasme ; et quoi qu'on 
 puisse faire, la guerre civile n'aura lieu nulle 
 part. Vive I'Empereur l—Le Conseiller d'Etat, 
 Directeur-General des Pastes, Comte Laval- 
 ETTE."—MonUeur, Nov. 21, 1815. 
 
 * "En sortant de la Eue d'Artols pour 
 entrer sur le boulevard, je rencontrai le 
 General Sebastian! en cabriolet. II nie donna 
 la nouvelle du depart du Roi, niais il n'en 
 avait aucune sur TEmpereur; *J'ai bien 
 d'envie,' lui dis-je, ' d'en aller cliercher a la 
 poste ; ' et je me platjai a cote de lui. En 
 entrant dans la salle d'audience qui preefede 
 le Cabinet du Directeur-General, je trouvai 
 un jeune homnie etabli devant un' bureau, a 
 qui je demandai .si le Comte Ferrand etait 
 encore a I'hotel. Sur la reponse affirmative 
 je lui donnai mon nom, en le priant de de- 
 mander pour moi quelques instans d'entretien 
 a M. le Comte Ferrand. M. Ferrand se pre- 
 seuta, mais sans s'arreter et sans m'ecouter 
 il ouvrit son cabinet. Je ne I'y suivis pas ; 
 et j'allai dans ime mitre piece ou je trouvai tons 
 les chefs de division reunis de me revoir, et 
 disposes a tout faire pour m'obliger. M. 
 Ferrand, aprSs avoir pris ses papiers, se re- 
 tira, et laissa son cabinet a ma disposition. 
 J'avais un vif desir de courir a Fontainebleau, 
 pour embrasser I'Empereur ; mais je voulais 
 voir ma femme avant de partir, et pour con- 
 cilier ces deux raouvements de coeur, je pris 
 la resolution d'ecrire a Fontainebleau. On 
 me donna un courrier, qui partit a I'instant. 
 J'annonQai a I'Empereur la nouvelle du depart 
 du Roi, et je lui demandai des ordrespour la 
 Poste, puisque M. Ferrand avait abandonne 
 Tadministration."— JlJmoire de Lavalette, ii. 
 152, 153. 
 
 mother-in-law's without concealment. 
 The consequence Avas, he was arrested 
 and brought to trial ; and, as his 
 treason was clearly proved, he was 
 found guilty and sentenced to death. 
 
 93. The counsel of Lavalette, to gain 
 time, advised him to apply to have 
 the sentence reviewed by the Court 
 of Cassation, and meanwhile applied, 
 through the Duke de Richelieu, to the 
 King for mercy. Louis answered : 
 "M. de Lavalette appears to me to be 
 guilty; the Chamber of Deputies de- 
 mands examples, and I believe them 
 to be necessary. I have every wish to 
 extend mercy to M. de Lavalette ; but 
 recollect that, the day following, you 
 will be assailed by the Chamber of 
 Deputies, and we shall be in a fresh 
 embarrassment." By the advice of 
 the King, the intervention of the 
 Duchess d'Angouleme was applied for, 
 as it might support him in the course 
 Avhich his inclination prompted. The 
 Princess shed tears at the recital, and 
 recommended that Madame Lavalette 
 should throw herself at the King's 
 feet. She did so, having with gi'eat 
 difficulty obtained enti-ance to the 
 chateau by the assistance of Marshal 
 Marmont ; but though the monarch 
 addressed her with kindness he pro- 
 mised nothing, and it was understood 
 the law would be allowed to take its 
 course. It was fortunate he adhered 
 to that resolution, for it gave occasion 
 to one of the most touching instances 
 of female heroism and devotion that 
 the history of the world has exhibited. 
 
 94. The day of his death was fixed, 
 and the unhappy prisoner, despairing 
 of life, had already begun to familiar- 
 ise his mind with the frightful cu'cum- 
 stances of a public execution. In this 
 extremity everj^thing depended on the 
 courage and energy of Madame Lava- 
 lette; and to her he owed his salva- 
 tion. The evening before, being the 
 21st December, she came to have a 
 last interview with him, accompanied 
 by her daughter, a child of fourteen 
 years ; and, as soon as they were alone, 
 proposed that he should escape in her 
 dress. With much difficulty she per- 
 suaded him to accede to the proposal, 
 and after their last repast the change 
 
1815. 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 133 
 
 of apparel was effected with surpris- 
 ing celerity and address. The hope of 
 success, the consciousness of heroism, 
 had restored all her presence of mind 
 to ]\Iadame Lavalette, and she was not 
 only cheerful but animated on the occa- 
 sion. "Do not forget," said she, "to 
 stoop at passing tlirough the doors, 
 and walk slowly in the passage, like 
 a person exhausted by suffering." He 
 did so : the jailers did not, through 
 the veil which he wore, perceive the 
 change ; the porters of the sedan chair 
 in which Madame Lavalette arrived 
 had been gained by twenty-five louis ; 
 and after passing four gates, and about 
 twelve turnkeys in different places, he 
 got clear off. When the jailer some 
 time after entered the apartment, he 
 found Lavalette escaped, and the 
 heroine of conjugal duty seated in his 
 place. 
 
 95. But though the prison gates had 
 been passed, much remained to be 
 done, for the escape was soon dis- 
 covered ; the police were on the alert ; 
 the most active search was made in 
 every direction ; and the Government, 
 held to rigorous measures by the 
 clamour raised in the Chamber of 
 Deputies, where they were openly 
 accused of having favoured the escape, 
 were compelled to direct every effort 
 to be made to apprehend the fugitive. 
 But fortune seemed never weary of ac- 
 cumulating romantic incidents around 
 this memoi-able trial ; and the escape 
 of Lavalette from Paris, and into Ger- 
 many, was effected by an intervention 
 of all others the most unlooked-for in 
 such a case. Sir Robert Wilson, the 
 determined antagonist of Napoleon, 
 who had so vehemently denounced the 
 massacre of the prisoners, and the 
 poisoning of the sick at Jaffa, who 
 had commanded -vvith distinction a 
 guerilla party on the frontiers of 
 Portugal, and who Avas the first man 
 who entered the great redoubt in the 
 assault of Dresden, Avas then in Paris, 
 and to him, Arith the aid of tAvo cour- 
 ageous friends, Mr Hutchinson and 
 Mr Bruce, Lavalette OA\'ed his escape. 
 Endowed by nature with a heroic spirit 
 and an ardent temperament. Sir Robert 
 Wilson had, at the same time, the 
 
 generosity of disposition Avhieh is so 
 often the accompaniment of that char- 
 acter, and should make every equitable 
 mind overlook many of the frailties to 
 Avhich it is in a peculiar manner sub- 
 ject. Allied to the Opposition in the 
 English Parliament, Avith AAdiom the 
 French emperor had alAA^ays been an 
 object of interest, his enmity to Napo- 
 leon AA-as turned, since his fall, into 
 ardent admiration ; and his chivalrous 
 disposition led him to lend himself to 
 every project formed for the escape of 
 the persons implicated in his restora- 
 tion. He AA-as privy to a design for 
 the escape of his old antagonist Ney, 
 AA'hich had been only prevented from 
 taking effect by the tripling of the 
 guards of his prison the evening before 
 his execution ; and having failed in 
 that, his next object was to aid in the 
 escape of La\'alette. 
 
 96. Lavalette, on escaping from the 
 prison, took refuge, by the guidance of 
 a friend, M. Baudin, who met him by 
 appointment, in the apartments of M. 
 Bressore, part of the hotel of the Min- 
 ister of Foreign Affairs, then occupied 
 by the Duke de Richelieu — a circum- 
 stance AA'hich warrants a suspicion that 
 that generous nobleman Avas no stranger 
 in secret to his escape. MeauAA^hile the 
 Court AA'ere in consternation, deeming 
 the event the result of a deep-laid con- 
 spiracy AA'hich AA-as on the point of 
 breaking out ; and, to their disgrace 
 be it said, Madame Lavalette, Avho 
 remained in prison in her husband's 
 room, Avas in consequence subjected for 
 six-and-tA\-enty days to solitaiy confine- 
 ment, so rigorous that, AA-ith the entire 
 ignorance of her husband's fate in 
 AA'hich she was kept, her mind became 
 affected, and she did not entirety re- 
 coA'er her sanity for tAA^eh'e years. La- 
 valette remained three Aveeks in his 
 place of concealment in the Hotel des 
 Affaires Etrangeres ; and at the close 
 of that period, finding the search for 
 him by the police every day becoming 
 more rigorous, he succeeded in making 
 his escape from Paris, and reaching 
 Germany in safety, by the aid of Sir 
 Robert Wilson, Mr Hutchinson, and Mr 
 Bruce, Avdio, from motives of humanity, 
 generously aided him in the attempt, 
 
134 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. III. 
 
 and accompanied him beyond the reach 
 of danger. They were discovered, how- 
 ever, and hronght to trial for abetting 
 his escape, and sentenced to three 
 months' imprisonment — the lightest 
 punishment prescribed by the French 
 law for offences of that description : a 
 lenient sentence, if their undoubted 
 infraction of the laws of that country 
 is considered ; but a severe one, if the 
 motives of men, whose conduct had 
 excited the admiration and interest of 
 all Europe, is alone regarded.* 
 
 97. The fate of another paladin of the 
 French Empire belongs to this period 
 of history, though his fate was deter- 
 mined on the Italian shores. Murat, 
 after the calamitous result of his rash 
 attempt to raise Italy against the Aus- 
 trians, recounted in a former work,t 
 had sought refuge in France, where 
 he remained obscure and unemployed 
 during the Hundred Days. Napoleon's 
 confidence in his judgment was irrevo- 
 cably shaken ; his white plume was not 
 seen surmounting the armour of the 
 
 * The indictment against Sir Robei-tWilson, 
 Mr Hutchinson, and Mr Bruce, charged them 
 with having been accessory to a general con- 
 spiracy for overturning all establislied govern- 
 ments in Europe ; but nothing was brought 
 home to them except some democratic papers 
 found in Sir R. Wilson's repositories, and the 
 actual aiding in Lavalette's escape, which 
 they all admitted, and which was clearly 
 pi'oved. Sir R. Wilson said in his defence, 
 and the words, coming from such a man, drew 
 tears from the audience : " The appeal made 
 to our humanity, to our personal character, 
 and to our national generosity — the responsi- 
 bility thrown upon us of instantly deciding 
 on the life or death of an unfortunate man, 
 and of an unfortunate stranger— this appeal 
 was imperative, and did not permit us to cal- 
 culate his other claims to our goodwill. At 
 its voice we should have done as much for an 
 obscure unknown individual, or even for an 
 enemy who had fallen into misfortune. Per- 
 haps we were imprudent, but we would rather 
 incur that reproach than the one we should 
 have merited by basely abandoning him, who, 
 full of confidence, threw himself into our 
 arms. Those very men who have calumniated 
 us, not knowing our motives, would have been 
 the first to reproach us as heartless cowards, 
 if, by our refusal to save M. Lavalette, we had 
 abandoned him to certain death. We resign 
 ourselves with confidence to the decision of 
 the jury ; and if you should condemn us for 
 having contravened your positi\'e laws, we 
 shall not have at least to reproach ourselves 
 for having violated the eternal laws of moral- 
 ity and humanity." Mr Bruce said, in a firm 
 and manly tone : " Political considerations 
 
 cuirassiers on the field of Waterloo. 
 When that decisive battle had over- 
 turned the Imperial dynasty in France, 
 he remained in Provence in conceal- 
 ment, and repeatedly escaped, almost 
 miraculously, from the pursuit of the 
 police. At length, after undergoing 
 three months of anxiety and suff'ering, 
 worn out with suspense, and deter- 
 mined to brave all hazards in preference 
 to continuing it, he issued from his 
 place of concealment, and with great 
 difficulty succeeded in making his way 
 down to the sea-coast, accompanied by 
 the Duke of Eocca Romana and a few 
 other faithful adherents ; but there he 
 was accidentally separated from his 
 attendants, and wandered about for 
 four days and nights on the shore alone, 
 anxiously looking for a bark, and sup- 
 ported solely by the ears of maize which 
 he rubbed in his hands. At length, 
 driven by hunger, he knocked at the 
 door of a humble cottage, and w^as ad- 
 mitted and ofl"ered refreshment by an 
 aged domestic. Soon after the master 
 
 had no influence with me in the affair of M. 
 Lavalette : I am moved solely by feelings of 
 humanity ; and you will see from my declara- 
 tion that I scarcely knew him. I never was 
 in his house, nor he in mine. I have never 
 had the honour of seeing his wife, nor had I 
 any previous communication with him, direct 
 or indirect, since his arrest. It has been 
 proved, that in no respect was eithar I or 
 either of my friends implicated in his designs. 
 1 respected the fetters and gates of a court of 
 justice. I have not, like Don Quixote, gone 
 in quest of adventures. An unhappy man, 
 condemned by the laws, solicited my protec- 
 tion ; he proved that he had confidence in my 
 character — he put his life in my hands — he 
 appealed to my humanity — what would have 
 been said of me if I had gone to denounce 
 him to the police ? Should I not have de- 
 served the death with which I have since 
 been threatened? Nay, what would have 
 been thought of me, if I had refused to protect 
 him ? Would I not have been regarded as a 
 coward, without principles, without honour, 
 without courage, without generosity, and 
 deserved the contempt of every honourable 
 mind?" These were noble words, which 
 make us proud of our country ; and they came 
 with peculiar grace from Sir R. Wilson, the 
 determined antagonist in so many bloody 
 fields of Napoleon, and his enthusiastic young 
 friend, Mr Bruce— of Scotch extraction, but 
 not Mr Bruce of Kennet, as erroneously stated 
 in the first edition. — See Ami. Reg. 1816, 385 
 — App. to Chron.; Lavalette, ii. 29; and 
 Moniteur, April 16, 1816. 
 
 t History of Europe, chapter xciii. § § 23, 
 24. 
 
1815.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 135 
 
 of the house came in, and, seeing a 
 stranger of a noble air seated at table, 
 he saluted him courteously, and took 
 a place opposite to him at the repast. 
 A sudden ray of the sun having illu- 
 minated the countenance of the king, 
 who sat before in shade, the peasant 
 knew him. Ke had the generosity, 
 however, not only to conceal his sur- 
 prise, lest he should betray his illus- 
 trious guest, but to offer to put his life 
 and property at his disposal. In spite 
 of all the j)recautions that could be 
 taken, the rumour spread abroad that 
 the King of Naples was concealed on 
 the coast, and, on the night of the 
 13th August, the cottage in which he 
 slept was surrounded by sixty armed 
 volunteers from Toulon. The old ser- 
 vant, however, detained them so long 
 in opening the door, that Murat, who 
 always was dressed, and with his arms 
 beside him, had time to escape by a 
 back window, and conceal himself un- 
 der a pile of vine faggots in the vine- 
 yard behind the house. As he lay there 
 hidden, several of the party, with lan- 
 terns in their hands, passed within a 
 few feet, and almost trode upon the 
 concealed monarch. 
 
 98. Though this danger was escaped, 
 yet as it was known he was somewhere 
 concealed in the vicinity, and a reward 
 of 1000 louis Avas offered for his appre- 
 hension, it was justly deemed too great 
 a hazard for him to remain longer in 
 his present state of concealment. He 
 embarked accordingly in an open boat 
 attended by four persons; but was 
 overtaken by a violent tempest, which 
 carried away the sail and rudder, and 
 caused a leak to be sprung in the frail 
 bark. They were on the point of sink- 
 ing, when the packet-boat from Toulon 
 to Corsica came past, by which they 
 were taken up, and where he found by 
 accident a number of the partisans of 
 ISTapoleon, who like him were flying 
 from the dangers of the violent reaction 
 in the south. On arriving in Corsica, 
 he repaired to the house of Colonna 
 Cecaldo, in the Place Vescovato, the 
 most considerable 2:)ersonage in that 
 district, and, announcing his name, 
 solicited hospitality. He was kindly 
 received, and soon after was joined by 
 
 a few of liis partisans from ITaples. 
 The governor of Bastia, the chief place 
 of the island, hearing of his descent at 
 Vescovato, issued a proclamation de- 
 claring him a public enemy, and sent 
 a detachment of four hundred men to 
 arrest him ; but Murat, having got in- 
 telligence of their approach, fled to the 
 mountains, where the fame of his name 
 speedily drew a thousand armed pea- 
 sants to his standard, who presented 
 amidst their defiles and precipices so 
 formidable a front to the soldiers that 
 they did not venture to hazard an 
 attack, and returned without having 
 effected anything. After this success, 
 the enthusiasm in his favour in Corsica 
 was such that the people solicited him 
 to accept the crown of the island ; and 
 he was offered an asylum in Austria, 
 with the title of Count, though on 
 condition that he renounced his claims 
 to the throne of the Two Sicilies. He 
 was assured also by Lord Exmouth, to 
 whom he despatched a messenger, of a 
 secure passage to England on board his 
 ship ; but the admiral Avas not em- 
 powered to pledge himself for anything 
 in regard to his ulterior destination. 
 Fearing, however, that he would incur 
 the fate of Napoleon, and still dream- 
 ing of his beloved Naples, he resolved 
 to hazard all by attempting to regain 
 its throne. In vain his most trusty 
 followers represented to him the dan- 
 gers of such an enterprise when Europe 
 was in arms, and the Austrian troops 
 in great strength occupied the Italian 
 peninsula. He was deaf to everything 
 that could be alleged, and so set upon 
 carrying it into execution, that when 
 his aide-de-camp. Colonel Macerone, 
 arrived from Paris with a safe-conduct 
 from the Allied powers, and offer of an 
 asylum in Austria, he declined the 
 ofters, and resolved in preference to 
 brave all the hazard of the attempt.* 
 
 * It is creditable to the military authorities 
 at Genoa to state that, immediately on hear- 
 ing of Murat's determination to sacrifice his 
 life in a vain attempt to recover his kingdom, 
 and that the Corsican troops were unable to 
 make head against liim, they determined to 
 save his life against his will. For this pur- 
 pose, an expedition, comprising the entire 
 battalion of the 6th King's German Legion 
 (600 men), four guns, a commissariat, and 
 medical staff, the whole under the command 
 
136 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. in. 
 
 99. He set out from Vescovato on 
 the 17th September \\^th 250 men, 
 and entered Ajaccio, the chief town of 
 the island, in ti'iumph, amidst the ac- 
 clamations of the inhabitants. It was 
 a moment of illusion between the 
 throne and the tomb, wdiieh recalled 
 for a brief period the remembrance of 
 his happier days. The conversation at 
 dinner turned on the battle of Water- 
 loo. "Ah!" exclaimed Murat, "if 
 I had been there, I am convinced the 
 destinies of the world would have 
 been changed. The French cavalry 
 was madly engaged ; it was sacrificed 
 to no purpose in detail, when its charge 
 en masse at the close of the day would 
 have carried everything before it." 
 His conversation was easy and varied, 
 as if his mind Avas relieved from all 
 anxiety. In the evening he A\Tote a 
 letter to Colonel Macerone, intended 
 for the Allied sovereigns, in which he 
 declared his resolution to decline their 
 offers, and hazard all on the expedi- 
 tion he had undertaken.'^' Having de- 
 livered this letter to Macerone and 
 retired to rest, a cannon discharged at 
 one in the morning roused the party 
 from their slumbers, and they em- 
 
 of Major-General Phillips, embarked at Genoa 
 on the 2d September, expecting to reach Cor- 
 sica the following day, and, by the display of 
 so imposing a force, to compel Murat's sur- 
 render. During the night of the 2d Septem- 
 ber, Lord Exmouth arrived from Marseilles, 
 and refused all naval co-operation. The troops 
 therefore disembarked at noon on the 3d, and 
 Mm'at was left to his fate ! 
 
 * " I cannot accept the conditions which 
 Colonel Macerone has offered to me. They 
 imply an abdication on my part ; I am only 
 permitted to live. Is this the respect due to 
 a sovereign in misfortune knowm to all Eu- 
 rope, and who in a critical moment decided 
 the campaign of 1815 in favour of the very 
 powers which no\v pursue him with their 
 hatred and their ingratitude ? I have never 
 abdicated; I am entitled to recover my 
 throne, if God gives the power and the means 
 of doing so. My presence on the soil of 
 Naples can disturb no one ; I cannot corre- 
 spond with Napoleon, a captive at St Helena. 
 When you receive this letter, I shall be al- 
 ready at sea, advancing to my destiny. 
 Either I shall succeed, or I shall terminate 
 my life with my eaterprise. I have faced 
 death a thousand times combating for my 
 country ; may I not be permitted to face it 
 once for myself? I have but one anxiety ; it 
 is on the fate of my family." — Murat to Col- 
 onel Macerone, 27th September 1815 ; La- 
 MARTINE, v. 281, 282. 
 
 barked on board six small feluccas 
 before sunrise on the 28th September, 
 and after a tedious voyage arrived in 
 sight of the mountains of Calabria near 
 i Paolo, on the evening of the 6th Octo- 
 ber. The flotilla cast anchor, and 
 Murat despatched Colonel Ottaviani 
 ashore to sound the inhabitants, and 
 bring intelligence whether anything 
 had been prepared to oppose his de- 
 barkation. 
 
 100. Ottaviani and the sailor who 
 accompanied him were arrested the 
 moment they landed, and did not re- 
 turn. This was considered as a bad 
 omen, and discouragement was already- 
 visible in the expedition. During the 
 night the other vessels disappeared ; 
 and even Captain Courand, who had 
 been seven years a captain in his guard, 
 slipped his cable during the night and 
 made sail for Corsica. Disconcerted 
 with these defections, Murat proposed 
 to his captain, a man of the name of 
 Barbara, to steer for Trieste, for which 
 place he had passports and the Aus- 
 trian safe -conduct ; but he declined, 
 alleging he had no flour or provisions 
 for so long a voyage — oflering at the 
 same time to go ashore and prociu-e a 
 larger vessel, provided he got the pass- 
 ports. The King, fearing treachery, 
 refused to part with them, upon which 
 an angry altercation got up between 
 them, which ended in his exclaiming 
 to his ofiicers — "You see he refuses to 
 obey me ; well, I will land myself ! 
 My memory is fresh in the hearts of 
 the ^Neapolitans ; they will join me." 
 He then ordered his officers to put on 
 their uniforms ; and as the wind was 
 fair, and the day fine, he steered into 
 the bay of Pizzo, and cast anchor on a 
 desert strand at a little distance from 
 that toAvn. His generals and officers, 
 five-and-twenty in number, wished to 
 precede him in going a.shore ; but the 
 King would not permit it. "It is for 
 me, " he exclaimecl, ' ' to descend first on 
 this field of glory or death ; the preced- 
 ence belongs to me, as the responsibil- 
 ity ; " — and with these words he leapt 
 boldly ashore. 
 
 101. Already the beach was covered 
 with groups of peasants, whom the un- 
 wonted sight of the barks in the bav, 
 
1S15.J 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 137 
 
 and the uniforms of the officers land- 
 ing, had attracted to the spot. Among 
 them was a detachment of fifteen gun- 
 ners, who came from a solitary guard- 
 house on the shore. They still bore 
 jMurat's uniform. " My children," 
 said he, advancing towards them, "do 
 you know your King ? " And with 
 these words he took oft' his hat ; his 
 auburn locks fell on his shoulders, 
 <ind the noble martial figure which was 
 engraven on their hearts appeared be- 
 fore them. " Yes, it is I," he contin- 
 ued ; "I am your King Joachim : say 
 if you will follow and serve the friend 
 of the soldiers, the friend of the Nea- 
 politans.'' At these words the officers 
 in Murat's suite raised their hats, and 
 shouted " Vive le Roi Joachim ! " and 
 the soldiers . mechanically grounded 
 theii' arms ; but a few only exclaimed 
 "Vive Joachim!" Meanwhile the 
 inhabitants of Pizzo, under the direc- 
 tion of the agent of the Duke del In- 
 fantado, who had great estates in the 
 neighbourhood, and who was ardently 
 attached to the Boui'bou family, assem- 
 bled, and, while ]\Iurat was vainly 
 awaiting a movement in his favour, 
 declared against him. While still un- 
 certain what to do, two peasants arriv- 
 ed, and, informing Murat of what was 
 ^oing on in the town, offered to guide 
 him to Monteleone, where the garrison 
 might be expected to be more favour- 
 able, and the possession of a fortified 
 place would open to him the gates of 
 his kingdom. This offer the king ac- 
 cepted, and the party, consisting in all 
 of forty persons, were soon seen in 
 their brilliant uniforms wending their 
 way over the olive-clad summits by 
 •which the road passed. They were 
 met by a colonel of the royal gendar- 
 merie, named Trenta Capelli, a noted 
 chief of the Calabrian insurrection, and 
 the fate of whose three brothers, slain 
 on the scaffold by the French, had 
 inspii-ed him with inextinguishable 
 hatred towards them. Murat knew 
 him, and called him by name to join 
 Jiis cause. ' ' My king, " said he, point- 
 ing to the flag which waved on the 
 towers of Pizzo, "is he whose colours 
 wave over the kingdom." 
 
 102. Miu-at was deceived, or pre- 
 
 tended to be so, in regard to Trenta. 
 Capelli's intentions, and, advancing 
 towards him, they entered into con- 
 versation. But as soon as the crowd 
 of armed men Avhich advanced from 
 Pizzo with the cannoneers arrived, 
 Capelli joined them, and summoned 
 the king to surrender. Seeing the in- 
 tentions of the crowd to be evidently 
 adverse, Murat addressed them in a 
 few words, alleging that he had no 
 hostile designs, and was only endea- 
 vouring to seek an asylum in the Aus- 
 trian states, for which he had pass- 
 ports which their King Ferdinand 
 himself was bound to respect. Tlie 
 Neapolitans answered only by confused 
 cries and violent gesticulations, follow- 
 ed by a discharge of firearms, by which 
 one captain in his suite was killed and 
 several wounded. A second volley 
 decimated his ranks ; and Murat, 
 seeing his party dispersed, endeavoured 
 to make his escape across the fields to 
 the sea-coast. He there called aloud 
 to his captain, Barbara, to steer in and 
 come to his relief ; but the perfidious 
 Avretch, instead of doing so, stood out 
 to sea, carrying with him the arms, 
 gold, ammunition, and all the effects 
 of the unhappy monarch. At the 
 same time the soldiers in Trenta Ca- 
 pelli's band were seen rapidly approach- 
 ing from the land side. In this ex- 
 trenaty, the king threw himself into a 
 fishing-boat moored at a little distance 
 from the coast ; but the bark, stranded 
 on the sand, resisted all his efforts to 
 set it afloat. He was soon surrounded 
 by a furious crowd, which broke into 
 tlie vessel, and dragged him, disarmed 
 and bleeding, asliore, where the sol- 
 diers had the barbarity to strike the 
 wounded hero on the face with the but- 
 ends of their carbines, and tore from 
 his breast the ensigns of his glor}% 
 which he wore in that hour of his fate. 
 Such was the fury of the multitude, 
 that twice, in going from the coast to 
 the prison of Pizzo, the hatchet was 
 suspended over his head ; and it was 
 only by the efforts of Trenta Capelli, 
 and the agent of the Duke del Infant- 
 ado, that he was saved from instant 
 death. 
 
 103. The moment intelligence was 
 
138 
 
 HISTORY OF EUEOPE. 
 
 [chap. III. 
 
 received by the Neapolitan general, 
 Nunziante, who commanded in Cala- 
 hria, of the descent and capture of an 
 armed party on the coast, he sent Cap- 
 tain Stratts with a party of soldiers to 
 secure and protect the prisoners, yet 
 ignorant of the name and quality of 
 their august captive. ' ' Who are y ou ? " 
 said Stratts to the third who was 
 brought forward for examination. 
 "Joachim Murat, King of Naples, " 
 replied the monarch with an inti*epid 
 air. Sti'atts bowed to heroism in mis- 
 fortune, and courteously ordered him 
 to be conducted to an apartment fur- 
 nished with every comfort, and apart 
 from the other prisoners, where his 
 wounds were tended, and he had leis- 
 ure to reflect on his approaching fate. 
 On the following day, Nunziante ar- 
 rived, and dined with the king in an 
 apartment of the chateau to w^hich he 
 had been removed. The captive was 
 more cheerful than the general, for 
 the latter was already seized with dis- 
 quietude as to the orders which he 
 might receive from Naples regarding 
 the disposal of the prisoner. So little 
 was Murat aware of his approaching 
 fate, that he conversed at table about 
 an arrangement by which he might 
 cede Sicily to the King of Naples, and 
 be himself recognised as king in the 
 continental dominions of the house of 
 Bourbon. He was not long of being 
 undeceived. After much perplexity, 
 the court of Naples adopted the resolu- 
 tion of sending the prisoner to a mili- 
 tary commission, to try him under a 
 law which he himself had introduced 
 against the Bourbon aspirants to his 
 throne. So determined Avere the Gov- 
 ernment on destroying him, that the 
 same orders which directed him to be 
 brought before a military commission, 
 enjoined that he should only be al- 
 lowed half an hour to receive the con- 
 solations of religion.* He Avas brought 
 to trial accordingly, and, when the 
 
 * "Le General Murat sera traduit devant 
 line Commission Militaire dont les membres 
 seront nommes par notre Ministre de la 
 Guerre. 
 
 "II ne sera accorde au condamne qu'une 
 demi-heure pour recevoir les secours de la 
 religion. Ferdinand." — Lamartine, His- 
 ioire de la Restaur at ion, v. 313. 
 
 room was preparing for the court-mar- 
 tial, Avrote a letter to his queen, Caro- 
 line, which is one of the most touch- 
 ing examples of the genuine pathetic 
 of wdiich history has preserved a 
 record.* "Wheu brought before the 
 tribunal, he refused to recognise its 
 authority, or even to allow his counsel 
 to plead for him, and, as a matter 
 of course, Avas condemned to be shot 
 Avithin half an hour. 
 
 104. The priest who was sent for to 
 administer the last consolations of re- 
 ligion happened to be one to AAdiom, in 
 the days of his greatness, he had made 
 a considerable gift AA-hen in the course 
 of a tour through his provinces : he 
 said to him that that Avas a good omen 
 for the intercession of his prayers in 
 his behalf. He declared that he died 
 a good Christian. He then heard 
 without emotion the sentence of the 
 court-martial AAdiich condemned him 
 to death, and thanked General Nunzi- 
 ante, the priest, and oflicers, for the 
 kindness they had shoAvn to him dur- 
 ing his short captiAdty; and himself 
 led the way into a sort of fosse, where 
 the execution AA^as to take place, exact- 
 ly similar to the one in the castle of 
 Vincennes in AA'hich the Duke d'En- 
 ghien, whose delivery to a military 
 commission had been countersigned 
 by himself, had suffered ten years be- 
 
 * " Ma cliere Caroline ! Ma demiere 
 heure est aiTivee. Dans quelques instants 
 .i'aurai cesse de Aivre; dans quelques instants 
 tu n'auras plus d'epoux. Ne ni'oubliez ja- 
 mais. Je meurs innocent. Ma vie ne fut 
 tachee d'aucune injustice. Adieu, mon Ach- 
 ille ! Adieu, ma Laetitia ! Adieu, mon Lu- 
 eien ! Adieu, ma Louise ! Montrez-A'ous au 
 moude dignes de moi. Je a'ous laisse sans 
 royaume et sans biens au milieu de mes nom- 
 breux ennemis. Soyez constamment unis ! 
 Montrez-vous superieurs a I'infortune, pensez 
 a ce que vous etes et a ce que vous avez ete,. 
 et Dieu a-ous benira ! Ne maudissez point 
 ma memoire ! Sachez que ma plus gi-ande 
 peine, dans les derniers moments de ma vie, 
 est de mourir loin de mes enfants ! Recevez 
 la benediction paternelle ' Recevez mes em- 
 brassemeuts et mes larmes. Ayez toujours 
 present a A'otre memoire votre malbeureux 
 pfere." A^'^ith truth does Lamartine observe, 
 " L'adieu de Murat arrachera des larmes a la 
 posterity la plus reculee. Si on n'y sent pas 
 la \-ictime et le martyr, on y sent I'amant, le 
 pfere, et le heros. II se rendait a lui-meme 
 un ATai temoignage. "—Lamartine, Histoire 
 de la Rextauration, v. 317, 318. 
 
1815.] 
 
 HISTOKY OF EUROPE. 
 
 139 
 
 fore. Twelve soldiers, with loaded 
 muskets, awaited his approach ; the 
 space in the bottom of the ditch was 
 so confined that the muzzles almost 
 touched his breast. Looking at them 
 Avith a steady eye, and a smile on his 
 lips, he said: "My friends, do not 
 make me suffer by taking bad aim ; 
 the narrowness of the space obliges you 
 almost to rest the muzzles of your 
 pieces on my breast ; do not tremble ; 
 spare the face — straight to the heart. " 
 "With these words he put his right 
 hand on his breast, to mark the posi- 
 tion of his heart, and in his left held 
 a little medallion, which contained 
 portraits of his wife and his four chil- 
 dren. He was still gazing on the 
 loved images when the discharge took 
 place, and he fell pierced by twelve 
 balls, his left hand still holding the 
 medallion till it was relaxed in death. 
 His remains were respectfully interred 
 in the cathedral of Pizzo, which his 
 gifts had enriched while on the throne, 
 and a general amnesty was humanely 
 pronounced on his companions in mis- 
 fortune. 
 
 105. Such was the end, at the pre- 
 mature age of forty-eight, of Joachim 
 Murat, king of Naples, one of the 
 most distinguished of the heroes of 
 that age of glory. His life, his char- 
 acter, and his death, approach more 
 nearly to the visions of the poet than 
 the events of reality ; he belonged to 
 the days of romance rather than the 
 Pievolution. Born in a humble station 
 on the mountains of the Pyrenees, he 
 cut his way to a throne by his good 
 sword ; he won the sister of an emper- 
 or by his chivalry, and the admiration 
 of the world by his renown. Amadis 
 de Gaul or Palmerin of England could 
 not have exceeded him in the vigour 
 Avith which he led his cavalry into the 
 midst of the enemy's squadrons ; he 
 rivalled Einaldo in the heroism of 
 single combat, Tancredi in the fervour 
 of chivalrous attachment, Murat's 
 abilities were those of a knight rather 
 than a general: no one ever exceed- 
 ed him in the gallantly Avith which 
 he headed a charge of horse ; but he 
 had no capacity for general combina- 
 tion, and in separate command never 
 
 achieved anything Avorthy of his repu- 
 tation. As a king, he was mild and 
 benevolent in his conduct, and affable 
 and conciliating in his manners; but 
 he was destitute of political firmness, 
 and, like many other men individually 
 brave, vacillating to a surprising de- 
 gree Avhen a decisiA^e crisis arrived. 
 His death affords a memorable in- 
 stance of the moral retribution Avhich, 
 even in this Avorld, often attends great 
 deeds of iniquity, and by the instru- 
 mentality of the very acts Avhich ap- 
 peared to place them beyond its reach. 
 He underwent, in 1815, the A'ery fate 
 to AA'hich he himself, scA'^en years be- 
 fore, had consigned a hundred Span- 
 iards at Madrid, Avho Avere guilty of 
 no other crime but that of having 
 bravely defended their countiy; and 
 by the application of a laAV to his own 
 case, Avhich he himself had introduced 
 to check the attempts of the Bour- 
 bons to regam a throne AAdiich he had 
 usurped. 
 
 106. Happily these examples suf- 
 ficed to appease the AATath of the Roy- 
 alists, and the reaction AAdiich invari- 
 ably, in civilised society, succeeds to 
 deeds of severity, enabled the Govern- 
 ment to act upon their decided inclina- 
 tions in favour of a return to humane 
 measures. General Mouton-Duvernet 
 AA^as one of the last victims of the Roy- 
 alist reaction. He Avas deeply impli- 
 cated in the events of the Hundred 
 Days, having commanded at Lyons 
 during that period ; and after the re- 
 turn of the Bourbons, he AA-as for some 
 months in the house of a Royalist, aa'Iio 
 generously sheltered him in his mis- 
 fortune. At length, fearful of endan- 
 gering his benefactor, or tormented by 
 the torture of anxiety and suspense, 
 he quitted his asylum and gave him- 
 self up. He AA'as tried by a court-mar- 
 tial, condemned, and executed, evinc- 
 ing in his last moments the courage 
 Avhich in misfortune so often expiates 
 error. The like fate attended General 
 Charti-and, aa'Iio had also held an im- 
 portant command in the south at the 
 landing of Napoleon, and by his defec- 
 tion had much aided his cause. He 
 Avas condemned by a council of Avar at 
 Lille, and executed. But Avith these 
 
140 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. III. 
 
 mournful examples, the blood shed b}'- 
 the reaction ceased to flow in France. 
 Several persons — in particular General 
 de Bello, General Gilly, General Clau- 
 .sel, and General Decaen — owed their 
 salvation to the intercession of the 
 Duchess d'Angouleme, to whom they 
 had shown respectful regards during 
 the brief struggle with that heroic 
 princess at Bordeaux. Others were 
 acquitted, among whom was Admiral 
 Linois, who commanded Guadaloupe, 
 and for whom the feeble defence was 
 sustained that his defection to Napo- 
 leon was done to prevent that colony 
 from falling into the hands of the Eng- 
 lish; General Drouet, whom Marshal 
 Macdonald, not without difficulty, suc- 
 ceeded in saving, by recounting the 
 energetic manner in which the accused 
 had exerted himself to prevail on the 
 army of the Loire to submit to the 
 ro^-al decree directing its dissolution ; 
 and General Cambronne, who com- 
 manded a division of the Imperial 
 Guard at the battle of Waterloo. It 
 was evident that the tide was turning, 
 and that Government, even after so 
 vast a treason, and in the excited 
 state of the public mind, might safely 
 return to a system of mercy — happy 
 distinction of an age of real civilisa- 
 tion and under the influence of re- 
 ligion, which is soon satiated ^\dth 
 blood, and, even under the greatest 
 provocations, gladly returns to the 
 sentiments of humanity. 
 
 107. Encouraged by these symp- 
 toms, the French Government resolved 
 to venture on the great act of a 
 general amnesty ; and the time se- 
 lected for bringing it forward was the 
 day after the execution of ^Marshal 
 Ney, when all hearts in Paris yet 
 thrilled with that mournful event. 
 Accompanied by all his colleagues, 
 the Duke de Richelieu entered the 
 Chamber, and said, with a faltering 
 voice: "A great example of just 
 severity has just been given ; but the 
 tribunals are still charged with those 
 who belong to the first class designated 
 in the ordinance of 24th July ; and if 
 some have escaped, sentence of death 
 pronounced against them as contuma- 
 cious will serve as an example in the 
 
 mean time. His Majesty, by the pro- 
 clamation of Cambray, has already 
 published an amnesty which he is 
 desirous of now extending ; the right 
 of forgiveness, after revolts and great 
 political commotions, is the most pre- 
 cious right inherent in sovereignty. 
 It is an additional satisfaction, on 
 such a solemn occasion, to obtain the 
 concurrence of the other branches of 
 the legislature. The King is rejoiced 
 that a considerable part of the power 
 which the new laws have bestowed 
 upon him is temporary only : he will 
 make use of it with justice. He will 
 pursue with severity those whom no- 
 thing can correct, nothing conciliate ; 
 but extend mercy to such as have been 
 only misled. The army has been de- 
 cimated at "Waterloo ; some of its 
 chiefs have since met the death which 
 they would rather have found on the 
 field of battle. Obedient to the wishes 
 of the King — to the wishes of France 
 — the army has yielded to the force 
 of misfortune : it has been disbanded. 
 Evils enough oppress France, which 
 cannot be avoided without aggravating 
 them by our own divisions. The tes- 
 tament of Louis XVI. is constantly 
 present to the mind of the King ; and 
 his sacred word in maintaining one of 
 the most important articles of the 
 charter vrill inspire confidence as to 
 the remainder. He will give the first 
 example of a mutual and reciprocal 
 confidence, and has charged us to pre- 
 sent the following law of a general 
 amnesty." The amnesty was then 
 read, which applied to all persons w^ho 
 had taken part in the insurrection of 
 the Hundred Days with the exception 
 of those mentioned in the first article 
 of the ordinance of 24th July ; those 
 in the second article were only required 
 to leave France within two months, 
 under pain of transportation if they 
 returned without the leave of the 
 King. The family or relations of 
 Napoleon, and their descendants, to 
 the degree of uncle and nephew, were 
 for ever excluded from the kingdom, 
 and could hold no office, right, or 
 property in it ; but the}" were per- 
 mitted six months to sell their pos- 
 sessions. The Duke concluded with 
 
1816.' 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 141 
 
 these words : *'The amnesty proposed 
 to you is not new in our annals : 
 Henry lY., whose acts I am proud to 
 reti-ace, gave a similar one in 1594, 
 and France was saved." 
 
 108. The proposed act was listened 
 to with profound attention by the 
 C'liamber ; but it was soon evident 
 that a much larger degree of severity 
 Avas required to satisfy their highly 
 excited passions, and that it would be 
 no easy matter for the Government 
 to carry through the amnesty which 
 they were so anxious to introduce. 
 On the contrary, the majority of the 
 Chamber openly aimed at carrying a 
 much more extensive proscription than 
 the Government itself had at first 
 thouglit necessary ; and M. de Labour- 
 donnaye, who was their mouthpiece, 
 liad prepared a list of ticelve hundred 
 persons, who were to be included in 
 the first category, instead of the thirty- 
 eight to which the ordinance of 24th 
 July extended ! It was particularly 
 iirged that to include the relapsed 
 regicides, or regicides who were in- 
 volved in the treason of 1815, in the 
 amnesty was insupportable — a wish 
 which struck at once at Fouche, and 
 many of the most obnoxious of the 
 Revolutionists. "Attend not," said 
 M. de Labourdonnaye, "to the soph- 
 isms of a spurious philanthropy, so 
 skilfully made use of by our enemies. 
 When did they ever practise it when 
 they had the poAver ? To hesitate to 
 punish, is to betray weakness. Di- 
 vine Providence has delivered into 
 your hands the murderers of your 
 king, the assassins of your families, as 
 if the supreme justice had reserved 
 them, in the midst of all our disas- 
 ters, to prove the vanity of human 
 prudence, and the perfidy of hearts 
 without remorse. These men, now 
 vanquished and disarmed, invoke a 
 clemency Avhich they never showed in 
 the days of their power ; as if crime 
 was to be for ever assured of impunity. 
 And you, pusillanimous magistrates, 
 unforeseeing legislators, are 5'ou pre- 
 pared to see proved plots and treasons, 
 the disgrace of the nation and of hu- 
 manity, and to hesitate at punishing 
 their authors ? What possible excuse 
 
 can be alleged for those who, holding 
 their offices or their commands from 
 the Sovereign, have turned against 
 him, and used the power they had 
 received to support to the destniction 
 of the royal authority ? " These words, 
 which were supported by the genius 
 and eloquence of M. de Chateaubriand, 
 Avere AA'armly applauded in the Cham- 
 ber, and by the Avhole Royalist party, 
 noAv in a majority among the elec- 
 tors. They expressed so entirely the 
 sentiments of the great majority of 
 the Chamber, that the committee to 
 Avhom, according to the usual form, 
 the proposed laAv Avas referred, re- 
 ported in favour of a much more ex- 
 tensive proscription ; and, in parti- 
 cular, inserted a clause for the per- 
 petual banishment of the regicides. 
 
 109. Louis XYIII. and his minis- 
 ters Avere seriously alarmed at this 
 impassioned resistance of the great 
 majority of the Assembly ; and it was 
 then that the idea appears to have first 
 struck them, that it Avas impossible to 
 carry on the Government on the prin- 
 ciples they had adopted with such a 
 Chamber, and that a coup d'etat, 
 altering the composition of the le- 
 gislature, had become indispensable. 
 They made accordingly the sti'ongest 
 resistance to the amendments threat- 
 ened to be forced upon them by the 
 Assembly. "From the days of Ti- 
 berius," said the Duke de Richelieu, 
 " to those of Buonaparte, confiscations 
 have been presented under the name 
 of amnesties. Let us not deprive the 
 august family of the Bourbons of the 
 glory of having abolished them, and 
 annihilated that inheritance of penal- 
 ties. HoAv can you still insist upon 
 the last amendment relative to the 
 regicides, to Avhich it is knoAvn his 
 Majesty is opposed ? It is not on the 
 earth, it is not among men, that AA'e 
 are to seek the causes of this resolution 
 of a Sovereign Avho Avould AA-ish to for- 
 get everything but the first pardon. 
 Is it inspired by the testament of the 
 martyr king ? Is it dictated by an 
 inherited magnanimity, the noblest 
 appanage of a sovereign ? Be it as it 
 may, such is the Avish of the King ; 
 and Avho would gainsay it ? Let me 
 
142 
 
 HISTOEY OF EUEOPE. 
 
 [chap. hi. 
 
 conjure you not to make of a law of 
 mercy, a subject of discord, but rather 
 a great and touching image of the con- 
 cord and reconciliation of all French- 
 men." These words produced a great 
 impression : all the Government could 
 do, however, w\as to prevail on the 
 Chamber to abandon the most severe 
 of its other amendments ; but that 
 providing for the perpetual banishment 
 of the regicides was forced upon them 
 by the almost unanimous voice of the 
 Chamber, and passed with the act of 
 amnesty into a law. 
 
 110. The formidable opposition ex- 
 perienced in the Chamber on this 
 occasion, and which it required all the 
 personal influence of the King and his 
 ministers to overcome, convinced the 
 Government that a new law for the 
 elections had now become indispen- 
 sable. All parties concurred in this 
 opinion. The ordinance of 13th Jul}^ 
 1815, under which the existing Cham- 
 ber had been elected on a footing 
 entirely different from that provided 
 by the Charter, had emanated only 
 from the royal authority, and had 
 never received the sanction of the 
 legislature. A law sanctioned by the 
 whole legislature was therefore im- 
 perativel}^ called for ; and the Govern- 
 ment had become convinced that they 
 could not go on with a legislature 
 representing the furious animosities of 
 the moment so faithfully as the pre- 
 sent one did. So vehement had the 
 passions of the Chamber become, that 
 the president, M. Laine, was publicly 
 insulted in his chair by an outrageous 
 Royalist — a circumstance which he felt 
 so deeply that he resigned his situa- 
 tion, and was only prevailed on to 
 resume it at the personal solicitation 
 of the King, and from the prospect 
 which he was encouraged to entertain 
 of being admitted into the Ministry 
 at no distant period. Meanwhile the 
 action of the Prevotal Courts — espe- 
 cially in the southern provinces, where 
 the Royalists had their entire direction 
 — had become so violent, that serious 
 apprehensions were entertained of an 
 outbreak of civil war in that quarter ; 
 but how it was to be averted was not 
 so apparent, when the Royalists had 
 
 the majority in the Chamber, and had 
 proved themselves disposed to sup- 
 port any measures, however stringent, 
 against the party from which they had 
 suffered so much. Both parties thus 
 felt that a change was necessary ; and 
 both perceived, that whichever got the 
 command of the elections would be in 
 a situation to carry into execution 
 their system of government. The pre- 
 paration of a law on the elections, 
 therefore, was eagerly undertaken by 
 each. M. Vaublanc was intrusted with 
 it on the part of the Government, M. 
 de Villele undertook it on the part of 
 the royalist Opposition. The subject 
 gave rise to important debates in the 
 Chamber, which throw much light 
 both on the state and views of parties 
 at the time, and the working of the 
 new representative system in France. 
 111. "The situation of elector," 
 said M. de Vaublanc, " ha\'ing become 
 a species of fixed function, it has been 
 found necessary in later times to bal- 
 ance, by an extraordinary measure, 
 the influence of some men, of whose 
 principles you were not secure. But 
 that expedient, to which the King is 
 entitled to have recourse, ceasmg with 
 the cu'cumstances which produced it, 
 it has become necessary to recur to a 
 fixed and stable law. Experience has 
 proved that the electoral power was 
 subject to grave inconveniences when 
 all its exercises were not regulated. 
 Formerly there were three steps — the 
 Primary Assemblies, the Colleges of 
 Arrondissements, and the Electoral 
 Colleges of Departments. "VVe intend 
 to abolish entirely the Primary Assem- 
 blies, which are liable to be troubled 
 by tumult and discord. It has been 
 proposed to establish a system which 
 has only one step, which was quite 
 simple — namely, that the Colleges of 
 Arrondissements, composed of citizens 
 who jjay each 300 francs of direct 
 taxes, shall name the deputies. That 
 system is plausible, but, when exam- 
 ined in detail, it will be found to be 
 liable to insuperable objections. In 
 some arrondissements the number of 
 citizens who pay 300 francs of direct 
 taxes is not more than twenty or 
 thirty. The department of the Mouths 
 
1816.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 143 
 
 of the Rhone, of which Marseilles is 
 the chief place, would have only three 
 deputies ; that of the Rhone, of which 
 Lyons is the head, only two ; while 
 those of the High and Low Alps would 
 have six. For these reasons we have 
 rejected the system of one degree, and 
 are of opinion that two degrees, wisely 
 combined, would suffice. We have 
 selected sixty of the principal colleges 
 of arrondissements, uniting with them 
 the presidents of the colleges of the 
 first instance, the procureurs - gene- 
 raux, the presidents of the tribunals 
 of commerce, the justices of peace, 
 the vicars-general and their curates. 
 "We must all agree that it is desirable, 
 when the primary assemblies meet, 
 that their choice should fall on such 
 men, 
 
 112. "The same principles are ap- 
 j)licable to the formation of the elec- 
 toral colleges of the departments. We 
 think they should be formed of the 
 first ministers of religion, with the 
 addition of sixty of the principal pro- 
 prietors, ten of the chief merchants, 
 and also, provided they fulfil the con- 
 ditions required by the Charter, the 
 presidents of councils of the depart- 
 ments. When you consider this law, 
 let me conjm'e you to reflect on what 
 the interest of the French monarchy 
 demands. K'ever, perhaps, was Assem- 
 bly called on to decide such great 
 questions. You are placed between 
 that ancient monarchy, which has 
 shone so long and with so brilliant a 
 lustre, and that new monarchy, which 
 has been inaugurated amidst so many 
 storms, under the auspices of virtue 
 seated on the throne. Unite these, 
 the past and the future ages. It is to 
 you that I address myself — you who 
 have only witnessed in your childliood 
 the evils produced by the social over- 
 throw. Prepare the happiness — pre- 
 pare for yourselves the honour of being 
 able to say to your descendants. We 
 have arrested in its march the terrible 
 chariot of the Revolution." 
 
 113. The object and evident ten- 
 dency of this bill was to throw the 
 whole electoral influence into ' the 
 hands of the Government ; and, com- 
 posed as tlie Ministry now was, the 
 
 Royalists were not prepared to concede 
 to them any such power. The funda- 
 mental principle of their policy was, 
 ' ' that it is not possible to arrive at a 
 combination of popular and aristocra- 
 tic liberty but in descending to the 
 lowest step of a social hierarchy, and 
 awakening its intimacy with the aris- 
 tocracy." Proceeding on this basis, 
 the Royalists had calculated, with 
 great local knowledge and discrimina- 
 tion, the probable influence which 
 might be supposed to become prevail- 
 ing in each department. Above a 
 month had been passed in these in- 
 quiries, and in preparing a measure 
 based upon their results, the object 
 of which was to secure the influence 
 of the Royalists in the elections — to 
 exclude equally the extreme democrats 
 and the ministerial influence. By this 
 project there was to be established an 
 electoral assembly in each canton, 
 composed of all domiciled citizens aged 
 25 years complete, and paying 50 
 francs of clirea taxes annually. The 
 electoral list, prepared by a commis- 
 sion, at the head of which was the 
 under-prefect, was to be published ten 
 days before the meeting of the com- 
 munal assemblies. The presidents of 
 colleges were to be nominated by the 
 King. The electoral colleges in the 
 departments were not to be under 150, 
 nor above 300 ; and the lists of these 
 electoral colleges were to be formed 
 of all the citizens of 30 years of age, 
 paying 300 francs of direct taxes ; and 
 if an adequate number could not be 
 got, the deficiency was to be supplied 
 by citizens paying 300 francs between 
 25 and 30, or by citizens of 30 years, 
 but not paying 300 francs. The num- 
 ber of the deputies was to be 402, and 
 the lists were to be prepared by a 
 commission dra-wTi from the general 
 council of the department, of which 
 the prefect was president, Avhich fixed 
 the number of electors in the depart- 
 ment, the list of the persons eligible 
 for the electoral colleges, and of those 
 to compose the electors of the depart- 
 ment. The prefect was to be ineligi- 
 ble in his department ; the deputies 
 were to be elected for five years, or 
 until the King, before the expiry of 
 
144 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. in. 
 
 that term, exercised his right of dis- 
 solution. 
 
 114. These opposite projects were 
 the subject of prolonged discussions 
 in the Chamber of Deputies during 
 the whole of March. The parties 
 chose as their battle-ground, as usual 
 in such cases, the details and separate 
 points of the two measures ; but that 
 was done chiefly to conceal the real 
 motives which influenced each. These 
 were, on the part of the Ministerialists, 
 the desire to augment as much as pos- 
 sible the influence of the Crown, by 
 admitting in numbers the emiyloyes of 
 administration to the right of voting ; 
 on the part of the royalist Opposition, 
 to vest the influence in the small pro- 
 prietors and nobles in the provinces, 
 whose interests would lead them per- 
 manently to support the monarchical 
 side, even wdien, as at present, neces- 
 sity or delusion might cause the Gov- 
 ernment to incline to the Liberals. 
 The ]\linistry combated this project 
 with all their power, but they were 
 defeated by a majority of 48, the num- 
 bers being 180 to 132. The whole 
 Liberal party voted with the Govern- 
 ment against the project of the Royal- 
 ist majority — so strangely were parties 
 dislocated in less than a year after the 
 Restoration. The Government, seeing 
 their project defeated, and that of an 
 inflamed majority substituted in its 
 stead, had no alternative but to get 
 it thromi out by the Peers, which 
 was done accordingly, after keen de- 
 bates, on April 3, by a majority of 
 32, the numbers being 89 to 57. 
 
 115. As the popular branch of the 
 legislature was now committed to open 
 war with the Crown, on so important 
 a point as the representation of the 
 people, ministers began to suspect 
 that it was impossible for the Govern- 
 ment to go on ; either they must re- 
 sign, or a coup cVetat to alter the com- 
 I^osition of the Chamber of Deputies 
 be attempted. The former would at 
 once have been the course adopted in 
 England, where the usages of a repre- 
 sentative government have come, from 
 long usage, to be thoroughly under- 
 stood ; but the latter was deemed the 
 most advisable in France, where the 
 
 nation had been so accustomed to acts 
 of violence, since the commencement 
 of the Revolution, that all parties had 
 come to regard them as a natural and 
 unavoidable step in the conduct of 
 aff'airs. But several subjects for dis- 
 cussion remained, which it was abso- 
 lutely necessary to bring to a close be- 
 fore the termination of the session. 
 The most important of these was the 
 Budgp:t, and that was a subject beset 
 with difficulties, because the enormous 
 sums due under the treaty of 20th 
 November 1815 rendered hea^y taxes 
 or extensive loans indispensable ; and 
 the impoverished state of the nation 
 appeared to render it equally hope- 
 less to attempt to levy the first, or to 
 have recourse to the last. After a 
 long period, however, and great efforts, 
 the difficulties were surmounted ; and 
 the fact of their being so is the strong- 
 est proof both of the almost inexhaus- 
 tible resources of France when enjoy- 
 ing peace, and the improved credit 
 which its Government had obtained 
 from the restoration of its legitimate 
 line of monarchs. 
 
 116. The budget was based on the 
 following propositions. The receipts 
 of the last nine months of 1815 amount- 
 ed to 533,715, 940 francs (£21,350,000) ; 
 and the expenditure to 637,432,662 
 francs (£25,500,000) ; and for the 
 whole year the receipts were taken 
 at 814,567,000 francs (£32,600,000); 
 and the expenditure at 945,000,000 
 francs (£37,800,000). The extraor- 
 dinary tax of 100,000,000 francs, 
 (£4,000,000), laid on to commute the 
 contributions in kind to the Allied 
 troops, was an additional burden to be 
 made good by certain additional per- 
 centages, to be levied monthly during 
 the first eight months of 181 6. Woods 
 to the extent of 400,000 hectares, or 
 600,000 acres, were permitted to be 
 alienated to meet the exigencies of the 
 State. The receipts of 1 816 were taken 
 at 800,000,000 francs (£32,000,000), 
 and the expenditure at the same sum. 
 The receipts, however, both j'^ears, fell 
 short of what had been calculated, and 
 the budget, which became the subject 
 of vehement discussion and debate, 
 both in the Chamber and in the public 
 
1816.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 145 
 
 journals, was considerably modified 
 before it was finally passed, on 
 April 24, 1816. The total receipts 
 of 1815, as actually collected, were 
 798,590,000 francs (£31,980,000), and 
 the expenditure the same ; the in- 
 
 come being swelled by a loan of 
 100,000,000 francs (£4,000,000), and 
 54,760,659 levied in anticipation oa 
 the taxes legally due in 1817. The 
 receipts of 1816* were 895,577,205 
 francs (£35,800,000), and the expeu- 
 
 * Receipts and Expenditure of 1815 and 1816. 
 
 1815. 
 Receipts. 
 Direct taxes, viz. : — 
 
 Francs. Francs. 
 
 Land Tax, . . 172. 132,000 \ ^.q iqq nnn 
 50 p. cent additional, 86,066,000) -^^'^^"'""" 
 Persona] Tax, . 27,289,000) .„ Q„q rnn 
 50 p. cent additional, 13,644,000 j ^^'^^^j^"" 
 Doors and Windows, 12,892,0001 i. toi nn^ 
 
 Additional, 
 
 Patents, 
 
 Additional 
 
 1,289,000 j 
 15,415,000) iRiQ^.nnn 
 771 000 f 16,18,, 000 
 
 Deduct cost of collection, &c.. 
 
 Registrations and Domains and 
 
 Woods, .... 
 Customs and 8alt, 
 Tobacco and Wines and Spirits, 
 Lottery, .... 
 
 Posts, 
 
 Salt Mines, .... 
 Miscellaneous, . 
 
 Loan, 
 
 In advances on 1817, . 
 
 329,499,500 
 9,499,500 
 
 320,000,000 
 
 107,763,000 
 
 70,615,000 
 
 89,147,000 
 
 7,857,000 
 
 8,830,000 
 
 2,400,000 
 
 8,693,000 
 
 92,662,000 
 
 54,760,000 
 
 Total, .... 
 
 Expenditure, 
 Civil List, . 
 Royal Family, . 
 Peers, .... 
 Deputies, . 
 Justice, 
 
 Foreign Affairs, . 
 Interior, 
 
 War, .... 
 Navy, .... 
 Police General, . 
 Finance Minister, 
 Interest of National Debt, 
 Cautionary Interests, 
 Negotiations, 
 Contributions to the Allies, 
 
 798,590,859 
 
 25, 
 8, 
 1, 
 2, 
 
 18, 
 9, 
 
 53, 
 328, 
 
 39, 
 1, 
 
 16, 
 
 98, 
 8, 
 
 10, 
 180, 
 
 000,000 
 000,000 
 ,263,500 
 ,573,340 
 ,991,312 
 ,654,112 
 ,557,000 
 ,293,134 
 616,699 
 ,027,516 
 ,334,246 
 ,640,000 
 000,000 
 000,000 
 000,000 
 
 Total 798,690,859 
 
 -Archives Diplomatiques, v. 288, 300. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 1816. 
 Receipts. 
 
 Francs. Francs. 
 
 172,132,000 )„23 J. ,^Q 
 75,779,980 p'^'^'^'^'^-" 
 27,289,000 4 
 
 12,892,000 
 
 ' 
 
 1,280,000 
 
 
 6,446,000 
 
 124,496,241 
 
 15,416,000 
 
 
 17,805,000 
 
 
 771,000 
 
 
 
 346,618,000 
 
 Deducting cost of collection and 
 insolvents, .... 
 
 Registrations and Domains and 
 
 
 Woods, 
 
 168,815,000 
 
 Customs and Salt, . 
 
 70,526,000 
 
 Additional, .... 
 
 35,000,000 
 
 Tobacco and Wines and Spirits, 
 
 95,291,000 
 
 Lottery, 
 
 9,171,000 
 
 Posts, 
 
 11,798,000 
 
 Salt Mines, .... 
 
 2,778,000 
 
 Miscellaneous, .... 
 
 3,371,000 
 
 Cautionary, .... 
 
 65,104,000 
 
 Tax on Salaries, 
 
 12,054,000 
 
 Relinquished by King, . 
 
 10,000,000 
 
 Do. by Royal Family, . 
 
 1,000,000 
 
 Loan, 
 
 69,763,000 
 
 Forestalled of 1817, . 
 
 17,998,000 
 
 Total 
 
 895,577,205 
 
 Expenditure. 
 
 
 Civil List, .... 
 
 25,000,000 
 
 Royal Family, .... 
 
 9,000,000 
 
 Peers, 
 
 2,000,080 
 
 Deputies, 
 
 700,000 
 
 Justice, 
 
 17,580,000 
 
 Foreign Affairs, . . 
 
 11,620,009 
 
 Interior, 
 
 51,400,000 
 
 Department Expenses, . 
 
 23,923,769 
 
 War, 
 
 218,800,000 
 
 Navy, 
 
 48.000,000 
 
 Police General, .... 
 
 1,000,000 
 
 Finance Minister, . 
 
 15,300,000 
 
 Negotiations, .... 
 
 16,442,780 
 
 Interest of National Debt, 
 
 119,420,000 
 
 Sinking Fund, . . '. . 
 
 20,000.000 
 
 Cautionary Interests, 
 
 8,000,000 
 
 Treasury Bills, .... 
 
 1,122,000 
 
 First War-contribution to Allies, 
 
 140,000,000 
 
 Cost of 150, 000 men, 
 
 138,000,000 
 
 Additional Cost of Foreigners, 
 
 21.000,000 
 
 Interest on Advances, 
 
 6,360,896 
 
 Total, 
 
 895,577,205 
 
146 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. III. 
 
 (liture the same ; but in the former 
 were inchided nearly 200, 000, 000 francs 
 (£8,000,000) of exti-a charges, which 
 weighed with excessive severity on a 
 countiy ah-eady wasted by enemies' 
 conti'ibiitions, and a harvest uncom- 
 monly scanty and deficient. It is 
 greatly to the honour of the French 
 government that, when weighed down 
 by such an unparalleled load of difficul- 
 ties, it honourably fulfilled its engage- 
 ments both to foreign states and its 
 own subjects ; and not less so to the 
 nation, that when oppressed by such 
 burdens, and only beginning to breathe 
 after a war of tAventy years' duration, 
 it not only furnished its rulers with 
 the means of making them good, but 
 established a sinking-fund of 20,000, 000 
 francs, or £800, 000 a-year. 
 
 117. The Government had the utmost 
 difficulty in carrying through the bud- 
 get, so strenuous was the Royalist 
 opposition, and so numerous and har- 
 assing the amendments they proposed ; 
 and they were obliged to abandon the 
 project of selling the woods of the 
 state. But a variety of other subjects 
 were at the same time broached in 
 the Chamber, which convinced Louis 
 XVIII. that the legislature had become 
 unmanageable, and that another session 
 could not be ventured upon without 
 its dissolution. The ideas of the ma- 
 jority were firmly fixed on two objects, 
 alike hostile to the spirit of the Re- 
 volution and the present frame of 
 government ; and these were — to aug- 
 ment the infiuence of the clergy, and 
 to supplant the action of the central 
 government by local influences in the 
 provinces. There can be no doubt 
 that these were the only means by 
 which the course of events which the 
 Revolution had prepared could have 
 been arrested : but whether it was 
 possible to inti'oduce them after the 
 entire destruction of the landed pro- 
 prietors, which the confiscations of 
 the Convention and the new law of 
 succession had effected, and the con- 
 centration of all power in the hands of 
 the executive at Paris which had thence 
 necessarily resulted, was a different 
 question, upon which the heated Roy- 
 alists never bestowed a thought. Ex- 
 
 perience has sho"\\Ti that the object they 
 followed was a vain illusion, impos- 
 sible in the existing state of society ; 
 but it was not thought so at the time, 
 and it is surprising with what i>erse- 
 verance it was pursued. 
 
 118. The miserable condition in 
 which the clergy had been left by the 
 Revolution attracted, as well it might, 
 the early attention of the Chamber. 
 Bereft of all its possessions by the very 
 first tyrannical act of the National 
 Assembly, the once richl}'- endowed 
 Church of France had ever since pined 
 in indigence and obscurity, its clergy 
 not elevated in cirfcumstances or con- 
 sideration above the parochial school- 
 masters in this country. The Ai'ch- 
 bishop of Paris had only £600 a-year ; 
 the ordinary bishops, £200 ; the parish 
 priests from £45 to £50 a-year. This 
 state of things was strongly and pa- 
 thetically insisted on in the Chamber. 
 "Travel," said M. Castelbajac and M. 
 St Gery, "where you will in France, 
 and you will shudder at the state of 
 humiliation to Avhich religion has been 
 reduced. In many of the provinces, 
 the temples, living monuments of the 
 faith of our fathers, are abandoned ; 
 the bird of prey has established its 
 abode where was formerly the taber- 
 nacle ; and where formerly the holy 
 strains resounded, is to be heard only 
 the mournful exclamation of the pious 
 inhabitant of the fields, who gazes on 
 the ruins, and asks where is now the 
 abode of the God of his fathers. This 
 has all arisen from the confiscation of 
 the property of the Church, and re- 
 ducing its ministers to the condition 
 of salaried dependants on the State. 
 There is great inconvenience in lower- 
 ing the income of ministers of religion, 
 if you desii'e the influence of morality 
 and religion to be re-established. Not 
 to mention the iuA-idious distinction 
 between their salaries and those of the 
 civil servants of Government, it is 
 evident that, in the present state of 
 society, urfluence and importance de- 
 pend on property, so that the clergy 
 cannot resume the consideration which 
 they ought to possess in society but 
 by becoming proprietary. In princi- 
 ple, in a nation essentially j^roprietary, 
 
1816. 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 147 
 
 the clergy sliould be in the same situa- 
 tion. 
 
 119 " In what respect has the spolia- 
 tion of the clergy contributed to the 
 wellbeing of the people ? The wise 
 administration of the ecclesiastics dif- 
 fused ease and contentment in the lands 
 which belonged to them ; and never 
 were they wanting to the State in its 
 necessities. Let us restore to our de- 
 scendants an institution which was the 
 source of the happiness of their fathers. 
 The Constituent Assembl}', when it 
 despoiled the clergy, came under an 
 engagement to provide them with an 
 income from the State of 82,000,000 
 francs (£3,280,000). What has been 
 done as regards that engagement, and 
 how has it been fulfilled ? That income 
 is the subject of a sacred promise ; let 
 us do what we can to redeem it. In 
 many places, possessions, the rents of 
 capitalists, have been withdrawn from 
 the cupidity of the Revolutionists, and 
 put into the hands of third parties as 
 trustees. The successive governments 
 do-WTi to the Restoration have employ- 
 ed fraud, or encouraged informations, 
 to gain intelligence of these deposits, 
 or get possession of them. Why not 
 adtli'ess yourselves to the consciences 
 of the holders of these deposits, and 
 encourage their application to the ob- 
 jects of the trusters, without requiring 
 any accounting for the past ? With- 
 out doubt, you must sustain the public 
 credit, and meet all public engage- 
 ments ; but the evils described must 
 cease if you would reconcile God with 
 the earth, the Almighty with France, 
 Already the judgment of Heaven ap- 
 pears upon us. What but the conse- 
 quences of perjury have assembled us 
 liere in the midst of the mutilated re- 
 mains of the monarchy ? Is it not re- 
 ligion which restrains perjury ? The 
 army has wavered in its faith ; can 5^ou 
 therefore be surprised that the God of 
 battles has deserted it ? What has be- 
 come of the glorious days when your 
 standards left our temples to be carried 
 into our camps, and returned charged 
 with victories to adorn our altars ?" 
 In pursuance of these principles, it M^as 
 proposed as a law, " That the bishops 
 and curates shall be authorised to re- 
 
 ceive all donations of movables, heri- 
 tages, and rents, made to them by in- 
 dividuals for the support of the min- 
 isters of religion, its seminaries, or any 
 other ecclesiastical establishment, and 
 possess them, they and their succes- 
 sors, for ever, under the obligation 
 only of applying them to the purposes 
 intended by the donors." In addition 
 to this, it was proposed by M. Piet to 
 restore to the clergy all the posses- 
 sions belonging to the Church which 
 had been alienated, and that the keep- 
 ing of the parish registers should be 
 vested in their hands. Finally, a com- 
 mission, of which M. Laboire was the 
 organ, reported that an annual increase 
 of 20,000,000 francs (£800,000) should 
 be made from the funds of Government 
 to the support of the Church. 
 
 120. Although these doctrines point- 
 ed not obscurely to an intention to re- 
 sume at no distant period the posses- 
 sions, and restore the influence and 
 consideration of the clergy, yet they 
 were so strongly rooted in the feelings 
 and wishes of the majority that it was 
 no easy matter to combat them. The 
 partisans of Government, however, 
 adopted the most effectual means of 
 doing so, which was to appeal to the 
 selfish passions and fears of human na- 
 ture, by identifying such extreme pro- 
 posals with a great increase of the pub- 
 lic burdens and an eventual national 
 bankruptcy. "Such a system of re- 
 paration," they exclaimed, " is at vari- 
 ance with the interests of the State, 
 the public credit, the engagements of 
 the King, and the liberties of the peo- 
 ple. If we subject ourselves in this 
 manner to the influence of Rome, we 
 shall find ourselves constrained to sub- 
 mit to all the encroachments and de- 
 mands of the Papal See. Why create 
 a new injustice, when we are straining 
 every nerve to wipe away the eff'ects of 
 an old one ? If we consider the new 
 charges which it is proposed to impose 
 upon France in favour of the clergy, 
 and the enormous burdens fixed upon 
 it by the Treaty of Paris, the uncer- 
 tainty of its revenues, the nullity of 
 its credit, what can be expected as the 
 consequence of such ill-timed largesses ? 
 — a second bankruptcy — a bankruptcy 
 
148 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. III. 
 
 under the Bourbons ; a bankruptcj^ 
 which will swallow up the last and 
 only remaining third of the property 
 of which two-thirds had been destroy- 
 ed by the Revolution, and which will 
 require a loan of at least a thousand 
 millions. Shall the work of religion 
 and bankruptcy be brought for the 
 first time into so strange and unholy 
 an alliance ? " These considerations 
 startled the Assembly ; and the Cham- 
 ber, as a compromise, adopted the 
 principle which passed into law, that 
 the clergy might receive gifts to the 
 Church, but only to the extent of 1000 
 francs (£40) yearly, without the sanc- 
 tion of the King, but above that sum 
 onlj'- with the royal authority. This 
 was but a feeble advantage to be gain- 
 ed ; but it was a very important one, 
 as demonstrating how the public opin- 
 ion was going ; and ministers showed 
 their sense of it by adding 10,000,000 
 francs (£400,000) a-year to the funds 
 of the clergy. 
 
 121. The next and last important 
 subject which occupied the attention 
 of the Chamber, before the prorogation 
 of the session, was that of Divorce. 
 The deplorable state of general licence 
 in which manners had been left by the 
 Revolution, had long rendered it evi- 
 dent that some efficient remedy was 
 required in this respect ; but it was 
 easier to see the evil than devise such 
 a cure, so strongly did the feelings of 
 the influential class in the metropolis 
 and great towns run in favour of the 
 unrestricted liberty which they had so 
 long enjoyed. The ascendancy of the 
 clergy in the present Assembly, how- 
 ever, encouraged M. de Bonald, who 
 had straggled against this abuse ever 
 smce the days of the Consulate, to 
 bring forward a law for its entire aboli- 
 tion. ' ' You must all regret, " said he, 
 "that the strictness of our regulations 
 prevents us from paying a striking 
 homage to public morals, by voting by 
 acclamation the abolition of the power 
 of divorce. You cannot but lament 
 that you are not at liberty to break 
 that disastrous law, as those notorious 
 criminals whom public justice puts 
 liors la loi, and whom it condemns to 
 a capital punishment as soon as their 
 
 identity is established. Let us hasten, 
 at least, to abolish that part of our 
 weak and feeble legislation which dis- 
 honours it ; that first-born of a philo- 
 sophy which has overturned the world, 
 and ruined France ; and which its mo- 
 ther, ashamed of its excesses, does not 
 venture any longer to defend. The 
 ancients, in an imperfect state of so- 
 ciety — more advanced in the cultiva- 
 tion of the arts than in the science of 
 laws — may have said, ' Of what avail 
 are laws without morals V But when 
 a State, arrived at the last stages of 
 civilisation, has obtained so great an 
 ascendancy over the family, we must 
 reverse the maxim and say, 'What 
 can morals do without laws which 
 support them, or against laws which 
 derange them V Legislators, you have 
 seen the facility of divorce intro- 
 duce in its train all the excesses of 
 democracy, and the dissolution of a 
 family precede that of the State. Let 
 that experience not be lost either for 
 your happiness or your instruction. 
 Our families demand morals, and the 
 State demands laws. To reinforce do- 
 mestic authority, the natural element 
 of public power, and to consecrate by 
 law the entire dependence of women 
 and children, is the best security for 
 the constant obedience of the people." 
 So strongly were these ideas rooted in 
 the minds of the majority of the Cham- 
 ber, that no opposition was made, and 
 the propositions to introduce the law 
 j)assed unanimously. It was too late, 
 however, for it to receive the sanction 
 of all the branches of the legislature 
 till the next session. Even then it 
 failed to apply a remedy to the prevail- 
 ing evils : so true is it that positive 
 laws are nugatory, unless supported by 
 general opinion. 
 
 122. The hostility, now open and 
 avowed, between the majority of the 
 Chamber and the Ministry, and the 
 determination of the former to force 
 measures on the Government which 
 they felt they could not carry into exe- 
 cution, in the existing state of the 
 country, without inducing civil war- 
 fare, confirmed the leading members 
 of administration in the opinion which, 
 as already mentioned, they had long 
 
1816.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 149 
 
 entertained, that a legislature elected 
 on a different basis was indispensable 
 to the existence of the monarchy. This 
 could only be done by a couj) d'etat, 
 because it was evident that the exist- 
 ing Chamber would never consent to a 
 change which might weaken the influ- 
 ence of the ultra -Royalists in future 
 legislatures. But it was necessary to 
 be very cautious in the preparation of 
 such a coiop d'etat, because a consider- 
 able part of the Ministry, it was 
 known, would be hostile to its adop- 
 tion, and their opinion was sure to be 
 embraced by a great majority of the 
 Chamber. A modification of the Mi- 
 nistry was therefore resolved on, in 
 order to bring it more into harmony 
 with the secret designs of the Cama- 
 rilla, Avhich took the lead in the ca- 
 binet. To effect this, M. Laine, who 
 had supported the ministerialist pro- 
 ject for the elections, and incurred, in 
 consequence, the vehement hostility 
 of the majority of the Chamber, was 
 advanced to the important ottice of 
 ]\Iinister of the Interior in room of M. 
 Vaublanc, who was permitted to retire. 
 The only condition w^hich this able 
 and intrepid man made on joining the 
 Government, which was at once agreed 
 to, was, that the basis of the electoral 
 suffrage was to be uniform, and that 
 it was to be the payment of 300 francs 
 yearly of direct taxes. At the same 
 time, M. de Marbois was dismissed on 
 the iwetext of ill-health, though, as he 
 himself said, "The certificate of my 
 physician attests that I am in a fair 
 way of recovery ; but the certificate of 
 the King proves that 1 am daily get- 
 ting worse. " His office was not filled 
 up, the seals being intrusted ad inte- 
 rim to the Chancellor. The object was 
 to leave a seat in the cabinet vacant 
 for some inffuential member of the 
 new Chamber which was in contempla- 
 tion. M. Guizot, whom fate reserved 
 for higher destinies, went out of office 
 with his chief, M. de Marbois, and did 
 not re-enter it till an entire change en- 
 sued in administration. Posterity has 
 no reason to regret his retirement from 
 the labours and cares of office, for it 
 led to his appointment as professor of 
 history in the University of Paris, and 
 
 the composition of his immortal his- 
 torical works. 
 
 123. While these modifications Avere 
 in progress in the administration, with 
 a view to the establishment of a legis- 
 lature and system of government more 
 in harmony with the prevailing tone 
 of feeling which the Revolution, for 
 good or for evil, had impressed upon 
 the country, the ardent democrats and 
 Napoleonists, impatient of inaction, 
 were preparing more immediate and 
 decisive measures. They could not 
 brook the delays of Parliament, or the 
 slow progress of changes in general 
 opinion ; instant action, immediate 
 overthrow of the Government, could 
 alone satisfy their ardent aspu'ations. 
 In their view the government of the 
 Bourbons had been violently forced 
 upon the nation by foreign powers, and 
 it was the duty of every friend to his 
 country to concur without any delay 
 in measures for throwing it off. In 
 this they were all agreed; but very 
 great disunion — the germ of future 
 civil conflict — existed as to the govern- 
 ment which was to succeed them. The 
 disbanded officers of the army were for 
 a restoration of Napoleon II., and of 
 the military regime ; but the great 
 majority of the ci\41ians engaged in 
 the conspiracy had different views. A 
 republic constructed on the broad 
 basis of universal suffrage, like that of 
 1793, was the object of their ambition, 
 because every one hoped to have a 
 lucrative place under such a govern- 
 ment ; and they joined the Buonaparte 
 faction, in the mean time, only in 
 order to get quit of a dynasty which 
 was equally an impediment to the am- 
 bition of them all. The plan of the 
 conspirators, who had their headquar- 
 ters at Paris, but their branches over 
 all France, was to envelop the capital 
 — where the faubourgs were not yet 
 disarmed and great elements of revolu- 
 tion existed — in a vast net spread over 
 all France, except the towns on tho 
 frontiers occupied by the Allied troops, 
 and, before the French army was reor- 
 ganised, or any means of resistance ex- 
 isted, at once to overturn the monarchy. 
 
 124. M. de Lafayette, and the heads 
 of this conspiracy at Pahs, though in. 
 
150 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. III. 
 
 tlieir saloons and drawing-rooms they 
 scarcely attempted any concealment of 
 their designs, were too prudent to en- 
 gage in overt acts before their prepar- 
 ations were complete, and the period 
 of action had arrived. But, as often 
 happens in such cases, the impatience 
 of the inferior agents outstripped the 
 more prudent designs of the chiefs : 
 Liberalism had its ultras as well as 
 loyalty. M. D idler, a fanatic of exti'a- 
 vagant character and opinions, whose 
 thirst for conspiracies had been such 
 that, under Napoleon, he had engaged 
 in them for the restoration of the Bour- 
 bons, and had recently been a habitue 
 of the antechambers of the Duke of 
 Orleans, where the discontented of all 
 Liberal parties assembled together to 
 exhale their common animosity against 
 the Government, set out from Paris in 
 the end of April, and set up the stan- 
 dard of revolt, on the 14th of May, in 
 the neighbourhood of Grenoble, where 
 it was known Napoleon had many par- 
 tisans. Government had information 
 of the design, and sent a legion that 
 could be relied on to that town, under 
 the command of General Donnadieu, 
 an able man and devoted Royalist, 
 but, as the event proved, of an am- 
 bitious and exaggerating character. 
 The revolt broke out on the night of 
 the 14th May. The insurgents, to 
 the number of two hundred, attended 
 by another hundred of mere spectators 
 whom curiosity brought together, 
 marched on Grenoble, where they were 
 promptly met by General Donnadieu, 
 and totally defeated and dispersed, 
 with the loss of eight killed on the 
 spot and sixty prisoners. 
 
 125. So far, General Donnadieu's 
 conduct had been energetic and praise- 
 worthy ; and by the defeat of this, the 
 first conspiracy which had broken out 
 since the second restoration of the 
 Bourbons, he had rendered an import- 
 ant service to the monarchy. But, 
 either from misinformation as to the 
 real nature and extent of the conspir- 
 acy, or from a natural tendency to 
 exaggeration, he transmitted to the 
 Government such inflamed accounts 
 of what had occurred, as not only 
 difluseil very general alarm, but led to 
 
 measures of severity in the circum- 
 stances unnecessary, and which were 
 deeply to be regretted. According to 
 his second despatch, " the insurgents 
 who attacked Grenoble were four thou- 
 sand strong, and their dead bodies cov- 
 ered all the roads round the to\\Ti ; " 
 whereas, in point of fact, they were 
 only two hundred, and the slain eight 
 in all. The result was, that a reward 
 of 20,000 francs (£800) was offered by 
 Government for the apprehension of 
 Didier, dead or alive; and three pri- 
 soners, who had been taken during the 
 nocturnal combat with arms in their 
 hands, were shot two days afterwards 
 by the Prevotal Court. Twenty-one 
 were subsequently brought to trial, of 
 whom fourteen were executed by the 
 guillotine — a terrible example, and 
 which the magnitude or formidable 
 character of the insurrection by no 
 means warranted, Didier himself, in 
 the first instance, made his escape in- 
 to the mountains on the confines of 
 Savoy and Dauphine ; but the promised 
 reward proved too strong for the vir- 
 tue of the mountaineers. He was be- 
 trayed by the friends (two men and a 
 woman) with whom he had sought re- 
 fuge, brought to trial, and condemned 
 to be executed. He behaved with 
 firmness in his last moments, and 
 seemed in the supreme hour to regain 
 the attachment which he had origin- 
 ally felt for the Bom-bons. His last 
 words, addressed to General Donna- 
 dieu, were, — "Tell the King that the 
 only proof of gratitude which I can 
 give him, for the kindnesses which I 
 have received from him, is to advise 
 him to remove from himself, froni the 
 throne, and from France, the Duke of 
 Orleans and M. Talleyrand " — an ad- 
 vice which was of ianportance, as com- 
 ing from one who had been intimate in 
 the Orleans establishment, and which 
 subsequent events rendered prophetic. 
 126. Paris is the centre of every 
 movement in France ; an explosion 
 never takes place in the provinces of 
 which the train has not been laid in 
 the metropolis. It was well known to 
 the police that the heads of the Liberal 
 party in Paris were privy to the de- 
 siccns which, were on foot, and that the 
 
1861.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUEOPE. 
 
 151 
 
 saloons of ]\I. do Lafayette, M. d'Ar- 
 genson, and M. Manuel, were the ren- 
 dezvous almost every evening of dis- 
 contented persons, by whom the pro- 
 ject of overturning the Government 
 was discussed with scarcely any re- 
 serve. The jiolice had full informa- 
 tion of their designs, and strongly ad- 
 vised the arrest of M. Manuel ; but the 
 Government hesitated to take a step 
 which would at once commit them into 
 ojien hostility with the whole Liberal 
 party in France, while the evidence 
 might prove insufficient to secvire the 
 conviction of the accused. Proceed- 
 ings were adopted, however, against 
 the subordinate agents. Tolleron, an 
 engraver, Pleignier, a bootmaker, and 
 Carbonneau, a writing-master, were 
 apprehended on the charge of having 
 prepared and circulated a treasonable 
 proclamation ; * and it soon appeared 
 that the designs of the conspirators 
 were of a still more violent descrip- 
 tion. It was discovered that a small 
 body of these desperadoes had formed 
 a plan for surrounding and attacking 
 the Tuileries during the night. To 
 facilitate the operations, a mine was 
 to be run under the palace, charged 
 with twenty barrels of powder, lodged 
 in an old sewer, which was to be ex- 
 ploded before the attack was made. 
 The design of the conspirators was to 
 destroy the royal family, establish a 
 provisional government, and convoke 
 a new Assembly. The treasonable 
 proclamation was at once admitted by 
 the accused, and they were all con- 
 victed by the jury, condemned and 
 executed — a deplorable result of civil 
 dissensions, to cause the passions to 
 
 * "FranQais! nous sommes arrives au 
 temie du malheur. Amis du peuple dont 
 nous faisons partie, nous avons lu dans I'ame 
 de nos frfeies. Nous nous sommes empresses 
 de prendre les mesures les plus sages et les 
 plus certaines pour la chute entifere des Bour- 
 tons. Notre succfes estcertaiii : nous sommes 
 imp^n^trables ; on ne nous trouveranulle part 
 et nous sommes partout : nous pourrions 
 meme d^fier les Satellites de la plus odieuse 
 tyrannic : nous ne supposerons jamais de 
 traitres parmi les compagnons de nosglorieux 
 ti-avaux : s'il s'en trouvait un, malheur a lui, 
 son jugement est prononce, tenez-vous prets : 
 dans neu vos bras seront neeessaires. Songez 
 que rien ne doit nous manquer, amies, muni- 
 tions. ■'— Capefigue, iv. 31S, 
 
 descend to the lowest gi-ades of society, 
 where they tend to anarchy, conspir- 
 acy, and murder, and end in hideous 
 judicial massacres. 
 
 127. A conspiracy, which proved 
 abortive, was also discovered at Lyons 
 soon after, which, though not in itself 
 formidable, acquired importance from 
 the time at which it was discovered, 
 and its obvious connection with the 
 treasonable plots, all emanating from 
 Paris, which were elsewhere in oper- 
 ation. The outbreak was fixed for the 
 8th June, on which- day the tocsin 
 sounded in several of the villages 
 around Lyons, and a body of conspir- 
 ators advanced towards that city in 
 the evening, Avhere they were instant- 
 ly dispersed by a body of gendarmes. 
 Eight or ten persons were seized with 
 arms in their hands ; and the Prevotal 
 Courts were soon in such activity, that 
 above two hundred prisoners encum- 
 bered the prisons of the department. 
 But the Government were satisfied 
 Avith the advantage they had gained, 
 and had come to regret the blood un- 
 necessarily shed at Grenoble. Mar- 
 shal Marmont and General Fabvier 
 were sent to Lyons, by whose orders 
 the prosecutions were suspended ; and 
 happily tranquillity Avas restored with- 
 out any sacrifices on the scaffold, 
 
 128. These repeated alarms confirm- 
 ed the Duke de Richelieu, M. Decazes, 
 and Count Mole, in their opinion that 
 a dissolution of the Chamber, and 
 changes in the electoral law, had 
 become indispensable to the public 
 tranquillity, and that the longer con- 
 tinuance of the system of government 
 pursued by the majority of the Cham- 
 ber was impossible. But very serious 
 difficulties occurred in carrying this 
 intention into execution. Under what 
 law, supposing the Chamber dissolved, 
 were the elections to take place ? The 
 l^roject proposed by M. Vaublanc, on 
 the part of the Government, had been 
 rejected by the Deputies ; and that of 
 M. de Villele, which they had passed 
 by a large majority, had been oombat- 
 ed by the whole influence of the Min- 
 istry in the House of Peers, and thrown 
 out. The ordinance of 21st July 1815, 
 under which the existingr Chamber 
 
152 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. III. 
 
 had been elected, had been issued only 
 by the royal authority, and was differ- 
 ent in many important respects from 
 that under which either the first Cham- 
 ber or that of Napoleon, during the 
 Hundred Days, had been elected. 
 The first Chamber elected in 1814 
 had not been chosen under any legis- 
 lative authority which the Bourbon 
 government were bound to acknow- 
 ledge. There was thus no legislative 
 enactment in existence on the most 
 important and vital point in a consti- 
 tutional monarchy — the system under 
 which the representatives of the people 
 w^ere to be elected. The entry of M. 
 Laine into the Cabinet gave a major- 
 ity to the party there which inclined 
 to the opinion that, in a question sur- 
 rounded with so many ditficulties, the 
 only safe course was to adhere to the 
 charter granted by Louis XVIII. on 
 his first restoration ; and as there was 
 no hope of getting the existing Cham- 
 ber to alter the system under which it- 
 seK had been elected, it was resolved to 
 have recourse to a coup d'etat, dissolve 
 the Chamber, and regulate the election 
 of a new one by the simple expedient 
 of a royal ordinance. 
 
 129. "Sire! "said M. Decazes, in 
 the cabinet, "it is necessary to dis- 
 solve the Chamber, for it thwarts the 
 government of the King : it weakens 
 his authority, usurps his power. At 
 one time it endangers, at another 
 openly attacks, the measures emanat- 
 ing from his profound ^\dsdom ; fo- 
 ments the angry passions which your 
 Majesty woiild wish to calm ; perpet- 
 uates, after the victory has been gain- 
 ed, the crisis of the Hundred Days ; 
 retards indefinitely the period of the 
 evacuation of our territory — that time 
 which can alone permit your ]\Iajesty 
 to breathe, or give rest to your pat- 
 riotic heart. It is necessary to dissolve 
 without delay : at this very moment 
 M. de Villele, M. de Castelbajac, and 
 Calviens, are felicitating themselves 
 on the triumphant reception which 
 Toulouse and Nimes have awarded to 
 them. In the next session they will 
 be emboldened to attempt everything, 
 from the interested eulogies passed on 
 them by those who expect from them 
 
 the restoration of their estates. By 
 the eff'ect of its turbulent combination, 
 the present Chamber has caused the 
 entire year to be lost, so far as regards 
 the evacuation of our territory. By 
 refusing to sanction the sale of part 
 of the woods of the State, with the 
 sole view of saving the wood of the 
 clergy, they have deprived us of all 
 means of borrowing, by withdraAving 
 the security we might offer. They 
 have, of their sole authority, broken 
 an engagement undertaken towards 
 the public creditors, and sanctioned 
 by the law. The public debt is re- 
 garded by them in no other light but 
 as a burden which they are at liberty 
 to throw off at the expense of honour, 
 morality, and religion. When we had 
 no other resource left but credit, and 
 no means of re-establishing it but a 
 scrupulous good faith, they have let 
 the infamous words of bankruptcy 
 escape from their lips, or have sup- 
 ported propositions which were iden- 
 tical with it. Masters of the budget, 
 Avith regard to which they have usurp- 
 ed the initiative, they have made it 
 the vehicle of their prejudices and 
 their passions. In presence of 150,000 
 men spread over our strong places, 
 they have left us Avithout an army, 
 without national energy ; while at the 
 same time they give us every reason 
 to apprehend a crisis, when that energy 
 might revive from the effects of de- 
 spair, and a return of the furious pas- 
 sions at Avliich the universe has akeady 
 shuddered. 
 
 130. " If that moment has not ar- 
 rived. Sire ! to what are we to ascribe 
 it ? Entirely to the system of mode- 
 ration, firmness, and wisdom, which 
 your Majesty has pursued in presence 
 of a vmdictive Assembly. In that 
 honourable contest, the throne has for 
 auxiliaries the entire nation, which 
 has separated its cause from that of the 
 proud and haughty privileged classes. 
 That nation calls to you, Su-e ! Main- 
 tain the Charter — your work, your 
 gift to the nation ; we can only sup- 
 port by known facts alarms so general. 
 Yes, contempt for the Charter is every- 
 Avhere professed by the envenomed 
 majority ; your Majesty is no stranger 
 
1816.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 153 
 
 to the impassioned vehemence with 
 which they declaim against the Char- 
 ter ; — why give tliat majority an op- 
 portunity of giving a new proof of its 
 dangerous disposition ? It would be 
 safer, it is sometimes said, to postpone 
 a dissolution till the majority has 
 given a yet more decisive proof of its 
 mischievous tendency. Is it, then, 
 certain that the nation will suWit to 
 fresh insults ? Or shall we Avait till 
 they have inflicted some new wound 
 on the finances of the State ? Three 
 months for oiu' liberation lost ; three 
 months wasted in civil discord ; three 
 months during which your Majesty 
 has been controlled in the acts of cle- 
 mency so dear to your paternal heart ; 
 three months of irresolution, of an- 
 archy — these are what your faithful 
 servants can no longer contemplate 
 without horror. Beyond the conces- 
 sions which the safety of the State 
 have suggested to us, we cannot make 
 one. Your Majesty is aware with 
 what patience we have borne repeated 
 defeats, with an equanimity of which 
 you alone know the secret motive ; 
 but to the public, by whom that 
 motive is unknown, it can have no 
 other aspect but that of weakness. 
 "\Ve cannot longer continue to play a 
 part which, if persevered in, would 
 compromise the dignity of the Crown. 
 An immediate dissolution will re-estab- 
 lish that dignity, of which we are the 
 jealous guardians, and will exhibit 
 royalty in all its force. It will be in 
 some sort a second gift of the Charter, 
 a new contract of love and peace. It 
 is necessary to give that Charter a char- 
 acter of immutability, which the ordi- 
 nances of 13th and 14th July 1815 
 •have unhappily taken away, by de- 
 claring a revision of fourteen articles. 
 It is desirable, therefore, that the or- 
 dinance of the dissolution should be 
 preceded by a declaration that no ar- 
 ticle of the Charter is to be altered. 
 The Chamber should be reduced to 260, 
 the number designed by the Charter. 
 Stability is the first wish of a people 
 worn out by convulsions ; it is the 
 rein which is to restrain men con- 
 sumed by the passion for retrograde 
 changes ; it is what Europe and its 
 
 Sovereigns demand. It is for us, or 
 rather for the King, to set the iirst 
 example of an immutable order, in a 
 countiy which has undergone so many 
 revolutions within, and launched so 
 many abroad." 
 
 131. Whatever may be thought of 
 this speech, which, amidst much ex- 
 aggeration, contained some important 
 truths, there can be but one opinion as 
 to the skill with which it was prepared 
 to work on the feelings and gratify the 
 ruling disposition of the King. The 
 leading principle of his mind at this 
 period was an anxious desire to get 
 c^uit of the Allied troops, and deliver 
 his country from the humiliating vas- 
 salage to which it had been subjected ; 
 his secret vanity a pride in the Char- 
 ter, and in his own ability to wield 
 the power of a constitutional monarch. 
 Louis XVIII., accordingly, was easily 
 persuaded to give in to these views ; 
 and the Duke de Richelieu and Count 
 Mole had already embraced them. 
 The whole month of August was pass- 
 ed in preparations by this trio for the 
 dissolution, and in measures for in- 
 creasing the popularity of the Court. 
 The Legion of Honour was reconsti- 
 tuted, with precautions against the 
 undue multiplication of its honours ; 
 the Ecole Polytechnique re-establish- 
 ed ; measures adopted for advancing 
 primary education ; prizes given to 
 agriculture ; and the payments from 
 the Treasury made with such regular- 
 ity as went far to re-establish public 
 credit, which had been severely shaken 
 by the language of the majority in the 
 Chamber. Circular letters were ad- 
 dressed to the prefects and heads of 
 the Prevotal Courts, recommending 
 the greatest moderation in prosecu- 
 tions. At the same time, the senti- 
 ments of the Emperor Alexander were 
 asked on the subject, through the 
 medium of Count Pozzo di Borgo ; 
 and the King had the satisfaction of 
 receiving an autogi'aph letter from 
 that monarch, in Avhich he said, that, 
 "in the interest of the Government of 
 the King of France, it appeared to him 
 that a dissolution of the Chamber of 
 Deputies would be attended by bene- 
 ficial results." 
 
lU 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. hi. 
 
 132. Fortified by sucli support, tlie 
 famous ordinance of September 5 was 
 prepared, and promulgated in the 
 Moiiiteur, witliout any one but its 
 immediate authors in the cabinet be- 
 ing aware of wliat was in contempla- 
 tion. It was written out in the after- 
 noon of the 4th, signed at eight in the 
 evening, and immediately sent to the 
 printing-office of the Moniteur, where 
 it appeared to the astonished inhabit- 
 ants of Paris the following morning. 
 The Count d'Artois and the other 
 members of the royal family were in 
 entire ignorance of what was going 
 forward. This important state paper, 
 by tlie mere authority of the King, 
 reduced the number of deputies from 
 394, their existing number, to 260, 
 the number specihed in the Charter, 
 and raised the age required in deputies 
 to forty years. New electoral colleges 
 were constituted, in terms of the or- 
 dinance of 13th July 1815 : those of 
 arrondissements were directed to meet 
 on the 25th September : those of de- 
 partments on the 5th October. The 
 ])residents of colleges were named in 
 the ordinance, and embraced Caniille 
 Jourdan, Andre de la Lozere, Royer- 
 Collard, and a number of others, all of 
 the moderate or constitutional party, 
 their appointment indicating, in the 
 most unequivocal manner, the wish of 
 the Government that the Chambers 
 should be elected of moderate men, 
 equally removed from the extremes on 
 either side. The Duke de Richelieu, 
 though he acquiesced in the dissolu- 
 tion and ordinance, was yet not with- 
 out his misgivings as to the influence 
 of the new electoral system upon the 
 future fate of France ; and accordingly 
 he said, in his circular to the prefects 
 with the ^Y\'\t for the new election — 
 '"Do your utmost to prevent true 
 Jacobins being returned in the new 
 Chamber — that would altogether de- 
 feat our intentions. No party men — 
 tliat ought to be our object; but, if 
 they cannot be avoided, ultra-Royal- 
 ists are better than Revolutionists." * 
 
 * " Depuis notre retour dans nos etats, 
 ohaque jour nous a demontre cette verite, 
 proclamee par nous dans une occasion solen- 
 uelle, qu'a cote de I'avantage d'ameliorer, 
 
 133. No words can describe the con- 
 sternation of the royal family, the ma- 
 jority of the Chamber, and the extreme 
 Royalists throughout France, when the 
 sudden announcement of the dissolu- 
 tion of the legislative body, and the 
 convocation of a new one, chosen un- 
 der a difterent electoral system, fell 
 upon them. The Duke de Richelieu 
 undertook the difficult task of an- 
 nouncing it to the Count d'Artois; 
 
 est le danger d'innover. Nous nous sommes 
 convaincus, que les besoins et les cceurs de 
 nos sujets se reunissaient pour conserver in- 
 tacte cette Charte constitutionnelle, base du 
 droit public en France et garantie du repos 
 general. Nous avons en consequence jug^ 
 necessaire de reduire le nombre des deputes 
 au norabre determine par la Charte, et de n'y 
 appeler que des hommes de quarante ans. 
 Mais pour operer legalement cette reduction, 
 il est devenu indispensable de convoquer de 
 nouveau les colleges electoraux, afin de pro- 
 ceder a I'election d'lme nouvelle Charabre des 
 Deputes. A ces causes, nos ministres enten- 
 dus, nous avons ordonne et ordonnons ce qui 
 suit. I. Aucun des articles da la Charte ne 
 sera casse. II. La Chambre des Deputes est 
 dissoute. III. Le nombre des deputes des 
 departements est flxe coufomiement a I'Ai't. 
 33 de la Charte, suivant le tableau ci-joint. 
 Les colleges electoraux d'arrondissement et 
 de departement etant composes tels qn'ils 
 ont ete reconnus et tels qu'ils out ^te com- 
 pletes par notre ordonnance da 21 Juillet 
 1S15. Les colleges electoraux d'arrondisse- 
 ment se reuniront le 25 Septembre de cette 
 annee. Chacun d'eux 61ira un nombre de 
 candidats ^gal au nombre de deputes du de- 
 partement. Les colleges electoraux de de- 
 partement se reuniront le 4 Octobre. Chaeuu 
 d'eux choisira au moins la moities deputes 
 parmi les candidats presents par les colleges 
 d'arrondissement. Si le nombre des deputes 
 du departement est impair, le partage se fera 
 a I'avantage de la portion qui doit etre choisie 
 parmi les candidats. Toute election oii n'as- 
 sistera pas la moitie au moins des membres 
 des colleges sera nuUe. La majorite e^idente 
 parmi les membres presens est necessaire 
 pour la validite des Elections des deputes. 
 Si les colleges d'arrondissements n'avaient 
 pas complete I'election des candidats qu'ils 
 peuvent choisir, le college du departement n'en 
 procederait pas moins a son operation; les 
 procfes verbaux des elections serout examines 
 a la Chambre des Deputes, qui prononcera 
 sur la regularite des elections. Les deputes 
 elus seront tenus de produire a la Chambre 
 leur acte de naissance constatant qu'ils sent 
 ages de 40 ans, et un extrait d'ordres dument 
 legalise par le prefet constatant qu'ils payent 
 au moins lOOO francs (£40) de contributions 
 directes. La session de 1S16 s'ouvrira le 4 
 Nov. de la presente annee. Les dispositions 
 de I'ordounance du 13 Juillet 1815, contraires 
 a la presente, sont revoquees."— iVonifcJO", 
 5th Sep. 1816; Capefigue, iv. 358, 361. 
 
1816.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUEOPE. 
 
 155 
 
 that prince was in despair at the in- 
 telligence, prophesied the fall of the 
 monarchy, and openly accused M. De- 
 cazes of betraying the throne. The 
 Duchess d'Angouleme positively re- 
 fused to see any of the ministers on 
 the subject ; the Duke, her husband, 
 was more moderate ; and the Duke de 
 Berri testified satisfaction on the oc- 
 casion. The Court was in the deepest 
 affliction at the intelligence; they 
 could not have been more so if the 
 monarchy had been swept away — 
 which, indeed, was generally prophesied 
 as the inevitalDle result of the measure. 
 The Royalist press throughout France 
 broke forth into the most violent in- 
 vectives against the Ministry, whom 
 they represented as having usurped 
 the royal authority, coerced the King, 
 and delivered over France, bound hand 
 and foot, to the Revolutionists. Cha- 
 teaubriand gave vent to the general 
 feeling of the Royalists in an eloquent 
 and impassioned postscript to his cele- 
 brated pamphlet published at that 
 time, in which, not content with vio- 
 lently assailing the measure, he threw 
 doubts on the unrestricted consent of 
 the King to it. Louis was extremely 
 indignant at this imputation, which, 
 in addition to an attack on the Minis- 
 try, amounted to a reflection on his 
 personal firmness; and the conse- 
 quence was that a decree appeared 
 next day in the Moniteur, by which 
 the name of Chateaubriand was erased 
 from the list of privy councillors. But 
 this measure of severity against so very 
 eminent a man only augmented his in- 
 fluence, and that of his pamphlet, which 
 was immense, and materially afiected 
 the return of members for the next 
 Chamber.* He lost not only his situa- 
 * Chateaubriand's postscript commenced 
 with these words : "La Chambre de Deputes 
 est dissoute ! Cela ne m'etonne pas. C'est 
 le syst&me des interets revolutionnaires qui 
 marche. Je n'ai donne rien a changer a cet 
 ecrit. J'avais prevu ]e denouement, et je I'ai 
 plusieurs fois annonce. Cette mesure minis- 
 terielle sauvera, dit on, la monarchie legitime. 
 Dissoudre la seule Assemblee, qui depuis 
 1789 ait manifeste des sentimens purement 
 Royalistes, c'est, a men avis, une etrange 
 maniere de sauver la monarchie. . . . Et 
 que yeut d'ailleurs le Roi? S'il etait pemiis 
 de penetrer dans les secrets de sa haute sa- 
 gesse, ne pourroit-on pas presmner, qu'eu 
 
 tion in the privy council, but the salary 
 attached to it, which reduced him to 
 such straits in point of finance, that he 
 was obliged to sell his country house 
 and books, reserving only a little Homer 
 in Greek, on the margin of which were 
 some translations he had made of the 
 lines of the immortal bard. But he 
 lost neither his spirit nor his influence 
 from becoming poor, though he now 
 walked to the Chamber of Peers, or 
 went in a hackney coach when it 
 rained. '*In my popular equipage," 
 says he, "under the protection of the 
 mob which surrounded the carnage, 
 I regained for myself the rights of the 
 working class, to which I now be- 
 longed ; from the height of my chariot 
 
 I ruled the train of kings." 
 
 134. The royal ordinance of 5th Sep- 
 tember 1816 WTOught so gi-eat a change 
 in the electoral body and composition 
 of the Chamber of Deputies in France, 
 that it was equivalent in effect to a 
 revolution, and is generally considered 
 by the Royalist party as the main cause 
 of the overthrow of the elder branch of 
 the house of Bom*bon. It will appear 
 in the succeeding volumes of this work 
 how this effect was Avorked out ; but, 
 in the mean time, there are two obser- 
 vations which are suggested by the 
 tenor of that decree itself. The first 
 is, that the great reduction in the 
 number of deputies — from 394 to 260 
 — operated to the prejudice of the 
 rural districts, and proportionally aug- 
 mented the influence of the towns. 
 Nearly the whole of the members 
 struck oft' had been elected for depart- 
 
 laissant constitutionnellement toute liberte 
 d'action et d'opinion a ses ministres respon- 
 sa.hles, il a porte ses regards plus loin qu'eux. 
 
 II a peut-etre juge que la France satisfaite 
 lui renverrait les memes Deputes dont il etait 
 satisfait; que Ton aurait une Chambre nou- 
 velle aussi Royaliste que la derniere, bien que 
 convoquee sur d'autres principes, et qu'alors 
 il n'y aurait plus nioyen de nier la veritable 
 opinion de la France." The ordinance of the 
 King was in these words: " Le Vicomte de 
 Chateaubriand ayant, dans un ecrit imprime, 
 eleve des doutes'sur notre volonte personnelle 
 manifestee par notre ordonnance du 5 du pre- 
 sent mois, nous ordonnons ce qui suit, — Le 
 Vicomte de Chateaubriand cessera, des ce 
 joixr, d'etre compris au nombre de nos Minis- 
 tres d'Etat. — Louis." — Moniteur, Sept. 12, 
 1819: La Monarchie selon la Charte (QLuw^s 
 de Chateaubriand, xviii. 431, 440). 
 
156 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. III. 
 
 ments, chiefly in the south of France, 
 and they were selected for destruction, 
 because they had proved the most un- 
 manageable. The second, that, in the 
 depaptments which still retained the 
 privilege of sending members to Parlia- 
 ment, the right of voting was confined 
 to one class only, and that a very 
 limited one. By the ordinance of 13th 
 July 1815, under which the dissolved 
 Chamber had been elected, a variety 
 of persons, as members of the Legion 
 of Honour and official functionaries, 
 were admitted to the franchise ; but 
 by the ordinance of 5th September 
 1816 these were all swept away; and 
 the .suffrage was confined to one single 
 class — viz., persons paying 300 francs, 
 or £12, of direct taxes. The direct 
 taxes are so very hea\'y in France, that 
 this payment implies a very difierent 
 class from what it would in Great 
 Britain ; it denotes persons having 
 from 2500 to 3500 francs (from £100 
 to £140) a-year. The total number of 
 ]>ersons entitled to the suffrage in 
 France on this payment was about 
 80,000, of whom GOj^OOO paid from 300 
 to 500 francs (£12 to £20) of yearly 
 taxes. Thus the government of France, 
 under this electoral system, was de- 
 volved upon 60,000 persons of one 
 description only — that is, small shop- 
 keepers in towns, and small proprie- 
 tors in the country. They, too, were 
 for the most part holders of the national 
 domains — persons enriched by the Re- 
 volution, and resolute to support the 
 gains it had brought them. The im- 
 mense body of peasant proprietors, 
 several millions in number, and the 
 working classes in towns on the one 
 hand, and the whole body of affiuent 
 or highly educated persons on the 
 other, were, to all practical purposes, 
 unrepresented. This is not the repre- 
 sentative system ; it is irresponsible 
 class government of the worst kind. 
 The representative system is founded 
 on the entire representation, not of 
 mere numbers, hut of classes of society : 
 mere numbers have no tendency to 
 induce this, or rather they induce the 
 very reverse — viz., class government 
 of the lowest ranks of society. An 
 unrestricted feudal aristocracy is a 
 
 great evil ; but an unrestricted burgher 
 aristocracy is a still greater. 
 
 135. Another circumstance worthy 
 of note, and which appears not a little 
 strange to one accustomed to English 
 ideas, is, that in all the changes made 
 on the electoral system in France, the 
 roxjal authority alone was mterposed. 
 The Chamber which sat from July 
 1815 to September 1816 was elected 
 under the royal ordinance of 13th July 
 1815, which added 134 members to it ; 
 that of 1816 and 1817, and all the 
 subsequent ones, under the royal ordi- 
 nance of 5th September 1816, which 
 took them away. Supposing that a 
 royal ordinance was a matter of neces- 
 sity in the disastrous state of the 
 country in 1815., when there was no 
 legislature in existence, the same can- 
 not be said of the royal ordinance of 
 5th September 1816, issued when a 
 legislatirre was actually sitting, and 
 the concurrence of the three branches 
 of the legislature might have been, 
 obtained for any organic change which 
 appeared necessary. It is remarkable, 
 too, that all classes acquiesced without 
 objection in this great stretch of the 
 royal prerogative, so subversive of any- 
 thing like real constitutional govern- 
 ment ; and, with the Liberal party, in 
 particular, it was the subject of the 
 highest possible exultation and eulo- 
 gium — a striking contrast to their con- 
 duct in July 1830, when they made a 
 similar exercise of the royal authority 
 a pretext for overturning tlie throne. 
 
 136. The parliamentary and social 
 history of France during 1815 and 1816 
 is worthy of particular attention from 
 all who consider history, not merely 
 as the amusement of a passing hour, 
 but as a source of political instniction, 
 and the subject of serious tliought. 
 Long as this chapter has been, it could 
 neither have been shortened nor divid- 
 ed, for it embraces one subject, ancl 
 that one of the most fmitful in ]»oliti- 
 cal lessons which history has preserved 
 —THE Reactiox of 1815. The Re- 
 volution had worked out its inevitable 
 and appropriate result ; its sins had 
 been visited by their natural conse- 
 quences ; and conquest, ignominy, 
 
1816. 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 157 
 
 menced in selfishness, ambition, and 
 crime. With the usual disposition of 
 mankind to ascribe the punishment of 
 their sins to anything but those sins 
 themselves, they now rushed into the 
 opposite extreme ; and the last leaders 
 of the Revolution were as much the 
 object of unanimous horror and detes- 
 tation as the first had been of triumph 
 and enthusiasm. All persons with 
 right feeling must regret the measures 
 of severity adopted on the second 
 restoration, and the heroic blood shed 
 on the scaffold in consequence of the 
 treason previously committed : but, in 
 truth, it was unavoidable. The people, 
 by an overwhelming majority, demand- 
 ed victims, as so many scapegoats to 
 bear the sins of the community ; and 
 the legislature, which compelled the 
 Government to select them, was but 
 the mouthpiece of a nation which, in 
 a voice of thunder, called for their 
 punishment. 
 
 137. In this terrible and tragic re- 
 action, another circumstance is very 
 markworthy, — it was forced by the 
 nation upon the Sovereign. Louis 
 XVI II. was constitutionally humane, 
 and he was too much versed in revolu- 
 tions not to know what violent reac- 
 tions noble blood shed on the scafiold 
 scarce ever fails to produce. Every one 
 of the victims of 1815 were extorted 
 from the humanity of the Government 
 by the violence of the people. This is a 
 very remarkable circumstance, and well 
 ■worthy of consideration, for it points 
 to the principal danger to be appre- 
 hended under a popular form of gov- 
 ernment. Those intrusted with power 
 are invariably more inclined to mode- 
 ration than those who only by their 
 votes or their clamour seek to control 
 their measures. The reason is, that 
 the former feel its responsibilities, and 
 are made acquainted Avith its difficul- 
 ties ; whereas the latter are actuated 
 only by ambition or passion, unfettered 
 by experience or a sense of duty. Pau- 
 city of number in the former case in- 
 duces a sense of responsibility ; in the 
 latter it extinguishes it. Destructive 
 measures — ruin to national security or 
 freedom — are much more to be appre- 
 hended, in a popular government, from 
 
 the legislature than from the execu- 
 tive — from the people than tho 
 Sovereign. Responsibility checks the 
 excesses of the last ; the absence of it 
 lets loose the passions of the first. It 
 is a common saying that ]jatriots gene- 
 rally become corrupted when they are 
 taken into administration, and that 
 there is nothing so like a Tory in power 
 as a Whig in power ; and the fact is 
 certain, but the reason commonly as- 
 signed for it is not the true one. It 
 is not so much that they are corrupted 
 by the sweets of power, as that they 
 are made aware of its duties and im- 
 pressed with its responsibilities. 
 
 138. "Where," says M. de Tocque- 
 ville, " shall a person persecuted by the 
 majority in America fly for redress ? 
 To the legislature ? — it is elected by the 
 majority. To a jury ?— it is thejudicia I 
 committee of the majority.'' Impartial 
 justice must confess that tho year 
 1815 in France was no exception to 
 this rule ; nay, that it furnishes the 
 strongest confirmation of it. Tho 
 worst judicial acts which stained tho 
 Royalist reaction in that country were 
 perpetrated by the agency of juries. 
 It was juries who, in 1815, screened 
 from justice every one of the criminals, 
 however clearly proved to be guilty, 
 who were implicated in the frightful 
 Royalist excesses in the south of France 
 in that year ; it was juries who, in the 
 next, tenninated contemptible con- 
 spiracies with a long array of criminals 
 executed on the scaff'old. The truth 
 is, juries are, and have been in every 
 age, the judicial committee of the ma- 
 jority, and neither more nor less. As 
 such they have frequently rescued per- 
 sons, prosecuted for offences interesting 
 to the majority, from the hands of 
 oppression ; but they have in many 
 more, when the majority itself was in 
 power, committed the most atrocious 
 judicial iniquities. In one year, juries 
 in England perpetrated the long cata- 
 logue of judicial murders consequeijt 
 on the Popish Plot ; in another, they 
 were the instruments of the equally 
 unjust and sanguinary vengeance of 
 the Rye-House Plot. Juries were thus 
 accomplices in all Judge JefTreys's ju- 
 dicial murders. The whole state trials 
 
153 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. in. 
 
 of England — the most appalling collec- 
 tion, as Hallam has observed, of ju- 
 dicial iniquities which the history of 
 the world can exliibit — were conducted 
 by means of juries. All the murders 
 of the Convention were sanctioned by 
 the verdicts of juries. 'No one in Great 
 Britain need be told how little chance 
 there is of justice being done in Ire- 
 land by a Catholic jury on a Catholic 
 offender, or by an Orange juiy on a 
 Protestant. The reason in all these 
 cases is one and the same, and it is 
 this : Undivided responsibility is a 
 check upon a single judge in a court 
 composed of a small number of judges ; 
 — but there is no such a check upon 
 juries, the names of whose members 
 are scarcely ever known, or, if laiown, 
 are speedily forgotten } and in whom, 
 even at the moment of committing in- 
 iquity, numbers shelter the perpetra- 
 tors. Jeffreys himself would never 
 have perpetrated the enormities which 
 have for ever blasted his name, if he had 
 not been sheltered in the verdict, at 
 least by the concurring iniquity of his 
 juries. 
 
 139. The treason for which Ney and 
 Labedoyere suffered was clearly prov- 
 ed ; it brought evils of an unexampled 
 amount on France, and it was termi- 
 nated by a list of capital convictions of 
 unequalled paucity. Only six persons 
 suffered on the scaffold over all France 
 for a rebellion which dethroned the 
 king, caused the conquest of the coun- 
 try, and fixed a debt of £64,000,000 
 on its inhabitants. British historians 
 justly congratulate themselves on the 
 increasing humanity of the age, when 
 the Jacobite rebellion of 1715, which 
 was confined to Scotland and the north- 
 ern counties of England, and never for 
 one moment endangered either the 
 country or the throne, was only chas- 
 tised by the execution of two-and- 
 twenty. There can be no doubt, there- 
 fore, that the rebellion of 1815 was, 
 according to all the settled maxims of 
 European law, not only clearly proved 
 against all the persons who suffered for 
 their participation in it, but, on the 
 whole, most leniently dealt with. Yet 
 we cannot read the account of the exe- 
 cution of Key and Labedoyere with- 
 
 out deep regret ; and that regret will 
 be shared by the generous and the 
 humane to the end of time. The 
 reason is, that purely political 
 
 OFFENCES SHOULD NOT BE PUNLSHED 
 
 WITH DEATH ; banishment or trans- 
 portation are their appropriate penal- 
 ties. Death should be reserved for 
 great moral crimes, concerning which 
 all mankind are agi'eed — as murder, 
 fire-raising, or \'iolent robbery — and 
 not extended to acts such as those of 
 treason, which originate, not in moral 
 A^Tong, but in difference of political 
 opinion, and are sometimes justified 
 by necessity, or rewarded by the high- 
 est fortune or lasting admiration of 
 mankind. 
 
 140. The feelings of mankind have 
 never stigmatised mere treason as a 
 moral crime, so often has it arisen from 
 noble though mistaken motives. Many 
 families are proud of an ancestor who 
 lost his head on the scaffold for his 
 accession to a revolt, but none ever 
 pointed with exultation to one execut- 
 ed for theft or housebreaking. Trans- 
 portation to a distant country, under 
 certification of death in case of return, 
 is the true mode of dealing with acts 
 which, without the intermixture of 
 baser crimes or motives, tend only to 
 change the government. The persons 
 engaged in them should be considered 
 as domestic enemies, to be made pri- 
 soners, and treated according to the 
 laws of war, if in their insurrection 
 they conform to its usages. If they 
 do othenvise, and begin vrith pillage 
 and conflagration, by all means treat 
 them as pirates, enemies of the human 
 race. To go farther, and shed their 
 blood on the scaffold, though their 
 conduct has not degenerated into such 
 atrocities, but has been confined to 
 the limits of legitimate warfare, is the 
 same injustice and the same error as 
 to burn for heresy. Opinion is not 
 the proper object of punishment — it is 
 acts only that are ; and the appropriate 
 punishment for acts tending to dispos- 
 sess the government is to dispossess 
 the person attempting it. Such cru- 
 elties are in the end as inexpedient as 
 they are revolting, for they unite the 
 generous and noble-minded in all fu- 
 
1817.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 159 
 
 tare ages against the party which per- 
 petrated them. The reaction is as 
 certain and often more violent than 
 the action. The Great Rebellion in 
 England and the Revolution in France 
 were each of them stained by the blood 
 of a sovereign : and in both cases the 
 
 judicial murder was followed by a res- 
 toration and sanguinaiy reaction. The 
 Revolution of 1688 in England, and 
 that of 1830 in France, was followed 
 by no .such heartrending acts, and in 
 both the obnoxious dynasty was per- 
 manently excluded from the throne. 
 
 CHAPTER lY. 
 
 ENGLAND, FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF 1817 TO THE REPEAL OF THE 
 BANK RESTRICTION ACT IN 1819. 
 
 1. The study, and still more the 
 composition of the history of an im- 
 portant and animating era in human 
 affairs, is apt to induce the belief that 
 the tale is to close when the principal 
 actors have disappeared from the stage, 
 and the curtain has fallen on the gi'eat 
 catastrophe in which the di'ama has 
 terminated. We are interested in it 
 as we are in a novel or romance, which 
 lias a beginning, a middle, and an 
 end ; forgetting that in real life events 
 .succeed each other in a perpetual chain, 
 and share in the undying renovation of 
 the human race. No sooner are the 
 transactions of one period brought to 
 a close, and an apparent lull has crept 
 over the busy scene by the exhaustion 
 of the energies by which it had been 
 sustained, than another set of causes 
 comes into operation, at first scarcely 
 perceptible, and often for a time unob- 
 served, but which in the end act Avith 
 resistless force, and induce an entire 
 change on the fortunes of the world. 
 The same vicissitude is conspicuous 
 there, as in the affairs of private life : 
 nothing is permanent, nothing un- 
 changeable ; joy succeeds to sorrow, 
 sorrow to joy ; and w^hat is most ear- 
 nestly desired at one period, as the 
 highest object of ambition, is discover- 
 ed at another to have been the com- 
 mencement of ruin. Seeds so\vn in 
 one age spring up, in the next, with 
 
 an entirely different crop fi'om what 
 was anticipated, and the calculations 
 of human wisdom are confounded by 
 results diametrically opposite to those 
 which had been looked for. To the 
 affairs of nations, not less than those 
 of individuals, the words of the poet 
 are applicable : — 
 
 " Still where rosy pleasure leads, 
 See a kindred grief pursue ; 
 Behind the steps that miseiy treads, 
 Approaching comfort view. 
 The hues of bliss more brightly glow, 
 Chastised by sabler tints of woe, 
 And, blended, form with artful strife 
 The strength and harmony of life." * 
 
 2. Never was the truth of these 
 beautiful words more clearly evinced 
 than in the history both of France 
 and England during and after the 
 memorable contest of the Revolution, 
 Both had gained what they contended 
 for in the strife ; both had been suc- 
 cessful in the grand objects for which 
 they had fought ; and both have found 
 in the attainment of these objects the 
 termination of their greatness, the 
 commencement of their ruin. The 
 dreams of the Revolutionists were 
 realised, the visions of the Girondists 
 had come to pass ; ever}i;hing they 
 desired was accomplished, and Avhat 
 was the result ? A monarchy without 
 power, a nation without considera- 
 tion, liberty precarious, loyalty extin- 
 * Gray—" Ode to Vicissitude." 
 
160 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 guished, morals destroyed, religion 
 discredited, the bulwarks of freedom 
 ruined, and nothing but the calcula- 
 tions of selfishness to supply their 
 place. The history of France from 
 1815 to 1852 is little else than the 
 annals of the impotent efforts of a 
 nation to recover what itself had de- 
 stroyed ; of wisdom to repair what 
 madness had broken through ; of sel- 
 fishness to grasp what generosity had 
 won or valour achieved. England had 
 been as successful in the end in the 
 national, as France had been in the 
 social strife : the Continent was ar- 
 rayed imder her banner, the sceptre 
 of the ocean had passed into her 
 hands ; her enemy was vanquished ; 
 glory transcending all former glory, 
 riches exceeding all former riches had 
 been won. What was the result ? 
 The commencement of a series of 
 causes and effects, springing out of the 
 very magnitude of these triumphs, 
 which is destined to undo the fabric 
 of British greatness, dissolve the mag- 
 nificent British empire, and leave the 
 ft-agments of its dominions scattered in 
 sej)arate independent States through- 
 out the globe. 
 
 3. Yet even in this vast disruption 
 there is much in which humanity 
 must rejoice, in which patriotism must 
 exult. The English empire may be 
 rent asunder, but the enlightenment 
 of English genius, the achievements 
 of English thought, the bond of Eng- 
 lish associations, will never be lost. 
 English will, beyond all question, be 
 the language spoken by half the globe 
 for interminable ages yet to come ; and 
 to English genius is opened a future 
 of fame and usefulness exceeding any- 
 thing yet conceded to mankind. In 
 the noble words of a worthy scion of 
 the British stem, albeit in Transat- 
 lantic realms, we may saj^ — "Go 
 forth, thou language of Milton and 
 Hampden — language of my country ! 
 Take possession of tlie ISTorth American 
 continent ! Gladden the Avaste places 
 Avith every tone that has been rightly 
 struck by the English lyre, "v^ith every 
 English word that has been spoken for 
 liberty and for man ! Give an echo to 
 the now silent and solitarv mountains ; 
 
 [chap. IV. 
 
 gush out with the fountains that as 
 yet sing their anthems all day long 
 without response ! Fill the valleys 
 with the voices of love in its purity, 
 the pledges of friendship) in its fidelity ; 
 and as the morning sun drinks the 
 dew-drops from the flowers all the way 
 from the dreary Atlantic to the Pacific 
 Ocean, meet him with the joyful hum 
 of the early industry of freemen. 
 Utter boldly, and spread widely 
 through the world, the thoughts of 
 the coming epoch of the people's 
 liberty, till the sound that cheers the 
 desert shall thrill through the heart 
 of humanity, and the lips of the mes- 
 senger of the people's power, as he 
 stands upon the mountain, shall pro- 
 claim the renovating tidings of equal 
 freedom to the race." 
 
 4. The cause of the sudden bursting 
 forth of the principles of decay, which 
 took place in both France and Eng- 
 land after the termination of the con- 
 test, is to be found in a very simple 
 source — the general, it might almost 
 be said, universal, selfishness of human 
 nature. So prone are mankind, in. 
 every rank, station, and situation, to 
 use power mainly for the advantage of 
 themselves or their adherents, that it 
 scarce ever happens that, when one 
 class obtains it without control, a gov- 
 ernment does not ensue so oppressive 
 as speedily to dry up the sources of 
 national prosperity, and lay the foun- 
 dation of ultimate niiu. In France 
 this effect took place by the complete 
 triumph of the popular party in the 
 outset of the Revolution, and the en- 
 tire destruction of all the powders or 
 influences in the state which might be 
 able to coerce their ambition, or mo- 
 derate their excesses. When the king 
 was beheaded, the aristocracy ruined, 
 the Church destroyed, the corporations 
 extinguished, no power remained in 
 the State but the force of numbers ; 
 and the tyranny of the majority soon 
 became such, that the people, from 
 sheer necessity, were constrained to 
 abandon all their former principles, 
 and take refuge from their own mad- 
 ness under the empire of the sword. 
 The whole subsequent history of 
 France has been nothing but a series 
 
1S17.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 161 
 
 of fruitless attempts to avoid this fatal 
 necessity, and reconstruct the fabric of 
 freedom, mthout the essential elements 
 of which it must be composed. 
 
 5. In Great Britain, as it was not 
 the democratic but the aristocratic 
 party which was victorious in the 
 great contest of the Revolution, the 
 causes which have induced disaster 
 have been different, but springing at 
 bottom from the same inherent selfish- 
 ness of human nature. The aristocracy 
 which gained the victory, and in 
 whose hands the war left the direction 
 of the State, was one of a very peculiar 
 kind, and more dangerous to social 
 prosperity than a mere body of wealthy 
 territorial magnates would have been. 
 Such a body is certainly never deficient 
 in attention to its owai interests ; and 
 if nations have often risen to greatness 
 under the rule of such a body, it is 
 not because its measures were more 
 directed to the general good than those 
 of other men, but because its own in- 
 terests, being based on production, 
 were identical with those of the great 
 body of producers throughout the 
 State. But the arisrtocracy, which 
 had gained the ascendancy in England 
 at the fall of Napoleon, was not en- 
 tirely, or even principally, a terri- 
 torial aristocracy. It was a mixed 
 body, composed of merchants, manu- 
 facturers, bankers, colonial proprie- 
 tors, shipowners, and shopkeepers, 
 even more than landholders, in both 
 Great Britain and Ireland. The 
 House of Commons was the represen- 
 tative, not of one species of property, 
 but of every species of property ; and, 
 although numbers were by no means 
 unrepresented, yet the members elect- 
 ed by the popular constituencies were 
 few in number compared to those who 
 rested on the mercantile, landed, or 
 colonial interests. It was in the undue 
 ascendancy of the mercantile interest 
 in this mixed aristocracy — springing 
 out of the vast riches they had 
 amassed, and the influence they had 
 acquired during the war — that the 
 remote cause of the whole subsequent 
 difficulties of the British empire is to 
 be found. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 6. The reason of this is, that — un- 
 like a territorial aristocracy, whose in- 
 terests, being founded on production, 
 must always be the same as those of 
 the labouring classes who cultivate 
 their land — the gain of a moneyed aris- 
 tocracy is often found chiefly in the 
 depression and penury of the great 
 body of the people. Manufacturers 
 for the home market, indeed, can 
 never, in the end, thrive on the ruin 
 of their customers ; but those for the 
 export sale, Avho are generally the 
 most enterprising and influential, often 
 dc so ; because the cost of production 
 is lessened by a fall in the wages of 
 domestic labour, and that fall does 
 not lessen the amount of foreign con- 
 sumption. Thus the profits of manu- 
 facturers for foreign markets are often 
 materially augmented by domestic 
 sufi'ering ; and they would be greatest, 
 if, like the poor Hindoos, the persons 
 they employ could be brought to sub- 
 sist on threepence a-day. The moneyed 
 classes, all possessed of fixed incomes, 
 and all the holders of realised capital, 
 gain immensely by the suftering of 
 the producing classes, for that brings 
 down the wages of labour, lowers the 
 price of commodities of all sorts, and 
 proportionally increases the value of 
 money. Hence the eftbrts of those 
 classes, when they have become so 
 powerful as to have gained the com- 
 mand of the State, are always mainly 
 directed to the introduction of mea- 
 sures which may augment their for- 
 tunes without any effort on their part, 
 simply by enhancing the value of 
 money by cheapening the cost of 
 everything else. These measures, by 
 striking at the remuneration of in- 
 dustry, however popular in the outset, 
 are, in the long run, of all others the 
 most fatal to the working classes, for 
 they depend for their permanent sup- 
 port on the affluence of the producing. 
 
 7. But unfortunately this ettect is 
 remote and circuitous, and therefore 
 altogether beyond the vision of the 
 great majority of men ; while the ad- 
 vantages of a fall of prices, especially 
 in articles of daily consumption, are 
 immediate and obvious to every capa- 
 
 L 
 
162 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. IV. 
 
 city. In the interval, too, which may 
 often extend over years, between the 
 fall in the price of subsistence and the 
 inevitable subseij^uent decline in the 
 consumption of manufactures by its 
 producers, the operative manufactur- 
 ers, as well as their employers, may be 
 considerable gainers by the fall ; be- 
 cause the advantage to them has already 
 come, the consequent loss has not. 
 The producing classes are encroaching 
 on their capital, or borrowing money, 
 or living on credit, in hope of better 
 times coming, rather than face the 
 immediate discomfort of abandoning 
 the consumption of luxuries, which to 
 them have become necessaries. It 
 need not be said that this can go on 
 only for a time ; that the decline in 
 the resources of their rural customers 
 must, in the end, tell ^^'ith fearful 
 effect on the welfare of the urban ope- 
 ratives. But m the interval, short 
 as it may be, measures irreversible, 
 when once introduced, though fraught 
 w^ith the most disastrous ultimate con- 
 sequences, may be adopted — not only 
 Math the entire concurrence, but in 
 consequence of the enthusiastic sup- 
 port, of the very classes who are in 
 the end to suffer most from them. 
 Hence it is that it has always been 
 found that the measures of domestic 
 legislation or social change which have 
 produced the most widespread, lasting, 
 and irremediable distress among the 
 people, have been adopted at their 
 suggestion, or carried out to gratify 
 their wishes. If hell is paved w^ith 
 good intentions, this world is built up 
 of delusive expectations. 
 
 8. The reason of this frequent ul- 
 timate disappointment of the hopes 
 most generally formed and ardently 
 entertained by the people, is to be 
 found in the moral law of Providence, 
 which has for ever doomed to retribu- 
 tion and suffering, even in this world, 
 those who engage in measures calculated 
 to elevate or benefit their own class at 
 the expense of the other classes of the 
 community. Such measures are often 
 attended with great immediate benefit 
 to the interest which inti'oduces them : 
 and it is the prospect of this imme- 
 diate benefit which constitutes their 
 
 great attraction, and renders them so 
 fearfully alluring. But if their ulti- 
 mate consequences are traced, it will 
 invariably be found that they bore 
 wdth them the seeds of retribution ; 
 the curse they bestowed on others has 
 recoiled on themselves. The mutual 
 dependence of all the interests of soci- 
 ety on each other, and the indissoluble 
 connection between social or national 
 crime and social or national punish- 
 ment, is not merely a vision of the 
 philosopher, or a dream of the poet, 
 but a practical principle of ceaseless 
 operation among men, to the agency 
 of which many of the greatest changes 
 in human afiairs are to be ascribed. 
 No class can ever derive lasting pros- 
 perity but from measures which benefit 
 equally every other class : if the one 
 is for a time enriched by the ruins 
 of the other, it will, in the end, be 
 proportionally punished. The tracing 
 out the operation of this moral law, 
 in the effects of the victory of the 
 popular class in France, and of the 
 moneyed class in England, upon their 
 country and themselves, during the 
 five-and-thirty years which succeeded 
 the fall of Kapoleon, will form not the 
 least interesting or instructive part of 
 this History.* 
 
 9. The seeds of evil sown by the 
 violent contraction of the curi'ency, 
 and sudden termination of the wai: 
 expenditure in the preceding year, had 
 been too widespread, and had taken 
 too deep root, to be speedily eradicated. 
 
 * What a striking instance of the operation 
 of this moral law is now (December 1S62) in 
 the course of being exliibited by the Cotton 
 Famine ; a catastrophe which has seized like 
 a cancer on Manchester and its vicinity, the 
 cradle and hotbed of Free Trade ! Yet, what 
 has induced it hut Free Trade itself, which, 
 proceeding on the principle of buying in the 
 cheapest market and selling in the dearest, 
 has landed the nation, in defiance of all the 
 warnings given them of its danger, in a state 
 of entire dependence on o?ic nation for a vital 
 material of manufacture. No one can doubt 
 that if the principle of real reciprocity had 
 been adopted, and when the Americans laid 
 30 per cent import duties on our manufac- 
 tures, we had laid a penny a-pound on their 
 cotton, our own colonies, and especially 
 India, would have rendered us entirely inde- 
 pendent of foreign supply, and the whole 
 catastrophe, so far as this country is con- 
 cerned, would have been prevented. 
 
1817.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 163 
 
 The distress, indeed, was much alle- 
 viated in the rural districts by the rise 
 in the price of provisions of all sorts 
 which took place in thp end of 1816, 
 and continued through the whole of 
 the succeeding year, in consequence 
 of the very bad harvest of the lirst. 
 Wheat on an average, in 1817, was 
 116s. a-C[uarter, Avhile in the spring of 
 1816 it had been down at 57s. The 
 harvest of 1817, though not so bad as 
 that of the year before, was still very 
 deficient both in quantity and quality. 
 But though this great rise of prices, 
 almost to the highest level they had 
 attained during the war, was attended 
 with immediate relief to the agricul- 
 tural class, it aggi'avated in a most 
 serious degree the distress of the manu- 
 facturers, Avho were suffering at the 
 same time under the effects of the shake 
 given to credit and general diminution 
 of employment, in consequence of the 
 contraction of the currency in the pre- 
 ceding, and which continued through 
 tliis year. The country bankers' notes 
 in circulation in England this year 
 were only £15,894,000, while in 1815 
 they had been £22,700,000 ; the com- 
 mercial paper, on an average, under 
 discount at the Bank of England, was 
 £3,960,000, while in 1810 it had been 
 £20,070,000, andin 1815, £14,970,000. 
 So prodigious and sudden a contraction 
 in the currency of the nation, and the 
 accommodation afforded to the trading 
 classes, was, of course, attended by a 
 still more ruinous diminution of con- 
 fidence and credit ; and this, combin- 
 ing with the high price of provisions, 
 produced an amount of distress in the 
 great towns and maimfacturing dis- 
 tricts, which, erelong, occasioned overt 
 acts and secret machinations of the 
 most alarming description. 
 
 10. The effect of the continued con- 
 traction of the currency appeared strong- 
 ly in the great falling off of the im- 
 ports during 1817, which only amount- 
 ed to £29,910,000, while in 1810 
 they had been £37,613,000, in 1814 
 £32,622,000, and in 1815 £30,822,000. 
 This indicated a very considerable 
 diminution in the means of consump- 
 tion which the people enjoyed, and 
 gave too much ground for the disaf- 
 
 fected to represent the general distress 
 as entirely the result of extravagance 
 and waste on the part of Govern- 
 ment. The real cause of the sufferings 
 which was to be found in the sudden 
 contraction of the currency, from the 
 prospect of resuming cash payments 
 at no distant period, was never once 
 thought of. Everything was set down 
 to the oppression of Government and 
 the unbearable load of taxation ; and 
 the remedies suggested were, radical 
 reform in Parliament, the disbanding 
 of the army, and destruction of the 
 Constitution. A vast plan of insurrec- 
 tion was formed, having its centre in 
 the metropolis, but extending widely 
 also through the mining and manu- 
 facturing districts of the north of 
 England and Scotland, the object of 
 which was the overthrow of the mon- 
 archy and establishment of a republic 
 in its stead.* Mr Hunt, the leading 
 demagogue of Spafields, commenced a 
 tour through the western jirovinces, 
 addressing the people everywhere in 
 the most seditious and inflammatory 
 language ; and in the denselj'-inhabited 
 districts of the north appearances were 
 still more alarming, for there the peo- 
 ple were meeting in large bodies, evi- 
 dently under the orders of secret lead- 
 ers, and an outbreak was daily expected 
 by the local magistrates. 
 
 11. Parliament met on the 28th Jan- 
 uary, and the Prince-Regent, in the 
 speech from the throne, lamented the 
 distress which generally prevailed, and 
 the consequent decline which had 
 taken place in the revenue ; but ex- 
 pressed a hope that these evils would 
 be of temporary duration, and strongly 
 condemned the factious eflbrts made 
 to render them the foundation of at- 
 
 * " The lower orders are every^vhere meet- 
 ing in laige bodies, and are very clamorous. 
 Delegates from all quarters are moving about 
 amongst them, as they were before the late 
 disturbance ; and they talk of a general union 
 of the lower orders throughout the kingdom." 
 — Mr Nadin to Lord Sidmouth, Manchester, 
 January 3, 1817. " A very wide and extensive 
 plan of insurrection has been fonned, and 
 which might possibly have been acted upon 
 before this time, but for the proper precau- 
 tions used to prevent it." — Duke of Northum- 
 berland to Lord Sidmouth, March 21, 1817 
 —Life of Lord Sidmouth, iii. 165, 177. 
 
164 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. IV. 
 
 tempts to overturn the Government. 
 The Opposition, headed by Earl Grey 
 in the Lords, and by Tierney and 
 Brougham in the Commons, could 
 find no other remedy for the existing 
 evils but unflinching economy and a 
 great reduction of expenditure — mea- 
 sures calculated to meet the dimin- 
 ished state of the public revenue, but 
 of no eff"ect upon the deep-rooted seats 
 of evil that occasioned the distress in 
 the country, or rather calculated to 
 increase them, by augmenting the 
 want of employment, which was the 
 main cause of the suftering. The dis- 
 turbed state of the public mind, and 
 the arts by which the general calamity 
 had been rendered the means of excit- 
 ing disaff'ection against the head of the 
 Government, were evinced when the 
 Prince- Regent left the House of Lords, 
 after delivering the speech from the 
 throne. The carriage was surrounded 
 by an insulting mob, which, from con- 
 tumelious words, soon proceeded to 
 acts of violence ; and one of its glasses 
 was broken by stones or balls from an 
 air-gun aimed at his Royal Highness. 
 12. This open insult to the head 
 of the Government, coupled with the 
 alarming accounts of the progress of 
 the disatfection which they received 
 from all the manufacturing districts, 
 determined Ministers to apply to Par- 
 liament for extraordinary powers. On 
 the 3d Feljruary, a message from the 
 Prince-Regent was communicated to 
 both Houses of Parliament, stating 
 the existence of a secret and wide- 
 spread conspiracy against the Govern- 
 ment, and upon its receipt a secret 
 committee was moved for and appoint- 
 ed in both Houses. They made their 
 report on the 19th February, and both 
 contained the same information, which 
 was of a sufficiently alarming character. 
 The reports declared that a "general 
 conspiracy had been formed to over- 
 turn the Government, which had its 
 centre in London, but its ramifications 
 through all the great towns and manu- 
 facturing districts of the country. The 
 designs of the conspirators were to be 
 carried into execution by a general 
 rising in the metropolis, and liberation 
 of all prisoners, whether for debt or 
 
 crimes, to whom an address was already 
 prepared ; by setting fire to the bar- 
 racks of the military, and by an attack 
 simultaneously, on the Tower, Bank, 
 and other points of importance in the 
 metropolis. The tricolor flag was to be 
 the banner under which they were to 
 assemble ; and particular pains were 
 to be taken to conciliate the soldiers, 
 who were the brothers of the people. 
 This project was intended to have been 
 carried into execution at the meeting 
 in Spafields on December 2, and it was 
 only then prevented from being suc- 
 cessful by accidental circumstances ; 
 but the design was only adjourned till 
 after the meeting of Parliament, when 
 the insurrection was to take place. 
 Similar designs had been formed and 
 matured in Manchester, Liverpool, 
 Glasgow, and other great towns, and 
 not a doubt was entertained by the 
 conspirators of entire success. The 
 number of the disaffected who might 
 be expected to rise was estimated 
 at several hundred thousand, chief- 
 ly in the great towns and manufac- 
 turing districts ; and societies were 
 everywhere formed, which, under the 
 name of "Spencean Philanthropists," 
 "Hampden Clubs," and the like, real- 
 ly regulated and directed their move- 
 ments, which were conducted with 
 equal skill and secrecy, and almost 
 entirely by the aid of signs and ciphers, 
 without other -WTitten correspondence. 
 13. Upon receiving these reports, 
 which revealed the precipice on the 
 brink of which the nation stood, Min- 
 isters brought forward a bill for the 
 suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. 
 It was introduced by Lord Sidmouth 
 in the House of Lords, and Lord Castle- 
 reagh in the House of Commons, and 
 met with the most violent and impas- 
 sioned resistance in both Houses. The 
 reports of the secret committees were 
 ridiculed, and declared to be founded 
 on falsehood, misapprehension, and 
 terror ; the measures proposed were 
 pronounced tyrannical and oppressive. 
 The public mind, however, was too 
 strongly impressed with the reality of 
 the danger, from the threatening de- 
 monstrations held in all the great 
 towns, to render it a matter of diffi- 
 
1817.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 165 
 
 culty for the Government to obtain 
 the necessary powers. On the 24th 
 February the bill for the suspension of 
 the Habeas Corpus Act was introduced 
 into the House of Lords by Lord Sid- 
 mouth, and on the same night one for 
 the prevention of seditious meetings. 
 This bill embodied into one act the 
 provisions of the 35 Geo. III., c. 127, 
 relative to tumultuous meetings and 
 debating societies, and the 39 Geo. 
 III., c. 37, regarding corresponding 
 societies. The acts were to be only 
 temporary, and have long since expir- 
 ed ; but one clause in the latter act, 
 which was strongly and justly objected 
 to, declared it punishable with death 
 if a meeting, being summoned by a 
 magistrate to disperse, did not imme- 
 diately do so. Sir Samuel Romilly 
 and Sir James Mackintosh strenuously 
 endeavoured, but in vain, to get seven 
 years' transportation substituted for 
 that extreme penalty. After a violent 
 opposition from the whole Whig and 
 Radical party, the bills passed 'both 
 Houses by very large majorities, that in 
 the Commons being 162 — the numbers 
 265tol03;andintheLordsbyll3to30. 
 14. Armed with these extraordin- 
 ary powers. Government were not slow 
 in taking the necessary steps to put 
 a stop to the insurrection, which was 
 rapidly organising in every part of the 
 country. The information was daily 
 more alarming, and proved that the 
 conspiracy was more widespread and 
 formidable than had been at first ima- 
 gined. Among the rest, the particu- 
 lars of an oath administered in Glasgow 
 to a secret society composed of great 
 numbers of persons were obtained, 
 which, after binding the person taking 
 it to entire secrecy, under the penalty 
 of death, to be inflicted on him by any 
 member of the society, bound him to 
 do his utmost to obtain annual par- 
 liaments and universal suffrage, and to 
 support the same " by moral or phy- 
 sical strength, as the case may require. " 
 A motion to omit the w^ords " or phy- 
 sical," as leading to rebellion, was nega- 
 tived by a large majority. Intelligence 
 of an immediate rising being in con- 
 templation was received at the same 
 time from Manchester, Bolton, Birming- 
 
 ham, and all the principal manufactur- 
 ing towns. On 27th March, Lord Sid- 
 mouth addressed a circular letter to 
 the lord-lieutenants of counties, call- 
 ing their attention to the numerous 
 blasphemous and seditious publica- 
 tions which were circulating through 
 the country, and stating that any 
 justice might issue a warrant to appre- 
 hend a person circulating such publi- 
 cations, upon oath, and hold him to 
 bail. The legality of the opinion thus 
 expressed was strongly contested at 
 the time in both Houses of Parlia- 
 ment, but amply confirmed by the 
 first legal authorities. Eight persons 
 were apprehended on a charge of high 
 treason at Manchester, and eight at 
 Leicester. The Avhole of the latter were 
 convicted, of whom six suffered the 
 last penalty of the law. Severe as this 
 example was, it had not the effect of 
 checking the spirit of disaffection in 
 the manufacturing counties ; and on 
 the 9th June an insurrection broke out 
 in Derbyshire, which bore marks of an 
 extensive conspiracy. It was headed 
 by a man of the name of John Brand- 
 reth, and ere long 500 men were as- 
 sembled, who proceeded in military 
 array to the Butterby iron-works, near 
 Nottingham, from whence, being de- 
 terred by the preparations made for 
 defence, they advanced towards that 
 town. On their way tliither, however, 
 they were met by Mr Rolleston, an 
 intrepid magistrate of the county, with 
 eighteen of the 15th Hussars, under 
 Captain Phillips, by whom they were 
 stopped, pursued, and forty prisoners 
 taken. The native cowardice of guilt, 
 the power of the law, were never more 
 clearly evinced. Brandreth escaped at 
 the time, but was soon after taken, 
 and a special commission having been 
 sent down to Derby in autumn, he 
 was capitally convicted, and suffered 
 death with Turner and Ludlam, his 
 two associates ; while eleven others 
 were transported for life, and eight 
 imprisoned for various periods. 
 
 15. Themenacingaspectof the manu- 
 facturing districts, and the intelligence 
 which Government had now received 
 of the designs and organisation of the 
 conspirators, induced them to apply to 
 
166 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 Parliament for an extension of the pe- 
 riod during which the suspension of 
 the Habeas Corpus Act, which had 
 "been originally limited to the sitting 
 of Parliament, should be continued. 
 The evidence was laid before the same 
 select committee which had pre\'iously 
 reported, by whom a second report was 
 prepared and laid before both Houses in 
 June. Their report stated that a plan 
 of a general insurrection had been or- 
 ganised, which was to break out, in the 
 first instance, in Manchester, on Sun- 
 day 30th March, and to be immediately 
 followed by risings in York, Lancaster, 
 Leicester, Nottingham, Chester, Staf- 
 ford, and Glasgow. It was calculated 
 that 50, 000 persons would be ready to 
 join them in Manchester alone by break 
 of day, and with this immense force 
 they were to march to attack the bar- 
 racks and jails, liberate the prisoners, 
 plunder the houses of all the nobilit}^ 
 and gentry, seize all the arms in the 
 gunsmiths' shops, and issue proclama- 
 tions absolving the people from their 
 allegiance, and establishing a republic. 
 The outbreak in Derbyshire was a part 
 of this design, which was only fnis- 
 trated there and elsewhere by the vigi- 
 lance and courage of the magistrates, 
 and prompt appearance and steady con- 
 duct of the military. Upon this report, 
 the truth of which was abundantly 
 proved by the worst acts committed at 
 the time by the conspirators in various 
 parts of the country, the House of Com- 
 mons, by a majority of 190 to 50, con- 
 tinued the suspension of the Habeas 
 Corpus Act and the operation of the 
 Seditious Meetings Act to the 1st March 
 1818, when they finally expired. 
 
 16. The effect of these vigorous mea- 
 sures was great and decisive, and it was 
 much aided by the favourable harvest, 
 which, though not very abundant, was 
 greatly more so than the one of the 
 preceding year had been. Prices, in 
 consequence, rapidly fell, and in au- 
 tumn confidence began to be generally 
 restored, and industry to resume its 
 wonted labours.* As the distress of 
 1816, and of the first half of 1817, had 
 
 * " In Devonshire every article of life is 
 falling, the panic among the farmers wearing 
 •away, and, above all, that hitherto market- 
 
 been mainly owing to the rapid con- 
 traction of the currency, and conse- 
 quent fall in the price of produce of 
 every kind, agricultural and manufac- 
 turing, far ])elow what the mere open- 
 ing of the Continental harbours could 
 have explained ; so the first symptoms 
 of amendment appeared in the enlarged 
 advances of the country bankers, en- 
 couraged by the suppression of the 
 eftbrts of the disaffected, and the great 
 rise, compared with 1816, which had 
 taken place in the price of mral pro- 
 duce. Prosperity — and it is a mark- 
 worthy circumstance — began with a 
 rise of iniccs, even though tliat rise was 
 owing to a scarcity in the preceding 
 year. The importation of wheat in 
 this year was considerable, compared 
 with Avhat it had been in former years : 
 it amounted to 1,020,000 quarters; 
 whereas the average for six years be- 
 fore had little exceeded 300, 000. * The 
 exports were above an average ; they 
 amountedto £40, 01 1, 000 — a clear proof 
 that" the distress among the manufac- 
 turing classes was o\ving to the failure 
 of the home market, even then at least 
 double all foreign markets put together, 
 from the effects of a contracted cur- 
 rency and general suspension of credit 
 
 able article, discontent, is everywhere dis- 
 appearing. 1 have even,' reason to unite my 
 voice with my neighbours to say we owe our 
 present peaceful and happy prospects to j^our 
 firmness and prompt exertions in keeping 
 down the democrats." — Lord Exmottth to 
 Lord SiDMOUTH, 10th Sept. 1817. " We can- 
 not, indeed, be sufficiently thankful for au 
 improvement in our situation and prospects, 
 in every respect far exceeding our most 
 sanguine, and even the most presumptuous 
 hopes. A public and general expression of 
 gratitude must be required in due season by 
 an order in Council." — Lord Sidmouth to 
 Lord Kenyon, Sept. 30, \%\1 — SidmoutlCs 
 Life, iii. 19S, 199. 
 
 * Importation of 'Wheat and Wheat- 
 flour, FROM 1811 TO 1818. 
 Years. Qra. Years. Qrs. 
 
 1811, . . 238,366 1S17, . . 1,020,949 
 
 1812, . . 244,38.5, 1818, . . 1,593,518 
 
 1813, . . 425,599 
 
 1814, . . 681,333 
 
 1815, . . none. 
 
 1816, . . 225,263 
 
 6)1,814,946 
 Average of 
 six years, 302,491 
 
 —Porter's Progress of the Nation, 139— third 
 edition. 
 
1817.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 167 
 
 and ruinous fall of prices. Government 
 acted alike with wisdom and liberality, 
 in proposing and carrying a proposal, 
 on 28tli April, to advance £500,000 in 
 Great Britain, and £250,000 in Ireland, 
 by the issue of Exchecjuer bills, on 
 proper security, to relieve the general 
 distress — a measure which passed with- 
 out opposition, and had a surprising 
 effect both in alleviating suffering by 
 restoring confidence, and diminisliing 
 discontent by showing sympathy. 
 
 17. This was a very trying year to 
 the exchequer of the empire, for it had 
 to contend at once with a diminution 
 in the ordinary sources of revenue, in 
 consequence of the general distress, 
 and the huge gap in the public income, 
 arising from the taking off of the in- 
 come-tax and Avar malt-tax in the pre- 
 ceding year. The total revenue, which 
 in 1816 had been £62,264,000, in 1817 
 fell to £52,195,000; the war taxes 
 amounted only to £14,865,000, instead 
 of £16,665,000 as in the preceding 
 year. The total produce of the taxes, 
 irrespective of loans, was in 1816 
 £57,360,000 for Great Britain alone ; 
 in 1817, £55,783,259 for Great Britain 
 and Ireland together, even witK the 
 aid of aiTears of Avar taxes. On the 
 other hand, the public expenditure 
 of 1817 amounted to £68,875,000, of 
 which no less than £44,108,000 was 
 for the interest of the public debt and 
 the sinking fund, being for the united 
 kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.* 
 In these circumstances, a very consider- 
 able loan in some form or another be- 
 came indispensable ; and the Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer provided for the de- 
 ficiency by issuing Exchequer bills to 
 the extent of £9,000,000, trusting to 
 
 a gradual improvement in the revenue 
 to make up the remainder. The sum 
 applied this year to the reduction of 
 debt was £14,514,000 — so powerful 
 did the sinking fund still continue, 
 notwithstanding all that had been done 
 to cripple its operations ; so that, after 
 taking into view the sum borrowed, 
 above £5,000,000 Avas really applied 
 to the reduction of debt. 
 
 18. Ireland, being AAdiolly an agricul- 
 tural country, suffered, as might Avell be 
 imagined, beyond any other, from the 
 disastrous fall of prices produced by 
 an artificial scarcity of money, and the 
 subsequent rise, OAving to a real scarcity 
 in the supply, Avhich had taken place in 
 the last tAvo years. So serious did the 
 agrarian disturbances in that country 
 become that, on the 11th March, Gov- 
 ernment brought forAvard a measure 
 intended for their permanent coercion, 
 and Avhich has been attended by the very 
 best effects. It Avas inti'oduced by Mr 
 Peel, the Secretary for Ireland, after- 
 Avards Sib. Robert Peel, Avhose mea- 
 sures Avill occupy so large and important 
 a place in this History. His character, 
 hoAvever, will come in more appropri- 
 ately after the great changes Avhich he 
 introduced into our commercial policy, 
 and their effects, are considered. The 
 object of the bill w^as to establish a 
 general police force capable of acting 
 together in any county which the Lord 
 Lieutenant might direct, that officer 
 having the poAver of determining what 
 portion of the expense AA'as to be laid on 
 the inhabitants. The measure met A\ith 
 general approbation, and proved so effi- 
 cacious that Government did not find it 
 necessary to extend the suspension of 
 the Habeas Corpus Act to Ireland, and 
 
 * Expenditure of Great Britain and Ireland fOR 1817. 
 
 Interest of debt and sinking fund, ..... £44,108,233 
 
 Do. on Exchequer bills, ...... 1,815,926 
 
 Other charges on consolidated fund, .... 2,303,602 
 
 Civil government of Scotland, ..... 130,646 
 
 Lesser expenses, ....... 451,403 
 
 NaAT, • . . 6,473,062 
 
 Ordnance, ........ 1,435,401 
 
 Army, deducting troops in France, .... 9,614,864 
 
 Foreign loans, ........ 33,272 
 
 Local issues, ........ 42,585 
 
 Miscellaneous, ........ 2,466,483 
 
 —Pari. Deb., xxxviii. 26, Pari Ecp. 
 
 £68,875,477 
 
168 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. IV. 
 
 were able to reduce the military force in 
 that country from 25, 000 to 22, 000 men, 
 and the artillery from 400 to 200 guns. 
 19. English legislation, in this in- 
 stance, undoubtedly conferred a very 
 great boon upon Ireland ; but the same 
 cannot be said of a measure introduced 
 by English influence into Scotland, 
 and which came into operation in this 
 year — viz., the extension of jury trial 
 to civil causes. Scotland, from the 
 remotest period, has had laws, institu- 
 tions, and courts of its own. Its in- 
 habitants may well be proud of them, 
 for the greatest improvements which, 
 during the last eighty years, have been 
 introduced into the law of England, 
 or which its wisest legislators are now 
 anxiously labouring to eftect, are no- 
 thing but transcripts of the statutes 
 which, a hundred and fifty years be- 
 fore, had been inserted on the statute- 
 book of its northern and comparatively 
 barbarous neighbour.* In 1816, how- 
 ever, the Anglomania was very ardent ; 
 and, partly to aid the progress of Lib- 
 eral ideas and the Liberal party in 
 Scotland, partly to procure a dignified 
 and easy retii-ement for a very amiable 
 man and agreeable companion, f who 
 had long been on intimate terms with 
 the Prince- Regent, a bill was passed, 
 introducing jury trial, without limita- 
 tion, in all cases where oral evidence 
 was required or might be anticipated, 
 in Scotland, and establishing a court, 
 specially with an English la^^y er at its 
 head, for the disposal of such cases. 
 Great was the joy of the popular lead- 
 ers in the northern part of the island 
 at this change, which was an entire 
 innovation ; for though Scotland, from 
 the earliest ages, had been familiar 
 with jury trial in criminal cases, it had 
 never been known or attempted in civil 
 causes. Unbounded were the antici- 
 pations of the blessings to the country, 
 and the training of its inhabitants to 
 their social duties, which would result 
 from the change. It in every respect 
 received fair play. The judges on the 
 
 * See Alison's Essays, vol. ii. 635, " Tlie 
 Old Scottish Parliament," where this subject 
 is fully gone into. 
 
 t William Adam, Esq. of Blair-Adam, who 
 was made the head of the new court. 
 
 bench gave it every possible encourage- 
 ment ; the ablest counsel at the bar, 
 and they were many and powerful at 
 that time, supported it by their energy 
 and adorned it by their talents ; and 
 a clause was introduced into a subse- 
 quent act, passed a few years after, 
 authorising the transference by simple 
 motion of all actions involving parole 
 proof from inferior courts, when the de- 
 mand of the plaintiff" was above £40 
 sterling. Under these enactments, 
 if the mode of trial had been suited 
 to the people, nearly the whole legal 
 business of the country should have 
 been carried into the jury court, 
 
 20. Nevertheless it turned out quite 
 the reverse ; and the attempt to intro- 
 duce jury trial in civil cases into Scot- 
 land remains a lasting and instructive 
 proof of the impossibility of trans- 
 planting institutions from one country 
 to another, without the greatest risk 
 of entire failure, or ruinous disasters 
 to the State into which they are intro- 
 duced. Jury trial has been, and still 
 is, a total failure in Scotland ; and the 
 opinion has become general among its 
 most experienced practitioners, that it is 
 one of the greatest curses that has ever 
 been inflicted upon the country. The 
 reason is, that it is totally at variance 
 with the habits, institutions, and wish- 
 es of the people. Jury trial succeeds 
 in England, because it is not the trial 
 of the jury, but the trial of the judge ; 
 it has failed in Scotland, because it is 
 not the trial of the judge, but the trial 
 of the jury. Long habit, centuries of 
 practice, have accustomed the English 
 juries to follow the suggestions of the 
 bench ; and, except in a few cases which 
 \4olently excite the public mind, those 
 suggestions are very seldom disregard- 
 ed. In Scotland, where the native 
 turn of the people is opinionative and 
 pugnacious, and the great object of 
 ambition with all is to get their own 
 way, the first principle with juries has 
 too often been to assert their indepen- 
 dence by disregarding the bench, and 
 show their superiority to others by 
 throwing overboard the witnesses. 
 Thus chance and prejudice have come 
 so often to sway their verdicts, that it 
 has passed into a common sa^inor that 
 
1817.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 169 
 
 the issue of a jury trial is as subject to 
 hazard as the game of rouge-et-noir, 
 and that nothing is certain in it but 
 delay and expense. The popular lead- 
 ers have not courage to admit in pub- 
 lic the entire failure of tlieir favourite 
 system of training the national mind ; 
 but their sense of its unsuitableness to 
 Scotland has already been evinced by 
 an act of Parliament, giving litigants 
 the means of escaping the much-dread- 
 ed ordeal ; * and so strongly has the 
 national feeling on the subject been 
 declared, that after six - and - thirty 
 years of training and bolstering up, 
 the cases tried by jury in all Scotland 
 have dwindled away to twenty or 
 thirty in a year ; and instead of the 
 Court of Session being overwhelmed, 
 as was expected, with hundreds of 
 cases brought from the sheriff courts 
 to obtain the blessings of jury trial, the 
 sheriff courts are overAvhelmed with as 
 many thousand cases, brought before 
 them to escape the certain expense 
 and uncertain issue of that species of 
 decision, f 
 
 21. The uncertainty of jury trial, 
 in cases which strongly excited the 
 public mind, was strikingly evinced 
 in England itself during this very year. 
 Watson, the father of the culprit who 
 had shot the gunsmith who defended 
 his shop in the Spafield riot on De- 
 cember 2d, was tried for high treason 
 at Westminster Hall, and acquitted 
 by the verdict of a London jury. This 
 decision is perhaps not to be regretted, 
 as the acts with which they were charg- 
 ed, though amounting to sedition and 
 
 * The Act 10 and 11 Victoria, introduced 
 by the late Lord-Advocate Rutherfurd, one 
 of the ablest and most accomplished of the 
 Scotch Bar, whom the author is proud to call 
 his early and steady friend. 
 
 t The cases brought into the sheriff court 
 of Lanarkshire alone, on -written pleadings, 
 are now about 2000 annually ; in the small- 
 debt court, in the same county, which de- 
 cides, on oral pleading, cases under £12, 
 above 20,000. The county courts of England, 
 which have become so popular, and risen to 
 such importance in so short a time, have 
 mainly succeeded by the suitors avoiding jury 
 trial ; and if their jurisdiction is extended, 
 like that of tlie sheriffs in Scotland, to cases 
 of debt and contract of any amount, it is easy 
 to see they will drain away nearly all the 
 business from 'Westminster Hall and the 
 circuit assizes. 
 
 riot of the most aggravated kind, could 
 scarcely be held, in reason at least, 
 whatever it might be in law, to amount 
 to high treason, or a design to over- 
 tarn the Government ; and the indict- 
 ment was brought for the heavier of- 
 fence, mainly in consequence of the 
 English law recognising at that period 
 no medium between riot or sedition, 
 which were misdemeanours punishable 
 only by fine and imprisonment, and 
 high treason, which Avas chastised by 
 death. The wiser and more humane 
 Scotch law recognised transportation 
 as the appropriate punishment for 
 aggravated cases of riot, and sedition 
 bordering on treason — a punishment 
 which has since, by special statute, 
 been introduced into England and Ire- 
 land for such offences. But the same 
 cannot be said of another memorable 
 trial, which took place in the same 
 year in the Court of King's Bench — of 
 Mr Hone, for blasphemous libel. He 
 was tried three times — once before Mr 
 Justice Abbot, and twice before Chief- 
 Justice Ellenborough — and on all these 
 occasions exhibited a union of self- 
 possession, readiness, and talent wor- 
 thy of a better cause. He was on all 
 the three acquitted ; on the two last 
 chiefly in consequence of the overbear- 
 ing manner of the presiding judge, who 
 unfortunately was as remarkable for 
 the haste of his temper as for the 
 power of his intellect. 
 
 22. The contradictory nature of the 
 verdicts obtained in three State trials 
 in the same year, and in regard to 
 crimes of substantially the same de- 
 scription, suggests considerations of the 
 highest importance for the right gov- 
 ernment of mankind. Brandreth and 
 twenty -three of his associates were 
 sentenced to death at Derby for ex- 
 actly the same crime for which Wat- 
 son and his accomplices were acquitted 
 in London. There can be no doubt 
 that there was a great defect both in 
 the law and institutions of the coun- 
 try, when at the same time, and on so 
 momentous a crisis, the same crimi- 
 nals shared so different a fate. Nor is 
 it difficult to see what this defect is. 
 So far as the law is concerned, it con- 
 sisted chiefly in 'the absurdity of the 
 
170 
 
 HISTOKY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. IV. 
 
 English law, -which admitted no me- 
 dium between high treason, punishable 
 with death and its terrible penalties, 
 and sedition, which could be coerced 
 only by fine or imprisonment. It was 
 to evade this difficulty that the astute- 
 ness of tlie English lawyers invented 
 the doctrine of constructive treason, or 
 the inference as to an intent to depose, 
 kill, or levy war against the Sovereign, 
 from acts of a seditious tendency. But 
 although this doctrine is firmly estab- 
 lished in the decisions and dicta of the 
 English judges, it has often been re- 
 sisted by the common sense and just 
 feelings of the English juries, ancl al- 
 ways combated by all the eloquence 
 and ability of the English Bar. It is 
 next to impossible to persuade a jury 
 that the leaders of a mob, which en- 
 gages in the most outrageous acts of 
 pillage, violence, and depredation, 
 have a design to dethrone or assassin- 
 ate the Sovereign. To get drunk or 
 fill their pockets is probably their ul- 
 timatum. It was this which led to 
 "Watson's acquittal, as it had done to 
 the escape of Harcly, Thelwall, Home 
 Tooke, and many of the most danger- 
 ous State criminals recorded in Eng- 
 lish history. Indicted for sedition and 
 riot, they could not by possibility have 
 escaped ; and if transported, they 
 would have suffered a punishment 
 suitable, and not excessive, for their 
 crimes. In prosecution, the wisest 
 course always is to select the minor 
 offence, unless the major has, beyond 
 all doubt, been incurred ; in legisla- 
 tion, to affix no punishment to crimes 
 but such as the general feelings of the 
 country will permit to be carried rigor- 
 ously into execution. 
 
 23. The salutary effect of the sus- 
 pension of the Habeas Corpus Act in 
 this year, and the deathblow which it 
 gave, in a short time, to the machina- 
 tions and efforts of the disaffected, sug- 
 gests the defect in our institutions to 
 which this distressing ^^ncertainty in 
 the conviction of State crimes is to be 
 ascribed. This is in the idea, so plaus- 
 ible and unhappily so prevalent, that 
 their pi'osecution should be left to the 
 unaided efforts of the common law. 
 It no doubt sounds" well to say that 
 
 Government seeks for no extraordinary 
 powers, and combats sedition and trea- 
 son with no other weapons but those 
 of the common and statute law ; and 
 loud cheers seldom fail to follow such 
 an announcement in the House of 
 Commons. Nevertheless, it is found- 
 ed on an entire fallacy ; and perhaps 
 nothing has contributed so much to 
 perpetuate disorder, distrust, and con- 
 sequent misery, both in Great Britain 
 and Ireland, as this miserable delu- 
 sion. Extraordinary cases require ex- 
 traordinary remedies ; it is in vain to 
 attempt to combat them with ordinary 
 ones. Jury trial, and the trial by that 
 means of subordinate criminals, does 
 very well in common crimes, or pass- 
 ing local disorders; but it is wholly 
 unsuitable to those more serious exi- 
 gencies, when a large party in the State 
 is banded for some common political 
 purj^ose which is to be brought about 
 by violence and intimidation. To 
 leave everything to the ordinary reme- 
 dies of the law, in such cases, is to 
 leave it to be worked by men liable to 
 be influenced by prejudice or intimida- 
 tion. It is, in eftect, little else but 
 proclaiming impunity to crimes even 
 of the deepest dye; or wreaking the 
 vengeance of the law upon miserable 
 and deluded followers, while the sel- 
 fish and guilty leaders, whom it is as 
 impossible to reach by the verdict of a 
 jury as it is easy to reach by an act 
 of the executive, remain wholly un- 
 touched. The suspension of the Ha- 
 beas Corpus Act, which enables Gov- 
 ernment to apprehend such leaders 
 upon grounds perfectly sufficient to 
 justify their detention, though theu' 
 weight would not be admitted by a 
 jury in excited times, is the appropri- 
 ate remedy. The true object of such 
 apprehension should be, not to im- 
 prison the persons seized, but to send 
 them out of the country, under pain 
 of transportation if they returned be- 
 fore the expiration of a limited time. 
 The ostracism of Athens, the banish- 
 ment of Rome, were wise and humane 
 institutions, had they not been often 
 abused by a tvTant majority ; and he 
 has little reason to complain who is 
 intercepted in his i^rojects of revolu- 
 
1817. 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 171 
 
 tionising his country, and sent, till 
 quieter times return, to ruminate on 
 social change on the banks of the 
 Leman Lake, or dream of liuman per- 
 fectibility among the crowds of Paris. 
 24. Although the parliamentary 
 season of 1817 was not distinguished 
 by debates of the same surpassing mag- 
 nitude and importance as that of the 
 preceding year, yet there were one or 
 two things deserving of notice, as in- 
 dicating the silent march of thought, 
 ■and consequently of future events, 
 which characterised it. The first of 
 these was a motion by Mr Brougham 
 on the state of the trade and manu- 
 factures of the nation, the scope and 
 aim of Avhich will at once appear from 
 the resolutions which he moved, * and 
 which were negatived by a majority of 
 55, the numbers being 118 to 63. 
 These resolutions, being by inference 
 condemnatory of the neglect alleged 
 to have been evinced by Ministers, in 
 not [securing for the country those 
 commercial advantages which might 
 have been obtained by treaty with for- 
 eign nations at the conclusion of the 
 ■ war, were in the main of a party char- 
 acter, and therefore of passing interest. 
 But there were some remarks which 
 fell from the able and inquisitive mind 
 of the mover which were of lasting im- 
 I)ortance, and, like the first streaks of 
 light in the eastern horizon, betokened 
 the complexion of the day which was 
 beginning to dawn. "The period," 
 said he, "is now arrived when, the war 
 being closed, and prodigious changes 
 
 * " 1. That the trade and manufactures of 
 the country are reduced to a state of such 
 unexampled difficulty as demands the serious 
 attention of this house. 2. That those diffi- 
 culties are materially increased by the policy 
 pursued Avith respect to our foreign com- 
 merce, and that a revision of this system 
 ought forthwith to be undertaken by the 
 House. 3. That the continuance of those 
 difficulties is materially increased by the 
 severe pressure of taxation under which the 
 country labours, and which ought, by every 
 practicable means, to be lightened. 4. That 
 the system of foreign policy pursued by his 
 Majesty's Ministers has not been such as to 
 obtain for the people of this country those 
 commercial advantages which the influence 
 of Great Britain in foreign courts fairly en- 
 titled them to expect." — Mr Brougham's 
 Resolutions, March 13, 1S17. Pari. Deiates, 
 XXXV. 1044. 
 
 having taken place through the world, 
 it becomes absolutely necessar}^ to 
 enter on a careful but fearless revision 
 of our whole commercial system, that 
 we may be enabled safely, yet prompt- 
 ly, to eradicate those faults which the 
 lapse of time has occasioned or dis- 
 played ; to retrace our steps Avhere wc 
 shall find that they have deviated from 
 the line of true policy ; to adjust and 
 accommodate our laws to the alteration 
 of circumstances ; to abandon many 
 prejudices, alike antiquated and sense- 
 less, unsuited to the advanced age in 
 which we live, and unworthy of the 
 soimd judgment which distinguishes 
 the nation. In the Navigation Laws, 
 in particular, some change is loudly 
 called for. Whatever may have been 
 the good policy of that law when it 
 was first introduced, I am quite clear 
 that we have adhered to it for a cen- 
 tury after the circumstances which 
 alone justified its adoption have ceased 
 to exist." 
 
 25. If these ideas of Mr Brougham 
 were descriptive of the germ of the 
 doctrines, the fniit of Adam Smith's 
 philosophy, which afterwards so widely 
 expanded, and occasioned so entire a 
 revolution in the commercial policy of 
 England, other acts of the legislature, 
 at the same time, indicated the setting 
 in of an under-current, destined to 
 bring nothing but unmixed good to 
 society. Almost unnoticed, amid other 
 parliamentary business which at the 
 time excited much more attention, a 
 bill passed both Houses this year 
 establishing Savings Banks — institu- 
 tions Avhich have since spread so widely, 
 and prospered so immensely in all parts 
 of the island, and which, by encourag- 
 ing habits of prudence, frugality, and 
 self-control among the working classes, 
 and fostering the generous afi'ections 
 in preference to the selfish passions, 
 have gone far to elevate the character 
 of the most deserving of the poor, and 
 to counteract the many causes of de- 
 basement which since that time have 
 spread such ruin amongst them. In 
 the same session, the increasing human- 
 ity of the general mind was evinced by 
 strong statements in the House of Com- 
 mons regarding military flogging, the 
 
172 
 
 HISTORY OF EUEOPE. 
 
 [chap. IV. 
 
 'barbaritj'- of which was daily attract- 
 ing more attention, so as to foreshadow 
 its abolition at no distant period ; and 
 a bill brought in by General Thornton 
 for abolishing the degrading punish- 
 ment of the lash in the case of females, 
 received the unanimous assent of the 
 same House. 
 
 26. The respective balance of parties 
 in the House of Commons was materi- 
 ally affected this year by the return to 
 the parliamentary arena of the most 
 eloquent man on one side, and the 
 death of two, not the least eminent, 
 on the other. Mr Canning— who, ever 
 since his rupture with Lord Castlereagh 
 in 1810, had been out of office, and 
 since 1814 in a sort of honourable 
 banishment as ambassador at Lisbon — 
 returned to England on the invitation 
 of the Prince-Regent, and accepted 
 the office of President of the Board of 
 Control, vacant by the death of the 
 Earl of Buckinghamshire. His name 
 will occupy hereafter a prominent 
 place ; his cleeds and speeches strongly 
 arrest the attention in the course of 
 this history. In June 1816, Mr Pon- 
 sonby, Avho had long discharged with 
 zeal, ability, and straightforward hon- 
 our, the arduous duties of leader of 
 the Opposition, died ; and his lament- 
 ed loss Avas shortly succeeded by that 
 of Mr Horner, a much younger, but 
 more rising and promising man, who 
 expired at Pisa, whither he had gone 
 on account of a pulmonary complaint, 
 on 8th February 1817. 
 
 27. Mr Horner was born in 1778, 
 passed the Bar in Edinburgh in 1800, 
 was called to the English Bar in 1807, 
 and entered the House of Commons in 
 1806. The son of a respectable linen- 
 di-aper in Edinburgh, he owed his ele- 
 vation in no degree to aristocratic or 
 parliamentary influences, so powerful 
 at that period in procuring advance- 
 ment for others into situations for 
 which they were not fitted by nature. 
 Like Mr Canning, Sir S. Romilly, Lord 
 Eldon, and many of the greatest men 
 whom the country can boast, he Avas 
 the architect of his own fortune, and 
 entered on his public career from no 
 other influence but that arising from 
 his known and acknowledged abilities. 
 
 His first seat was for a Treasury 
 borough (St Ives), for which, by the 
 influence of Lord Kinnaird and the 
 Whig Government then in power, he 
 was elected in June 1806 ; so that, 
 like all the other great men of the day, 
 he owed his entry into public life to 
 the nomination boroughs. So great 
 were his abilities, and so high the re- 
 spect entertained for his character, that, 
 had he lived, he would beyond all 
 doubt have been the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer when the Whigs came into 
 power in November 1830, and possibly 
 risen to still higher situations during 
 the long continuance of that party in 
 office for the next thirty years. 
 
 28. He was the most intellectual 
 and profound of that remarkable school 
 of eminent men who were educated 
 and entered life together at that period 
 in Edinburgh. Less eloquent and dis- 
 cursive than Brougham, less aerial and 
 elegant than Jeffrey, he was a much 
 deeper thinker than either, and brought 
 more systematically the powers of a 
 clear understanding and logical rea- 
 soning to bear upon a limited number 
 of subjects, to which he directed his 
 attention. These he mastered with 
 consummate ability. Many of his pa- 
 pers on the corn-laws and the currency 
 in the Edinburgh Review, as well as 
 his speeches in Parliament on the same 
 subjects, are models of clear and accu- 
 rate reasoning. Yet must history con- 
 fess with regret that he stopped short 
 in the admirable career on which he 
 had entered, and bequeathed to pos- 
 terity a host of errors when he was on 
 the very verge of the most important 
 truths. He was on the edge of inesti- 
 mable discoveries in the most abstruse 
 branch of political science, to which 
 he had been led by the native vigour 
 of his understanding and the clearness 
 of his perception, when he was turned 
 aside and riveted in error by the in- 
 fluence of party. He was the main 
 author of the Bullion Report of 1810, 
 and he bequeathed the adoption of its 
 principles to the nation by the bill of 
 1819, restoring cash pa}Tnents. What 
 those effects were will abundantly ap- 
 pear in the sequel, and need not be 
 here anticipated. It is sufficient to 
 
1817. 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 173 
 
 observe, as a curious proof of the warp- 
 ing even of the strongest intellects by 
 the chain of party,* that while he 
 clearly saw and has ably illustrated 
 the obvious truths — that the great rise 
 of prices during the Avar was owing to 
 the copious issue of paper currency, 
 and that the greatest danger to he 
 apprehended on the return of peace 
 was tlie impossibility of discharging 
 the debts, public and private, con- 
 tracted during a plentiful circulating 
 medium, with the resources of a con- 
 tracted one — he could discern no other 
 mode of averting these dangers but by 
 instantly rushing into the contracted 
 currency ; and that while he was well 
 aware that variations in the amount of 
 the circulating medium are the great- 
 est calamity which can befall a mercan- 
 tile nation, the only way in which he 
 deemed it practicable to avert them 
 Avas to base it entirely on gold, the 
 most eagerly desired, easily transport- 
 ed, and therefore evanescent of earthly 
 things. 
 
 29. The close of this year was mark- 
 ed by a most melancholy event, which, 
 more than any other in the recollec- 
 tion of man, WTung with anguish the 
 heart of the whole nation. This was 
 the death of the Princess Charlotte of 
 "Wales, who expired, after severe and 
 protracted suffering, on the 6th Nov- 
 ember. This charming princess, whose 
 beauty, high spirit, and amiable man- 
 ners, had endeared her to the whole 
 people, had lived in domestic felicity, 
 known only by never - failing deeds 
 of kindness, since her marriage in l^Iay 
 of the preceding year. She Avas un- 
 derstood to be in the way of giAdng an 
 heir to the monarchy ; and as the 
 direct line of succession depended on 
 the success of her accouchement, the 
 attention of the nation Avas turned Avith 
 the most intense anxiety to the coming 
 event from Avhich so much Avas hoped. 
 It came at last, but tlie angel of death 
 at the same time entered the bridal 
 
 * He seriously complained to Mr Jeffrey, 
 then its editor, that the EdiJihuryh Review 
 was too independent, and not sufficiently 
 Whiggish — a cliarge Avhich has never before 
 or since, it is believed, been brought against 
 that celebrated journal. — Cockburn's Life of 
 Jeffrey, i. 47S. 
 
 chamber. So long and severe were 
 the sufferings of the princess, during a 
 ]n'otracted labour of forty-eight hours, 
 that it became necessary to sacrifice 
 the infant— an uncommonly fine and 
 healthy prince — to her preservation ; 
 and the painful sacrifice AA'as made in 
 vain. Such Avas the exhaustion of the 
 royal mother, after the deliveiy Avas 
 over, that she sank rapidly, and ex- 
 jiired a fcAV hours after. So great was 
 his despair at this calamitous event, 
 that the principal medical attendant 
 of her Royal Highness, in a fit of in- 
 sanity or despair, committed suicide a 
 short time afterwards. 
 
 30. No words can paint the univer- 
 sal consternation and grief Avhich seized 
 the entire nation on this calamitous 
 event,|Avhieh buried an illustrious prin- 
 cess, the sole daughter of England, 
 and a royal posterity in a single tomb. 
 Nothing comparable to it had been 
 seen in the country since the head of 
 Charles I. fell upon the scaffold. Then 
 was seen hoAV universal and deep-seat- 
 ed is the loyalty of the British heart, 
 and hoAV strong and indelible the 
 chords Avliich bind the people to their 
 sovereign. Every house, from the ducal 
 palace to the peasant's cottage, Avas 
 filled with mourning ; tears Avere seen 
 in every eye ; the bereaA-'cment AA^as felt 
 by all Avith the intensity of domestic 
 affliction. Business Avas generally sus- 
 pended ; scarce a word was spoken 
 even by the most intimate friends AA'hen 
 they met in the streets — they pressed 
 hands and AA'ent on in silence. The 
 hum of men ceased ; no sound Avas 
 heard but the mournful clang of the 
 church - bells, which from morn till 
 night gave forth their melancholy 
 peal ; minute-guns Avere fired from all 
 the batteries and ships — 
 
 "The flag was hoisted half-mast high, 
 
 A mournful signal on the main, 
 
 Seen only when the illustrious die, 
 
 Or are in glorious battle slain." 
 
 A royal proclamation ordered a gen- 
 eral mourning. The injunction Avas 
 unnecessary ; every human being above 
 the rank of a pauper spontaneously 
 assumed the garb of Avoe. On the 18th 
 November, A\dien the funeral at Wind- 
 sor took place Avith great solemnity, 
 
174 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap, IV. 
 
 every church and chapel in the United 
 Kingdom Avas opened and filled with 
 mourning multitudes, whose grief could 
 lind no other alleviation but in its 
 united expression. Those who con- 
 sider loyalty as a merely instinctive 
 feeling, which wears out and becomes 
 extinct in the progress of society, Avith 
 the enlightenment of the general mind 
 and the popularising of institutions, 
 Avould do well to contemplate this 
 memorable event, and to search the 
 annals of the Avorld for a parallel to 
 the grief which then AATung the Brit- 
 ish heart among rude and uneducated 
 nations, the most remarkable for at- 
 tachment to the throne. 
 
 31. The social condition of the coun- 
 try and its general prosperity were 
 much improved in the year 1818. The 
 change had begun in the middle of the 
 preceding year, and arose chiefly from 
 prices of agricultural produce having 
 so much risen, and the home market 
 for our manufactures having in con- 
 sequence so much improved from the 
 increased ability of the rural popula- 
 tion to purchase them. The Funds, 
 that sure test of public prosperity, rose 
 30 per cent ; in 1817 the Three per 
 Cents ascended from 62, in January 
 1817, to 83 in December of the same 
 year. The bankruptcies in England, 
 which in February 1816 were 209, were 
 reduced in September to 61 ; the total 
 was 1575 in the year, being a decrease 
 of 454 from the preceding year, when 
 they had been 2029. These iinmistak- 
 able symptoms of general ameliora- 
 tion continued throughout 1818. The 
 Funds maintained the level they had 
 reached on the close of the preceding 
 3^ear ; and the bankruptcies were 519 
 less : they sank to 1056, being only 
 * Net revenue of Great Britain in 
 
 „ in 
 
 — Portek's Pari Tables. 
 
 half of what they had been in the year 
 1816. The revenue, without the im- 
 position of any new taxes, rose above 
 £1,700,000 ; and the money applied 
 to the reduction of debt, which in 
 
 1817 had been £14,514,000, rose in 
 
 1818 to £15,339,000, being somewhat 
 above the loans of the year. * Wheat, 
 on an average of the year, sold at 98s. 
 — a high price indeed, but a consider- 
 able reduction from the preceding year, 
 when it had been 116s. ; and such was 
 the affluence of the Bank of England, 
 and the general confidence reposed in 
 that establishment, that the Chan- 
 cellor of the Exchequer, in the last 
 discussion on the subject in 1817, 
 boasted, not without reason, that the 
 bank had begun voluntarily to resume 
 payments in cash ; that nothing would 
 prevent the restriction of cash pay- 
 ments from expiring in July 1818 ; 
 and that even in foreign countries the 
 notes of the bank were taken in pre- 
 ference to gold. 
 
 32. The cause of this great improve- 
 ment in the afl'airs of the country, and, 
 of consequence, of the Government, was 
 the continued suspension of cash pay- 
 ments to the 5th July 1818, according 
 to the act of 1817, already noticed. 
 As the dreadful crash and distress of 
 1816 had arisen from the sudden and 
 prodigious contraction of the country 
 bankers' issues, which took place from 
 the prospect of immediately being 
 obliged to pay their notes in cash — 
 which at once reduced their circula- 
 tion from £22,700,000 in 1814, to 
 £15,894,000 in 1816— so the postpone- 
 ment of cash papnents by the bill of 
 1816 had a directly opposite effect, i* 
 The circulation both of the Bank of 
 England and the country banks in- 
 
 1817, 
 isis, 
 
 £52,055,913 
 53,747,795 
 
 t Tears. j Bank of England. 
 
 Circulation of 
 Country Banks. 
 
 1 
 Total. 
 
 1814 
 1S15 
 1816 
 1817 
 1818 
 
 £24,801,080 
 27,261,650 
 27,013,620 
 27,397,900 
 27,771,070 
 
 £22,700,000 
 19,011,000 
 15,096,000 
 15,894,000 
 20,507,000 
 
 £47,501,080 
 46,272,650 
 42,109,620 
 43,291,900 
 48,278,070 
 
 — Alison's Europe, chap, xcvi., Appendix. 
 
1818.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 175 
 
 creased rapidly with the period during 
 wliich cash payments were postpon- 
 ed, and in 1818 it had become above 
 £6,000,000 more than it had been in 
 1816. The necessary effect of this in- 
 crease in the circulation was a restora- 
 tion of confidence, a general rise of 
 prices, augmented undertakings by ca- 
 pitalists, and improved comfort among 
 the labouring classes. The greater 
 activity thus communicated to trade 
 appeared in the increase of the exports, 
 Avhich rose in 1818 to £46,603,000 
 declared value, from £41,761,000 in 
 the preceding year ; but the vast 
 addition made to the wellbeing of all 
 classes Avas evinced still more clearly 
 by the great increase of the imports, 
 which advanced from £27,000,000 iu 
 1816 to £36,000,000 in 1818.* 
 
 33. So confident were the directors 
 of the Bank of England in the con- 
 tinuance of these favourable circum- 
 stances, and of their ability to continue 
 cash payments, that in January 1817 
 they issued a notice that they were 
 prepared to make payments in specie of 
 outstanding notes of a certain descrip- 
 tion, amounting to about £1,000,000 
 sterling. Gold was so plentiful that 
 it had fallen to £3, 18s. 6d. an ounce, 
 and very little of the cash at that rate 
 was taken up. The success of this ex- 
 periment induced the directors to issue 
 a notice, in October 1817, that they 
 would pay cash for notes of every de- 
 scription issued prior to the 1st Janu- 
 ary of that year. But the result of 
 this experiment was very different, 
 and gave a premonitory warning of 
 what might be expected to ensue if 
 the suspension of cash payments was 
 permanently closed. The deficient har- 
 vest of the preceding year had caused 
 a considerable importation of grain, 
 amounting to above 1,500,000 quar- 
 ters of wheat alone — a quantity unex- 
 ampled in those days ; and to meet 
 the bills drawn for payment of their 
 
 price, and also supply the wants of the 
 numerous English who were Hocking 
 to the Continent in search of health, 
 amusement, or economy, and pay up 
 a French loan of £5,000,000, a very 
 great drain for gold set in upon the 
 Bank, and the sum paid in cash for 
 these notes before the end of the year 
 amounted to £2,600, 000. This alarm- 
 ing drain, and the total disappearance 
 from the country of the coin thus 
 withdrawn from the coffers of the Bank, 
 at length convinced Ministers of the 
 impolicy of enforcing the return to 
 cash payments on 5th July 1818, as it 
 then stood regulated by law, and led 
 to important debates in both houses 
 of Parliament, which threw increasing 
 light on that all-important subject. 
 
 34. On the part of Opposition it was 
 urged by Mr Tierney, Lord Althorpe, 
 and Sir H. Parnell : " We have now, 
 at the close of the Avar, in round num- 
 bers, £800,000,000 of funded, and 
 £40,000,000 of unfimded debt— rather 
 an appalling prospect, against which it 
 is futile to set oft' our Sinking Fund of 
 £14,000,000, since, although we keep 
 up that fund, it is done only by bor- 
 roA\-ing money annually, in Exchequer 
 bills or otherwise, to nearly an equal 
 amount. The advantageous terms on 
 which it appears a loan could now be 
 negotiated, proves indeed the present 
 prosperity of the country. But is 
 there any man in his senses who would 
 maintain that this prosperity should 
 be based on a circulation not convert- 
 ible into specie i On all sides it would 
 be heard, God forbid ! The suspension 
 of cash payments was never defended 
 but as a measure of necessity, justified 
 by an imprecedented combination of 
 circumstances. How, then, has it 
 happened that, in the third year of 
 peace, the same measure is necessary, 
 which was only justified by the extra- 
 ordinary pressure of a most extraordi- 
 nary war ? Why is the pledge given as 
 
 • Tears. 
 
 Exports, official value, 
 Britisli, Irish, and Colonial. 
 
 Imports, official value. 
 
 Exports, declared value. 
 
 1816 
 
 1817 
 1818 
 
 £49,197,850 
 £0,404,111 
 53,560,338 
 
 £27,431,604 
 30,834,299 
 36,889,182 
 
 £41,657.873 
 41,761,132 
 46,603,249 
 
 -Porter's Progress of the Nation, third edition, p. 356. 
 
176 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. IV. 
 
 to tlie return to cash payments in July 
 1S18 not to be redeemed ? It may be 
 true that British capitalists, from a 
 superabundance of money, have en- 
 gaged largely in foreign loans, and 
 that seventy-nine thousand travellers 
 are gratifying their desires by going 
 abroad ; but are such trivial circum- 
 , stances to be gravely stated as grounds 
 for an entire subversion of our mone- 
 tary system ? The suspension of Mr 
 Pitt in 1797 was expressly rested on 
 the most overpowering necessity — a 
 general run upon the bank, which 
 brouglit it to the brink of ruin — a uni- 
 versal panic and hoarding in the coun- 
 try; and vast loans in specie to foreign 
 countries. Can there be a more com- 
 plete contrast than this state of mat- 
 ters affords, to the present time, when 
 we are at profound peace with all the 
 world, when there were no foreign sub- 
 sidies, no threat of invasion, but increas- 
 ing and apparently lasting prosperity ? 
 35. "Did not the House ofCommons, 
 two years ago, when there really was a 
 panic and great distress in the countiy, 
 even then enter into a solemn pledge 
 that cash payments Avere to be resumed 
 in next July? And have we not been told 
 that such is the confidence in the 
 bank, and the public confidence in its 
 solidity, that cash payments to a cer- 
 tain extent have voluntarily been re- 
 sumed on the part of that establish- 
 ment ? Is it expedient, is it decorous, 
 under such prosperous circumstances, 
 to violate a pledge given in such ad- 
 verse ones ? The bank directors profess 
 their willingness to resume cash pay- 
 ments, and have e-vinced the sincerity 
 of their declarations by their voluntaiy 
 acts ; where, then, is the necessity for 
 Adolating the faith of Parliament ? Is 
 the House satisfied that all that has 
 been advanced by the Bullion Com- 
 mittee should be set aside ? Is there 
 any one Avho doubts that an excessive 
 issue of paper must have an effect on 
 the price of gold ? The market price 
 of gold is at present four shillings an 
 ounce above the Mint price ; is not 
 that difference to be ascribed rather to 
 the excess of paper in circulation, than 
 the foreign loans now in course of pay- 
 ment ? Sui^posing the loan to France 
 
 is £10, 000, 000, and the money required 
 by travellers and foreign indemnities 
 £20,000,000 more, still a large part of 
 this sum would be sent out in goods, 
 and a still larger in advances by foreign 
 capitalists. But even sup])osing the 
 whole Avere sent out in gold, would 
 that occasion a nni upon the bank ? 
 Would it not soon improve the ex- 
 changes, and, by rendering gold dear 
 in this country, quickly bring it back, 
 and furnish the bank with the means of 
 replenishing its coffers ? On every 
 ground, then, there is an urgent neces- 
 sity for an inquiry into the circum- 
 stances of the bank ; for if it can re- 
 sume cash payments, it should be con- 
 strained immediately to do so ; if it 
 cannot, the public should be informed 
 to what cause the inability is owing, 
 and what prospect there is of cash 
 pa}Tnents ever being resumed. 
 
 36. "There are some persons in this 
 countiy who anticipate all sorts of 
 horrors from the resumption of cash 
 payments — that nobody would receive 
 rents, the funds be reduced to zero, 
 and a general bankruptcy ensue. There 
 is every reason to believe that these 
 apprehensions are either altogether 
 unfounded, or gi-eatly exaggerated. If 
 cautiously gone about, it would be at- 
 tended with little or no disadvantage. 
 But even if the evils represented were 
 in a great degree Avell founded, would 
 they not be preferable to the state of 
 uncertainty in which mercantile specu- 
 lations of all sorts are kept, by the 
 uncertainty which exists as to the re- 
 sumption of cast payments ? It would 
 be better to declare at once that the 
 bank is never to resume payments in 
 specie, than to go on every yeai post- 
 poning the return from year to year, 
 and, in consequence, alternately foster- 
 ing speculation by an excessive issue 
 of paper, and ruining the speculators 
 by its sudden contraction. The only 
 criterion by which it can be known 
 whether or not an issue of paper has be- 
 come excessive, is its convertibility into 
 cash. AVhen the obligation to pay every 
 note issued in specie is taken away, this 
 criterion is entirely lost ; there is no 
 longer any restriction on the amount of 
 issues ; and the enormous profits accru- 
 
ISIS.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 177 
 
 ing from them to the bank \vi\\ soon 
 render them excessive. 
 . ?7. " Recent events have too clearly 
 illustrated the reality of this danger. 
 In 1816, the average circulation of the 
 Bank of England was £26,500,000; 
 in 1817 it Avas £28,200,000— so that 
 there was an increase in that species of 
 paper alone of tAvo millions, although 
 the resources and loans of 1816 were 
 £82,000,000, and in 1817 only 
 £69,000,000. The average circula- 
 tion of country banks before 1816 was 
 £21,000,000 ; it was reduced by fully a 
 third during that year, but it had been 
 increased by the same amount in 1817 : 
 so that, between the Bank of England 
 and the country banks, there had been 
 anina'eo,sc in the circulation in one year 
 of no less than £9, 000, 000 ! Was there 
 any intelligible cause, any plausible ex- 
 cuse even, for such an excessive issue 
 — the result evidently of the postpone- 
 ment of the obligation to pay in specie ? 
 "Was there any man of common honesty 
 ■who could deny, in these circumstances, 
 that incjuiry is necessary ? What has 
 Taecome of all this money ? Could it 
 have any other effect but raising the 
 price of everything ? Is not the gi*eat 
 rise which has taken place in the Funds 
 in the last j^ear entirely to be ascribed 
 to that circumstance ? And Avhat limit 
 can be assigned to future danger, when 
 in so short a time, and under circum- 
 Ktances so little justifying it, so exces- 
 sive an over-issue has taken place ? " 
 
 38. On the other hand, it was 
 answered by the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer, Mx Huskisson, and Mr 
 Thornton: "The grounds on which 
 the appointment of a committee to 
 inquire into the affairs of the bank 
 • are rested, are entirety fallacious. The 
 internal state of the country had never 
 "been so distressed as it was in 1816, 
 and it had never revived so rapidly as 
 it did in the last half of 1817, and 
 first months of 1818. The issues of 
 country banks had increased by at 
 least £6,000,000 during that period; 
 but why had they increased ? Simply 
 "because the great impulse communi- 
 cated to the agi-iculture, trade, and 
 manufactures of the country, during 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 that period, called for an enlargement 
 of the issue to carry it on. The differ- 
 ence between the market and the ]\Iint 
 price of gold was erroneously consid- 
 ered as a test of the superabundance 
 of paper in the home market ; but it 
 in reality arose from a very different 
 cause — the gold Avhich was sent out 
 of the country to pay up foreign loans, 
 and meet the wants of British travel- 
 lers. The experience of late years 
 proved that the doctrine of the Bullion 
 Committee in 1810, that the difference 
 between the market and the Mint price 
 of gold was owing to an over-issue of 
 paper, and was measured by its amount, 
 was erroneous : it was decisively dis- 
 proved by the facts which had since 
 occurred. In 1814 the bank issues 
 were £23, 600, 000, and the marketprice 
 of gold was £5, 10s. per ounce ; in 1815 
 the bank paper was £26,300,000, and 
 the price of gold had fallen to £4, 6s. 6d. 
 per ounce ; — proving that the price of 
 gold was owing to the enhanced de- 
 mand for it on the Continent to meet 
 the exigencies of foreign war, and not to 
 any excess in the domestic circulation. 
 39. "The immense loans which the 
 French Government has been obliged 
 to contract in the present year, amount- 
 ing to no less than £30,000,000 ster- 
 ling, most of which required to be 
 negotiated in England, necessarily oc- 
 casioned a very great drain of gold 
 from this country, for which it be- 
 hoved the directors of the bank to 
 make provision. Add to this a loan 
 of £5,000,000, actually negotiating at 
 this moment in London. These loans 
 were eight times the amount of the 
 Austrian loans, in 1796, of £4,500,000, 
 which the directors at that period, by 
 a solemn resolution laid before Mr 
 Pitt, declared would, if repeated, prove 
 fatal to the bank. It is true, the post- 
 ponement of cash payments for a year 
 is a deviation from what was formerly 
 proposed and intended ; but if circum- 
 stances change, must not the correspond- 
 ing measures change also ? The sudden 
 disappearance of gold, to the amount 
 of £2,500,000 in October last, not only 
 from the coflers of the bank, but from 
 the circulation of the country, shouldbo 
 M 
 
178 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. IV. 
 
 a warning of the clanger of recurring to 
 cash payments when extensive remit- 
 tances of gold required to be made to 
 foreign countries, either for commer- 
 cial transactions or foreign loans. No 
 douht, by an unlimited issue of gold 
 from the bank, provided they could 
 get it to issue, it might be possible to 
 turn the present adverse exchanges in 
 favour of this country. But where was 
 the bank to find gold adequate to coun- 
 terbalance the greater part of a loan 
 of £30,000,000, all payable in specie, 
 which was to go from this country ? 
 
 40. " The proper time for resuming 
 cash payments is when the exchanges 
 are at or above par. The great danger 
 of a paper circulation is its tendency 
 to increase itself, from tlie profit with 
 which such increase is attended to the 
 issuers ; and if the bank had been pre- 
 pared with gold, it would have been 
 desirable to liave returned to cash pay- 
 ments last year ; but this year the 
 thing was impossible. The exchanges, 
 from the large importations of foreign 
 grain, and the immense foreign loans 
 negotiated in this countiy, were so 
 much against us, that to do so at this 
 time is out of the c[uestion. The loans 
 were, for the most part, remitted to the 
 Continent in bills of exchange ; and 
 it is no doubt true that a considerable 
 part of such bills may be paid in goods 
 manufactured in this country. But 
 the}'' cannot all be so paid, especially 
 when loans to a very large amount 
 have to be remitted ; because the fo- 
 reign recipients of the loans cannot 
 take an unlimited quantity of goods ; 
 the}^ can take only so much as their 
 inhabitants are willing to purchase 
 and able to pay for. The balance, 
 which is often very large, must all be 
 paid in money ; and the fact of the 
 exchanges being now so much against 
 us, proves that the foreign markets 
 are already overstocked with our manu- 
 factures, and that the only thing they 
 will take is our gold, for which there 
 is a never - failing demand. "* Upon 
 
 ■* On this occasion Mr Huskisson used 
 these expressions, -which subsequent events 
 have rendered prophetic: "The facility en- 
 joyed by Great Britain of extending her paper 
 circulation has had the like effect that had 
 
 this debate the House of Commons 
 sux)ported Ministers by a majority of 
 65 — the ninnbers being 164 to 99. 
 The committee moved for by Mr 
 Tierney was refused, and the suspen- 
 sion of cash payments was continued 
 tiU 5th July 1819. 
 
 been found to arise from the discovery of the 
 mines of America ; for, by increasing the cir- 
 culating medium over the world to the extent of 
 forty millions, it proportionally facilitated the 
 means of barter, and gave a stimulus to in- 
 dustry. In proportion, however, as the bank 
 found it necessaiy to purchase gold on the 
 Continent to meet its engagements with the 
 public here, the circulating medium of the 
 Continent was diminished ; and as the Con- 
 tinental States did not enjoy the credit pos- 
 sessed by this country, and were thereby de- 
 barred from increasing theirpaper circulation, 
 the result was discernible in the great confu- 
 sion and deterioration of property that had 
 taken i^lace on the Continent during the last 
 two years. Indeed, he had no hesitation in say- 
 ing that much of the distress that had prevailed 
 upon the Continent was fairly attributable to 
 the purchase of bullion by the Bank of Eng- 
 land. The increase of the circulating medium 
 of this country has given a great stimulus to 
 its arts and industry ; it was only to be la- 
 mented tliat, while the general appearance of 
 the country had so much improved, the com- 
 forts and rewards of the labourers had been 
 much reduced. The population of the coun- 
 try had increased in proportion to the rapid- 
 ity with which the circulating medium had 
 advanced ; but though there was an increased 
 demand for labour, its wages, measured by 
 the existing price of grain, were diminished. 
 But the general improvement of the country, 
 imderthe extended currency,is proved byfacts 
 beyond all dispute. From 1654 to 1753 there 
 had not been one bill of enclosure— and this 
 country imported corn ;— from 1754 to 1796,. 
 during which there had been a rai)id increase 
 of the circulating medium by imports from 
 the mines of America, bills of enclosure to 
 the number of 3500 had been passed, and this- 
 country had become an exiiorting country. 
 It is idle to talk of the resumption of cash ipay- 
 ments producing any serious convulsion; at 
 the same time, nothing has tended more to 
 create alarm than the clamour raised on the 
 subject of the resumption of cash pajnnents 
 by the bank. It was notorious that in Scot- 
 land, even previous to the restriction upon 
 cash payments at the Bank of England, the 
 principal currency was in paper, and that 
 there was very little gold currency in that 
 coimtry. Such, indeed, was the happy sys- 
 tem of the chartered banks in Scotland, that, 
 even in the years 1793 and 1796, when the 
 pressure was felt as so distressing in England, 
 710 inconvenience vms felt in that country from 
 want of a metallic currency. Nevertheless^ 
 he feltthat it was the duty of the bank to 
 resume cash payments as soon as possible; 
 and he was convinced that, by a gradual, tem- 
 perate, and cautious conduct, the resumption 
 
1818.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 179 
 
 41. This, like everything relating 
 to the currency, and, in conseqnence, 
 general credit and prosperity of the 
 country, was by far the most important 
 measure of this session of Parliament. 
 But others deserving of mention also 
 took j)lace. Under the suspension of 
 the Habeas Corpus Act a gi-eat number 
 of persons had been arrested under 
 ■warrants from the Home Office in the 
 preceding year ; and one of the earliest 
 measures of the Government in the 
 session of 1818 was to move for a com- 
 mittee to report, with a view to a bill 
 of indemnity to Ministers for their pro- 
 ceedings in regard to the persons Avho 
 liad been imprisoned without being 
 brought to trial. In the debates which 
 ensued on this subject, the most vehe- 
 ment attacks were made on Ministers, 
 on the ground of their having been, in 
 fact, the authors of the consjuracy in 
 the preceding year, by the employment 
 of spies to excite it. Lord Sidmouth, 
 in reply, rested on the information 
 transmitted to Government by the 
 highest magistrates and functionaries 
 in the kingdom — in particular, Earl 
 Eitzwilliam, the Whig lord-lieutenant 
 of the West Riding of Yorkshire— as 
 to the disturbances being the result of 
 a settled conspiracy to overturn the 
 Government, and the impossibility of 
 obtaining the requisite information to 
 trace it out without the employment 
 of agents who might get into the con- 
 fidence of the disaffected.* After very 
 warm debates, the bill of indemnity 
 passed both Houses by large majorities 
 — that in the Commons being 82 to 23 — 
 
 might take place vnlhout risking any material 
 alteration in the affairs of the connti-y." — Mr 
 Huskisson's Speech, May 1, 1818 ; Pari. 
 Deb., xxxviii. 490, 491. It is hard to find a 
 speech in which more valuable and decisive 
 facts are adduced on one side, or more erro- 
 neous opinions, notwithstanding, adliered to 
 on the other, than in this very remarkable 
 oration. 
 
 * "I cannot conclude -without calling to 
 your recollection that all tliis tumultuous 
 assembling, rioting, and so forth, is not the 
 consequence of distress, want of employment, 
 scarcitj', or deamess of provisions, but is the 
 offspring of a revolutionary si)irit; and no- 
 thing short of a complete change in the estab- 
 lished institutions of the country is in the 
 contemplation of their leaders and agitators." 
 — Earl FiTzwiLLiAM to Lord Sidmodth, Dec. 
 17, 1817 5 Sidnwuth's Life, iii. 214. 
 
 in the Lords, 93 to 27 ; the .suspension 
 of the Habeas Corpus Act Avas allowed 
 to expire on the 1st I^Iarch ; and J^ord 
 Sidmouth communicated the gratify- 
 ing information that any further con- 
 tinuance of it was no longer required, 
 and that only two persons who had 
 been apprehended under it remained 
 still in custody. The conduct of Lord 
 Sidmouth during this tr}'ing time was 
 the subject of vehement party condem- 
 nation when it was going on ; but, like 
 all other conduct which is at once 
 judicious, necessary, and intrepid, it 
 obtained in the end the applause even 
 of its most impassioned opponents; 
 and his biographer may well pride 
 himself on the testimony borne to it, 
 twenty-five years after, by one of the 
 most determined of his parliamentary 
 antagonists.* 
 
 42. The troops voted for the array in 
 1818werell3,640 men, including those 
 in France, being a reduction of 22,000 
 from those voted in the j)receding year ; 
 and 20,000, including 6000 marines, 
 only were proposed for the navy. The 
 great reduction of these numbers, com- 
 pared with the establishment which 
 had been kept up at the conclusion of 
 the war, which was 150,000 soldiers 
 and 39,000 sailors, showed how much 
 the resources of Government had been 
 hampered by the distresses of the coun- 
 try, and how much the abolition of the 
 income-tax — as Lord Castlereagh had 
 predicted it would — disabled the coun- 
 try from maintaining the establish- 
 
 * " As I have been con-ecting the press of 
 the third volume of ov.r dear friend Lord 
 Wellesley's memoirs, in the third volume of 
 my ' Statesmen,' I thought your lordship 
 would like to see the just, and most just, 
 tribute which I have paid to your public con- 
 duct. I well know that nothing would have 
 gratified more him who unceasingly ascribed 
 so much of his success to your wise and gener- 
 ous support." — Lord Brougham to Lord 
 Sidmouth, September 24, 1843; Sidmonth's 
 Life, iii. 222. The passage alluded to was in. 
 these w-ords : " Lord Wellesley was only pre- 
 vailed on to retain his jiosition in India, at a 
 most critical period of Indian history, by the 
 earnest intercession of Mr Pitt's Government, 
 who gave him, as Lord Sidmouth did, with, 
 his characteristic courage, sagacity, and finn- 
 ness, their steady support. Lord Wellesley 
 always gratefully acknowledged the merits 
 and services of Lord Sidmouth, to whom, 
 through life, he had been nuich attached." — 
 Statesmen of the Time of Geo. 111.^ iii. 309. 
 
180 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. IV, 
 
 merit called for by its multifarious and 
 widespread dependencies. The average 
 number of notes of the Bank of Eng- 
 land, from January to June 1817, had 
 been £27,339,000; but from July to 
 December it rose to £29,210,000, and 
 continued above £28,000,000 through 
 1818 ; and during the same time tlie 
 issues of the country bankers increased 
 above £6,000,000. This considerable 
 increase in the circulating medium 
 ■was attended by a corresponding rise 
 in the revenue, and increase in the 
 prosperity of the kingdom. The en- 
 tire income of the United Kingdom of 
 Great Britain and Ireland for 1818 was 
 £68,294,568, of which £10,850,000 
 was loans or advances on Exchequer 
 bills, leaving £57,441,568 for the net 
 revenue from taxation — a great increase 
 from the preceding year, when it had 
 been £55,783,000 only. The cheering 
 effect of this change appeared in a still 
 more decisive manner in the state of 
 tlie Sinking Fund, which now began 
 to exceed the loan borrowed during the 
 year, and so to afford a prospect of a real 
 reduction of the debt. The surplus of 
 the Consolidated Fund this year was no 
 less than £15,038,000, and theloans con- 
 tracted £10,850,000, leaving a balance 
 of £4, 188, 000 really paid off". In addi- 
 tion to this, £27,000,000 of Exchequer 
 bills were funded this year, the money 
 for which was borrowed at the very 
 
 moderate rate of £4 per cent. In the 
 course of his statement on the Budget, 
 the Chancellor of the Exchequer men- 
 tioned that such had been the progress 
 of the Sinking Fund, that between 1st 
 November 1815 and 1st June 1818, it 
 had paid off £50,000,000 of stock, and 
 was now above £15,000,000 a -year. 
 The entire sum paid oft' by the Sinking 
 Fund, since its commencement bv Mr 
 Pitt in 1786, was-£347,119,000--a fact 
 speaking volumes as to the wisdom of 
 his finance system, and the wonders 
 which it would have effected towards 
 the extinction of the debt had it been 
 adhered to by his successors. 
 
 43. The expenditure of 1818, as 
 ascertained by the accounts laid be- 
 fore Parliament in 1819, amounted to 
 £68,821,000, of which no less than 
 £46,800,000 was for the interest of the 
 debt and Sinking Fund. This was a 
 trifling reduction since the preceding 
 year, when the expenditure had been 
 £68,875,000.* The accounts of ex- 
 ports, imports, and shipping exhibited 
 a steady and gratifying increase since 
 the year of woeful depression, 1816, 
 which will best appear by comparing 
 the returns for these different years 
 together, f The increase of imports 
 and shipping inwards, it is to be par- 
 ticularly observed, in two j-ears, is 
 more than twice as great as that of the 
 total exports, home and colonial; for 
 
 * Items of Public Expe:jditure for the Tear ISIS. 
 
 Interest of debt and Siiildng Fund, . . '. . £4G 
 
 Civil List, &c., . . . . . . .2 
 
 Ci\Til Government of Scotland, ..... 
 
 Other payments out of Consolidated Fund, 
 
 Navy, ........ 6 
 
 Ordnance, ........ 1 
 
 Army, ........ 8 
 
 Foreign loans, ....... 
 
 Local issues, ....... 
 
 Miscellaneous, ....... 2 
 
 ,849.153 
 ,376,' 079 
 129,627 
 483,471 
 ,521,714 
 ,407,807 
 ,517,044 
 206 
 60,078 
 ,620,891 
 
 Deduct loan to East India Company, 
 Total, 
 
 —Ann. Reg. 1819, p. 40S, Pari. Accounts. 
 
 £68,966,070 
 144,636 
 
 £68,821,437 
 
 f Years. 
 
 Exports, official value. 
 
 Home and Colonial, 
 
 Great Britain. 
 
 Imports, official value. 
 
 Home and Colonial, 
 
 Great Britain. 
 
 Shipping inwards. 
 
 1817 
 1818 
 
 £50,404,111 
 
 53,560,338 
 
 £30,834,299 
 
 36,885,182 
 
 1,795,138 tons. 
 2,070,132 „ 
 
 ^Ann. Rerj. 1819, pp. 404, 407, Pari. Accounts. Porter, 
 
1818.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 ISl 
 
 the shipping had advanced from 17 to 
 20, and the imports from 30 to 3G, but 
 the exports only from 50 to 53. As 
 this took place at a time when industry 
 in all its branches at home was ade- 
 quately protected by fiscal duties, it 
 affords decisive evidence that the in- 
 ternal consumption of the country had, 
 during this jieriod of an expanded cur- 
 rency, undergone even a greater in- 
 crease than its manufactures for the 
 export sale, and that agriculture and 
 the staple branches of domestic in- 
 dustry had in a great degree recovered 
 from the state of depression in which, 
 from the ruinous efi'ect of low prices, 
 they were sunk in the first year after 
 the war. 
 
 44. ISTotwithstandingthe stilllabour- 
 ing condition of the finances of the 
 empire, in consequence of the loss of 
 the income - tax, Ministers had the 
 courage to propose, and the House of 
 Commons the virtue to vote, a grant 
 of £1,000,000 sterling towards the 
 building of new churches, chiefly in 
 the manufacturing districts.* The 
 necessity of this was very apparent ; 
 for, in many counties, hundreds of 
 thousands of persons had, within the 
 last quarter of a century, from the 
 establishment of manufactories or open- 
 ing of mines, been suddenly huddled 
 together, for Avhom the old parish ac- 
 commodation, calculated for perhaps 
 a hundredth part of their amount. 
 
 was wholly inadequate. The necessary 
 result of this was, on the one liand, a 
 vast increase of dissent to meet the 
 religious wants of such great and grow- 
 ing communities ; and, on the other, a, 
 still greater increase of that profligate 
 and sensual class, the parent of crime, 
 which lived altogether without God in 
 the world. The money was raised by 
 Exchequer bills, and was aided, to the 
 amount of above thirty per cent, by 
 munificent subscriptions of private in- 
 dividuals ; yet all fell lamentabl)'' short 
 of the necessities of the case. There is 
 no solid foundation for the objection 
 that such grants, being for the promo- 
 tion of a particular religion, should not 
 come from the public funds, which are 
 obtained by assessment from all sects. 
 It is the duty of Government to provide 
 for the religious instruction of the des- 
 titute poor, who cannot pay for it 
 themselves, and the building of addi- 
 tional churches is the first step in the 
 discharge of that duty. The religious 
 accommodation provided should always 
 be in the established faith of the coun- 
 try, being the faith of the majority 
 of the whole inhabitants, and which 
 the nation has deemed the true one — 
 just as the defenders of the country 
 should be arrayed under the national 
 banners, and in the national imiform, 
 whatever their private opinions may 
 be. For those who do not approve of 
 it, and prefer the luxury of dissent. 
 
 * It was stated by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in proposing this grant, that the pro- 
 portion of persons who could be accommodated in tlie existing churches and chapels, to the 
 existing population in the under-mentioned towns and districts, stood as follows : — 
 
 London, ..... 
 York diocese, .... 
 Chester diocese, . . . 
 Winchester diocese, 
 
 Liverpool, 
 
 Manchester, .... 
 Marylebone, .... 
 
 Population in 
 181L 
 
 Sittings in 
 Churches. 
 
 Deficiency. 
 
 1,1-29,451 
 
 720,001 
 
 1,286,702 
 
 325,209 
 
 94,376 
 
 79,459 
 
 75,024 
 
 151,536 
 
 139,163 
 
 228,696 
 
 59,503 
 
 21,000 
 
 10,950 
 
 8,700 
 
 977,915 
 
 720,091 
 
 1,040,006 
 
 265,706 
 
 73,376 
 
 68,509 
 
 66,924 
 
 —Pari. Debates, xxxvii. 1119, 1122. 
 
 See also a very interesting publication on church accommodation, by the Rev. M. Yates, 
 replete with valuable information. 
 
 A parliamentary return in this year showed that there were in England and Wales — 
 
 ScSandchapels. ! 1?:^}^^^ ^ P^P^^^^i^^ -^«^^ I'^'O^^'^O'^ 
 
 Glebe houses fit for residence, , . 5417 
 
 Benefices under £100 a-year, 2274 
 
 Do. under £150 a-vear, 3503 
 
 —Hughes, vL 362, and Pari. Kep., No. 79, 1818. 
 
182 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. IV. 
 
 cveiy possible facility, in the way of 
 private establishment, should be given ; 
 but the State can, with ];)ropriety, from 
 the public funds, support only its own 
 spiritual militia. 
 
 45. Another benevolent and most 
 praiseworthy attempt was made in this 
 session of Parliament, which unfortu- 
 nately was not attended with the same 
 beneficial results. This was a treaty 
 with Spain, concluded on 23d Septem- 
 ber 1817, for putting an end to the 
 slave trade, which gave rise, in the 
 next session, to interesting debates in 
 both Houses of Parliament. By this 
 treaty, in consideration of the sum of 
 £400,000 to be paid by Great Britain, 
 on the 20th February" 1818, as an in- 
 demnity to the persons engaged in 
 that traffic, the court of Madrid en- 
 gaged, from and after the 30th Jlay 
 1820, that the slave trade should be 
 absolutely abolished ; and that, from 
 that date, "it shall not be lawful for 
 any of the subjects of the crown of 
 Spain to purchase slaves, or to carry 
 on the slave trade on any imrt of the 
 coast of Africa, upon any pretext, or 
 in any manner whatever. " It was de- 
 clared unlawful, from the date of the 
 treaty, for Spanish ships to carry on 
 the slave trade on any part of the coast 
 of Africa to the north of the equator ; 
 and a reciprocal right of search on the 
 part of ships of war of both countries 
 was expressly provided for. A similar 
 treaty for the entire suppression of the 
 slave trade was concluded with the 
 King of the Netherlands ; and tribu- 
 nals, composed of judges from both 
 countries, were appointed to adjudicate 
 upon the seized vessels ; and a bill 
 passed, establishmg similar mixed tri- 
 bunals for vessels seized belonging to 
 Portugal, which had already consented 
 to the abolition. It will appear in the 
 sequel how these treaties, conceived in 
 a noble spirit, were evaded, and how 
 long, and with what cruelty, the slave 
 trade was afterwards carried on by the 
 merchants of every part of the Span- 
 ish peninsula. But it must ever be 
 considered a glorious circumstance in 
 the history of Great Britain that she 
 took the lead in this great deliverance ; 
 that she set the example by first abo- 
 
 lishing the odious traffic in her own do- 
 minions ; that she contributed a large 
 sum, when embarrassed in finance and 
 overburdened with debt, to purchase 
 its abolition in foreign states ; and 
 that, if it still continued to be car- 
 ried on under their flags, it was in op- 
 position to her example, and notwith- 
 standing the utmost efforts on her part 
 to prevent. 
 
 46. The Alien Bill — which gives 
 Government the power to apprehend 
 and send out of the countiy foreign- 
 ers residing in it, who may be engaged 
 in machinations to disturb the public 
 tranquillity in this or the adjoining 
 states — was, notwithstanding the most 
 violent resistance on the part of the 
 Opposition, continued for two years 
 longer. It was justly deemed unsafe 
 and umvise to let a knot of foreign 
 refugees make London their head- 
 quarters for rekindling the flames of 
 war on the Continent ; and the recent 
 example of the return of Xapoleon from 
 Elba afforded decisive evidence of the 
 disastrous results to which the tolera- 
 tion of even a small body of such con- 
 spirators might lead. Mr Broughaui 
 took an active part in opposing the 
 bill, but it was carried by a majority 
 of 65 — the numbers being 94 to 29. 
 That able man found a much more 
 worthy field for his talents in the re- 
 port of a committee which he had suc- 
 ceeded in getting appointed, on the 
 charitable trusts and establishments of 
 Great Britain for the education of the 
 poor. The report, which was a most 
 valuable and elaborate one, bore testi- 
 mony to the great and increasing thirst 
 of the poor in all situations for educa- 
 tion, and the praiseworthy zeal with 
 which the inquiries of the committee 
 had been seconded by the clergy of all 
 denominations in every part of the 
 island ; but stated, at the same time, 
 "that a very great deficiency exists 
 in the means of educating the poor, 
 wherever the population is thin and 
 scattered over country districts. The 
 efforts of individuals combined in so- 
 cieties are almost all confined to pop- 
 ulous places. Nothing in such situa- 
 tions can supply the deficiency but the 
 adoption, under certain material modi- 
 
1818.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 183 
 
 fications, of the parisli-school system 
 so usefully established in the northern 
 part of the island, ever since the lat- 
 ter part of the seveuteeuth century." 
 There can be no doubt of the justice 
 of these observations ; but it is a most 
 extraordinary circumstance that, not- 
 Avithstanding their undeniable "weight, 
 no provision for a general system of 
 parochial education has yet been made 
 in England, and still more extraordi- 
 nary that it was fully established, and 
 has ever since been acted upon with 
 the best effects, in Scotland above a 
 century and a half ago. 
 
 47. Sir Samuel Ronully continued 
 through this session of Parliament his 
 humane and benevolent eflbrts to effect 
 a mitigation of our criminal code, and 
 succeeded in getting through the House 
 of Commons a bill for abrogating the 
 punishment of death for stealing under 
 the value of £5 in shops. He intro- 
 duced this measure in a luminous 
 speech, in Avhich he stigmatised ex- 
 cessive severity of punishment as the 
 greatest of all promoters of crime, by 
 discouraging prosecutions, and thus 
 practically, in the majority of cases, 
 leading to impunity. In these at- 
 tempts he was seconded by a still abler 
 man, Sir James Mackintosh, who, 
 in the same session, obtained the ap- 
 pointment of a committee to examine 
 into the most effectual means of pre- 
 venting the forgery of bank - notes. 
 The general concurrence of both sides 
 of the House in this measure proved 
 that the time was fast approaching 
 when the cruel and excessive severity 
 of our criminal law would yield 
 to a more humane and enlightened 
 system. Wlien Sir Samuel's bill, how- 
 ever, was sent up to the House of 
 Lords, the Chancellor, Eldon, succeed- 
 >ed in getting it thrown out, as he had 
 already I'epeatedly done before. He 
 was deterred by the effects which had 
 followed the bill passed in the preced- 
 ing session of Parliament removing 
 the punishment of death from the 
 crime of theft from the person, forget- 
 ting that the only effectual v.'ay of 
 repressing crime is by insuring its 
 punishment ; and that an increase of 
 prosecutions may, and sometimes does, 
 
 arise more from the guilty being more 
 readily brought to punishment, than 
 from their absolute number increasing. 
 
 48. The period had now, however, 
 arrived, when the great lawyer and 
 humane legislator, with whom these 
 reforms had first originated, was to be 
 withdrawn from this earthly scene. 
 The excessive labours of Sir Samuel 
 Romilly's life, arising from the com- 
 bination of the highest practice at the 
 Chancery bai-, with the late hours, 
 continual excitement, and occasional 
 efforts in debate in the House of 
 Commons, came at length to unsettle 
 a mind which, notwithstanding its 
 powers, had a constitutional tendency 
 to excessive sensitiveness. He had re- 
 cently before been returned, without 
 canvassing or solicitation, for West- 
 minster, and was at the very zenith 
 of his fortune, fame, and usefulness, 
 when, on the 2d November 1818, he 
 was found Avith life extinct, having 
 committed suicide in a fit of insanity. 
 Lady Eomilly, to whom he was ten- 
 derly attached, had died three days 
 previously ; and for some weeks before 
 he had been in a very nervous state, 
 having for many nights together lost 
 the power of sleeping. The gi'ief con- 
 sequent on this melancholy bereave- 
 ment so preyed on a mind naturally 
 sensitive and nervous, and overwrought 
 by excessive exertion, as to produce 
 the melancholy catastrophe which de- 
 prived the bar of one of its brightest 
 ornaments — the country of one of its 
 most useful and philanthropic legis- 
 lators. 
 
 49. Sir Samuel Romilly was un- 
 doubtedly a remarkable man ; that is 
 sufficiently proved by his having risen, 
 without either family or official con- 
 nections, to the head of the Chancery 
 bar. His powers of reasoning were 
 very considerable, his application im- 
 mense, his memory retentive and ready. 
 By adopting De Witt's maxim of doing 
 everything at its proper time, and 
 putting everything in its proper place, 
 he succeeded in getting tlirough a mass 
 of business, both legal and parliament- 
 ary, which would have crushed any 
 ordinary man. At the same time, he 
 kept up with the whole literature of the 
 
184 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. IV. 
 
 day — devoted the evening of Saturday 
 and the wliole of Sunday to the enjoy- 
 ment of his family in the country, and 
 never allowed secular laliour to inter- 
 fere with the appointed seventh day 
 of rest. He was eminently sincere 
 and pious in his feelings, and humane 
 in his disposition almost to a fault. 
 It was the strength of these feelings 
 which led him to engage with such 
 Avarmth, and prosecute with such 
 perseverance, the reformation of the 
 criminal code of England, and the ex- 
 tirpation of the many sanguinary en- 
 actments which disgi'aced liis statute- 
 hook. Humanity owes him much for 
 having heen the first to enter upon 
 that glorious task. Yet is it, perhaps, 
 not to be regretted, in a general point 
 of view, however grievous his loss was 
 to his family and friends, that he Avas 
 cut short Avhen he was in his career of 
 mercy, for his mantle descended upon 
 a much superior man — a greater philo- 
 sophic lawyer. He was by no means 
 the equal, either in philosophy, ora- 
 tory, or political wisdom, of Sir James 
 Mackintosh, who followed in his foot- 
 steps. His mind was unduh' sensitive. 
 "Impressionable comme une femme," 
 might be said, with not less truth of 
 him than of Lamartine in after days. 
 Hence he Avas a Avarm party -man, and 
 never rose to those lofty \iews by 
 Avhich Bacon, Burke, and Mackintosh 
 shoAved themselves qualified to direct 
 the thoughts of future times. His ex- 
 cessiA-e sensibility and mental weak- 
 nesses did not appear in his public 
 career, but have been prominently 
 brought forAvard by the indiscreet zeal 
 of his biographer, to Avhose amiable 
 partiality they appeared as excellences. 
 He AA-as in the highest degi-ee amiable 
 in priA^ate life, and beloved alike by 
 his friends and opponents. "When 
 Lord Eldon first beheld the vacant 
 seat Avithin the bar Avhere Sir Samuel 
 used to sit, he Avas so atfected that he 
 burst into tears, and broke up the 
 court. 
 
 50. Another remarkable man died 
 this year, second to none in intellec- 
 tual Adgour and capacit}', although 
 they were displayed rather in legal 
 argument than the larger political 
 
 arena. This Avas Lord Ellenborough, 
 Chief-Justice of the Court of King's 
 Bench, Avho expired, after a lingering 
 illness, on 13th December. His health 
 had long been declinmg. Like almost 
 all the other great laAvyers at the Eng- 
 lish bar, he Avas the architect of his 
 own fortune. Of respectable origin, 
 the fourth son of Dr LaAA', Bishop of 
 Carlisle, he Avas yet AAithout either 
 connection or patronage, and OAved his 
 elevation entirely to the uncommon 
 vigour and force of his understanding. 
 These Avere such that they in a man- 
 ner forced him into greatness, and 
 Avould have done so, like other great 
 men, in any career, ciA'il or military, 
 upon Avhich he might have entered. 
 Nothing can surpass the force of the ar- 
 guments Avhich he delivered at the bar, 
 or the lucidity and masterly analysis 
 of the cases in the judgments he pro- 
 nounced on the bench. They remain 
 in the law reports enduring monu- 
 ments of the clearness and poAver of 
 his understanding. He Avas a Whig 
 in politics ; and one of the most un- 
 popular acts of that party, AA'hen they 
 came into poAver in 1806, Avas giving 
 him a seat in the Cabinet — a step 
 Avhich, hoAvever palliated in his case 
 by his great abilities, Avas justly re- 
 garded as of dangerous example for 
 future times, as piitting in hazard the 
 independence of the bench. He con- 
 tinued throughout life a AYhig, but a 
 Whig of the old school — that is, one 
 AA'ho inclined to the aristocratic, not 
 the democratic, part of the constitu- 
 tion. Hence, AA'hen he was made 
 Chief-Justice in 1802, it AA^as a com- 
 mon subject of complaint that he was 
 occasionally arrogant in his manner, 
 and overbearing in his disposition ; 
 and great surprise Avas exjiressed at 
 the same person evincing these qua- 
 lities, Avdio had been tlieir most vehe- 
 ment opponent A\dien at the bar in 
 early life. But there is nothing at all 
 surprising in the change ; on the con- 
 trary, they are both s}Tnptoms of the 
 same ruling disposition, and often 
 make their appearance at different 
 periods of life in the same indiAadual. 
 Resistance to opposition is the funda- 
 mental principle — a domineering dis- 
 
1818.] 
 
 HISTOEY OF EUROPE. 
 
 185 
 
 position, tlie uniform cliaracteristic, 
 and it never changes. In early life, 
 when the j^erson actuated by it is 
 among the governed, it appears in 
 resistance to oppression ; in mature 
 years, when he has risen to the station 
 of governor, in coercion of insubordi- 
 nation. 
 
 51. It is remarkable that the same 
 year which was marked by the death 
 of Lord Ellenborough, -vntnessed also 
 the demise of Warren Hastings, of 
 whom, during his long and vexatious 
 prosecution, he had been the steady 
 and intrepid advocate ; and of Sir 
 Philip Francis, who had been his not 
 less relentless and energetic persecutor. 
 The first of these remarkable men ex- 
 pired at his hereditary seat of Dayles- 
 ford, in Worcestershire — lost by his 
 ancestors, but regained by his exertions 
 — on August 22, in the eighty-sixth 
 year of his age. He belongs to a dif- 
 ferent period in the history of England 
 — to that marvellous era when, in both 
 hemispheres, the deep foundations of 
 British greatness were laid. There 
 were giants in the earth before the 
 moral as well as the physical flood. 
 His character has been drawn, the in- 
 gratitude he experienced depicted, in 
 a former work. Less distinguished in 
 })ublic life, his antagonist, Sir Philip 
 Francis, has left a reputation hardly 
 less enduring ; for there seems to be 
 no doubt that he was the author of the 
 Letters of Junius, which, for a season, 
 almost counterbalanced the influence 
 of the Sovereign on the throne. He 
 died in London on December 22, in 
 the seventy-eighth year of his age. The 
 uncompromising enemy of oppression, 
 corruption, and despotic measures in 
 both hemispheres, he, at one period of 
 liis life, shook the throne in England ; 
 at another, fought a duel with tlie 
 Governor-General of India, from whom 
 he received a shot through the body, 
 in 1781. A moral courage which 
 nothing could daunt — great abilities, 
 and the energj^ which a consciousness 
 of their possession seldom fails to in- 
 spire, were his characteristics. His 
 style of composition, as it appears both 
 in the Letters of Junius and in his 
 speeches in Parliament, was condensed 
 
 and epigrammatic in the highest de- 
 gree ; and it is tlieir admirable force 
 and brevity which, like the sayings of 
 Johnson, recorded by the gi-aphic pen 
 of Boswell, have given the former their 
 colossal and enduring reputation. But, 
 like all other productions in the samo 
 style, they are one-sided, and often 
 unjust. Unfortunately, however, it is 
 these very blemishes Avhich have ren- 
 dered them so famous ; for such is the 
 admiration of mankind for talent, that 
 falsehood and exaggeration, brilliantly 
 arrayed, often carry the day, even in 
 after times, against truth and justice, 
 clothed in the silver robe of innocence. 
 Tacitus would never liave been immor- 
 tal had he not been a party writer.* 
 
 52. This great celebrity of rhetorical 
 ability, and its superiority to un- 
 adorned truth, however, is not uni- 
 versal; and every age presents nu- 
 merous examples of men in whom 
 justness of decision, wisdom of 
 thought, and a philosophic turn of 
 mind, lay the foundation of fame as 
 gi'eat, and beneficence far more en- 
 during, than the utmost brilliancy 
 of one-sided eloquence. Of this Sir 
 James Mackintosh, the able and phi- 
 losophical follower of Romilly in the 
 career of criminal amelioration, is an 
 illustrious example. Of humble pa- 
 rentage, the son of a small landholder 
 on the banks of Loch ISTess, he owed 
 nothing to early patronage or con- 
 nections. What he became he owed 
 to himself alone, and the blood he 
 inherited. But he was not witliout 
 advantages in the latter respect : from 
 the mother's side, the usual channel 
 in which intellectual powers descend, 
 he inherited the talents of his grand- 
 mother, Mrs Macgillivray, a Avoman 
 of uncommon strength and cultivation 
 of mind. He was born on 17th Oc- 
 tober 1765, was educated at Edin- 
 burgh, and took part in the debates 
 of the Speculative Society there, in 
 which Brougham, Lansdowne, Jeff'rey, 
 
 * The .author has no doubt Sir Philip Fran- 
 cis was the anther of the Letters of Junius. 
 Identity of style in those celebrated letters 
 with his acknowledged compositions, as well 
 as numerous direct pieces of evidence, ap- 
 pear to place it beyond a doubt. — See Lord 
 Makon's Historju oj England, v. 274, 285. 
 
186 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. IV. 
 
 Horner, and the many eminent men 
 ■\vlio afterwards rose into fame in the 
 Scottish metropolis, made their first 
 essays in oratory. Subsequently he 
 "was called to the English bar, and 
 became first known to the public by 
 his Viiullcke Galliccc, published to 
 defend the Revolution in France from 
 the dreaded antagonism of Burke. 
 In 1803 he sailed for India, having 
 been appointed, by Lord Sidmouth, 
 Recorder of Bombay; and there he 
 spent, in no very agreeable banish- 
 ment, the next nine years of his life. 
 In 1812 he returned to England, with 
 a moderate independence, and was 
 soon after admitted to Parliament for 
 the close borough of Weymouth. He 
 was afterwards made a x^^'i^y coun- 
 cillor, but never held any Govern- 
 ment appointment, and died in 1S32, 
 while still in the full vigour of his 
 understanding, and without having 
 done anything in literature commen- 
 surate to the high expectations justly 
 formed of his abilities. 
 
 53. These expectations were chiefly 
 formed in consequence of its being 
 known that he had engaged in the 
 herculean task of continuing Hume's 
 History of England down to recent 
 times — a work in which he had made 
 some progress, and for which he has 
 left several splendid sketches, for the 
 most part composed in his voyage 
 home, but which he never brought to 
 maturity. In fact, he had not perse- 
 verance adequate to the task. His 
 powers of conversation were great, and 
 the gratification he experienced from 
 their exercise was so excessive that it 
 led him to forego the main object of 
 his life for its enjoyment. He spent 
 the forenoon generally conversing 
 Avith ladies or literary men, instead of 
 writing ; and it is not thus that great 
 things are done.* " Conversation," 
 
 * The author once spent one of these fore- 
 noons in his society, from breakfast to two 
 o'clock. Lord Jeffrey, and JMr Earle Mon- 
 teith, late sheriff of Fife, were the only other 
 persons present. The superiority of Sir 
 James Mackintosh to Jeffrey, in conversa- 
 tion, was then veiy manifest. His ideas 
 succeeded each other much more rapidly ; 
 his expressions were more brief and terse — 
 his repartee more felicitous. Jeffrey's great 
 talent consisted in amplification and illus- 
 
 says Gibbon, *' strengthens the imder- 
 standing, but solitude is the school of 
 genius." It was deeply regretted by 
 his friends at the time that this dis- 
 traction of the powers of so great a 
 mind should be going on ; and, un- 
 doubtedl}^ for ethical and political 
 disquisitions, and essays on history, it 
 can never be sufticicntly lamented ; 
 for in these branches his mind ap- 
 peared in its full lustre. There is 
 nothing in the English language su- 
 perior in wisdom to some of his po- 
 litical essays, which first appeared in 
 the Edinburgh Rcvicic, and are now 
 reprinted in his collected essays ; in. 
 criticism, to his characters of the 
 leading men of the eighteenth century, 
 to be found in the very interesting 
 memoir of him by his son. But there 
 is no appearance in his WTitings of the 
 qualities which indicate that he could 
 ever have become great in narrating 
 events. He was an admirable essayist 
 on history, after the manner of Guizot ; 
 but he had not the talents requisite 
 for a historian. His abbreviated His- 
 tory of England, and fragment of the 
 History of the Revolution of 1688, are 
 proofs of this. The former contains 
 many admirable observations and re- 
 flections : but it gives no idea what- 
 ever of the thread of events, and the 
 student will jise from its perusal 
 without any distinct impi'ession, if 
 otherwise uninformed, of the history 
 of his country. The latter is so dull, 
 that it may be doubted whether any 
 one, but from respect for the author, 
 
 tration, and there he was eminently great ; 
 and he had been accustomed to Edinburgh 
 society, where he had been allo-vved, by his 
 admiring auditors, male and female, to pre- 
 lect and expand ad libitum. Sir James had 
 not greater quickness of mind, for nothing 
 could exceed Jeffrey in that respect, but 
 nmch greater power of condensed expression, 
 and intinitely more rapidity in changing the 
 subject of conversation. " Tout toucher, 
 rien approfondir," was his practice, as it is 
 of all men in whom the real conversational 
 talent exists, and where it has been trained 
 to perfection by frequent collision in polished 
 society with equal or superior men, and ele- 
 gant and well-informed women. Jeffi-ey, in. 
 conversation, was like a skilful swordsman 
 flourishing his weapon in the air ; while 
 Mackintosh, with a thin sharp rapier, in the 
 middle of his evolutions, ran him through the 
 body. 
 
1818.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 187 
 
 or from motives of party or reference, 
 ever read it through. His mind was 
 essentially philosophical ; hence his 
 powers were didactic rather than pic- 
 torial — instructive than dramatic ; 
 and that is a fatal peculiarity either 
 for a statesman or a historian. Energy 
 and fire are the soul of eloquence in 
 the forum, as much as wisdom and 
 moderation are of discourses in the 
 academy ; and there never yet was a 
 great historian whose talents would 
 not have led him to the first eminence 
 as a painter or dramatic poet. 
 
 54. In Parliament, Sir James Mac- 
 kintosh attained a high, but by no 
 means the highest place. His speeches 
 ■were all prepared : they were learned 
 and admirable essays on the subject in 
 liand ; but they had not the force of 
 expression, personal allusion, or sting- 
 ing rejoinder, requisite for success in 
 a mixed, not always learned, but often 
 highly excited, assembly. His lu- 
 minous and learned orations were 
 always listened to with respect, and 
 frequently spoken of, on reflection, 
 with admiration ; but, at the time, 
 they were often delivered to empty 
 benches, or, like Burke's, acted like 
 a dinner-bell in clearing the House. 
 But Avhile these peculiarities pre- 
 cluded him from rising to the first 
 rank as a parliamentary debater, they 
 qualified him admirably for the great 
 task to which his efi'orts in Parliament 
 were directed — the reformation and 
 humanising of our criminal code. His 
 philosophic mind threw a luminous 
 radiance over that intricate subject, 
 eminently calculated to make an im- 
 pression on a popular assembly, in a 
 large part of whom Liberal ideas were 
 beginning to germinate. He took it 
 up as a whole— generalised the infinite 
 details in which it was involved, and 
 deduced his conclusions from acknow- 
 ledged premises and generous feelings. 
 He thus obtained far greater success 
 than Sii- Samuel Romilly, working 
 only on separate and detached points, 
 ever could have done ; and it is to 
 his influence, acting in public and 
 private on the candid and convertible 
 mind of Mr Peel, that the great re- 
 formation which soon after took place 
 
 in our criminal code is mainly to be 
 ascribed. 
 
 55. This year witnessed the demise 
 also of the Queen, who had so long 
 shared with her husband the honours 
 and cares of royalty, and whose latter 
 years, during his mental aberration, 
 had been so assiduously devoted to 
 his comfort. Queen Charlotte expired 
 at Kew, on the 17th November, in 
 the seventy-fifth year of her age. If 
 the old observation be true, that those 
 women in any rank are most estimable 
 of whom least in public is said, never 
 was a more unexceptionable character 
 than this lamented queen. She had 
 no beauty, was not remarkable for 
 talents, and had none of the charm of 
 conversation or coquetry of manner 
 which so often, in exalted stations, 
 lead women to the perilous borders of 
 captivation and corruption. Married 
 early in life to a consort of religious 
 principles, integrity of character, and 
 domestic habits, identical with her 
 own, to whom she bore a numerous 
 family, her life w^as rather remarkable 
 for the regularity with which home 
 duties were performed, than the bril- 
 liancy by which public admiration or 
 love is secured. Her sense of decorum 
 bordered on austerity — her love of 
 economy on parsimony. The Court, 
 under her direction, was stiff" and cor- 
 rect ; very dilferent from the brilliant 
 scenes with which it is always clothed 
 in imagination, and has since been 
 arrayed in reality. Yet must history 
 ever acknowledge with gratitude the 
 inestimable service which she ren- 
 dered, not only to public morals, but 
 to the stability of the constitution, by 
 the unvarying correctness of her pri- 
 vate life, and the care which she took 
 to preserve the Court from that con- 
 tamination which, in so many other 
 countries of Europe, was shaking at 
 once the throne and the altar. She 
 was inteiTed on 2d December, in the 
 magnificent vault of St George's 
 Chapel, Windsor, whither her bereaved 
 lord was soon to follow her — ignorant 
 now alike of his present loss" or his 
 approaching end. 
 
 66. The year 1819 commenced under 
 more favourable auspices than had 
 
188 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap, IV. 
 
 "been known for several years. In tlie 
 speech at the opening of Parliament, 
 the Prince-Regent informed the nation 
 that ' ' there is a considerable and pro- 
 gressive improvement of the revenue 
 in its most important branches ; and 
 that the trade, commerce, and manu- 
 factures of the countiy are in a most 
 flourishing condition." Allowing for 
 a certain amount of exaggeration on 
 the favourable side in all such State 
 documents, there is enough proved, 
 by incontestable evidence, to leave no 
 room for doubt that, in the first part 
 of the year at least, a very considerable 
 amelioration had taken place. The 
 revenue afforded evidence of that ; it 
 exhibited a very large increase in the 
 earlier months. But these appearances 
 were short-lived and fallacious ; and 
 the distress of the latter part of the 
 year was so great that, upon the whole, 
 instead of an increase, it exhibited a 
 falling off from the preceding year of 
 above a million.* The exports fell off 
 in the last months of the year so im- 
 mensely, that they presented a decline 
 of fully a fourth from the preceding 
 year ; the imports a falling off of above 
 a fifth, f Something must obviously 
 have occurred in the interval between 
 the commencement and the end of the 
 year, to produce so great and disas- 
 trous a change ; nor is it difficult to 
 perceive what that something Avas. 
 In the interval, the act establishing 
 
 CASH PAYMENTS BY THE BaNK OF 
 
 England was passed ; and with it a 
 series of embarrassments began, na- 
 tional and social, financial and poli- 
 tical, which have never yet been got 
 over, and have imprinted lasting ef- 
 fects upon the fortunes of the Brit- 
 isli empii'e. 
 
 57. The period had now arrived 
 when, after various jjostponements, it 
 
 was deemed indispensable by the lead- 
 ing men on both sides of politics to re- 
 vert to cash payments by the Bank of 
 England. That was universally ad- 
 mitted ; the only question was when, 
 and under what limitation, if any, the 
 new system was to come into opera- 
 tion ? Tlie debates on this subject are 
 of the very highest interest, fraught 
 as they were with the future destinies 
 of Great Britain, and exhibiting one 
 of the most curious instances record- 
 ed in history of the erroneous views 
 entertained by the ablest men, and 
 the general insensibility to impending- 
 dangers on the part of an entire com- 
 munity, the fortune of every indivi- 
 dual in which was more or less de- 
 j)endent on tlie measures which were 
 adopted. The subject was introduced 
 on February 2, by a motion on the 
 part of the Opposition, headed by Mr 
 Tierney, for the appointment of a 
 committee to inquire into the effects 
 of the Bank Restiiction Act ; which 
 was met by an amendment on the 
 part of the Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 on the day folloAving, to the eft'ect that 
 the committee be instructed to report 
 to the House such information, relative 
 to the affairs of the bank, as may be 
 disclosed Anthout injury to the pub- 
 lic interests, with their observations 
 thereon. The amendment of the Chan- 
 cellor of the Exchequer was carried 
 by a majority of 109, the numbers be- 
 ing 277 to 168. The secret committee 
 was chosen by ballot, and its chair- 
 man, J\Ir Peel, brought up its report 
 on April 5. 
 
 58. As the legislature were all but 
 unanimous in support of the measure 
 which was ultimately adopted on this 
 all-important subject, it is essential, 
 in order to record the arguments urged 
 on the other side, to have recourse to 
 
 * Total revenue, 1818, 
 „ „ 1819, 
 
 -Porter's Progress of the Nation, 475 — third edition. 
 
 £53,747,79.5 
 52,648,847 
 
 t 
 
 Exports, British and 
 
 Colonial— official 
 
 value. 
 
 Imports— official 
 value. 
 
 Exports, British and 
 Irish— declared value. 
 
 Shipping— 
 
 1817 
 ISIS 
 1819 
 
 £50,404,111 
 53,560,338 
 43,438,989 
 
 £30,834,299 
 36,885,182 
 30,776,810 
 
 £41,761,132 
 46,603,249 
 35,208,321 
 
 2,664,906 
 2,674,468 
 2,666,396 
 
 — Porter's Progress of the Nation, p. 339— third edition. 
 
1819.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 189 
 
 what was stated beyond the walls of 
 Parliament. With this view, nothing 
 better can be adduced than the petition 
 from the merchants, bankers, and 
 traders of the city of Bristol, which 
 was presented to the House of Com- 
 mons on February 3. It atlbrds an- 
 other example of a truth, of which 
 many illustrations have occurred, and 
 will again occur, in the course of this 
 History — that the truth on important 
 political questions is often much more 
 clearly perceived, and the practical 
 effect of measures better discerned, out 
 of the legislatiire than in it ; and that 
 the powers of the acutest understand- 
 ings are not in the latter situation to 
 be relied on, in opposition to the in- 
 fluence of party connections, or the 
 sway of theoretical opinions. 
 
 59. It was stated in this remarkable 
 petition, which was, as it were, the 
 opening of the great debate : "Your 
 petitioners have heard with much ap- 
 prehension, that the design is enter- 
 tained of proposing in Parliament the 
 resumption of cash paym^ents by the 
 Bank of England. The petitioners 
 have the utmost confidence in the re- 
 sources of the national bank, and that 
 its issues are fully warranted by the 
 property which it holds in deposit ; 
 and they are firmly persuaded that, if 
 this measure shall be forced upon the 
 country before it shall, by a favourable 
 state of its foreign exchanges, be fully 
 prepared for its reception, not only the 
 finances and revenue of the State must 
 suffer, but even the stability of the 
 bank itself be endangered, by the ex- 
 portation of its bullion, and the depre- 
 ciation of the property which it holds 
 as a security for its issues. The peti- 
 tioners conceive, also, that the present 
 is a period peculiarly hazardous for an 
 experiment of so important a nature, 
 when loans of unprecedented magni- 
 tude are in process of payment in 
 Europe, and when the exchange AAith 
 both the continents is greatly against 
 this country. The petitioners confi- 
 dently anticipate that, as the present 
 state of our foreign exchanges may be 
 justly attributed to causes which, al- 
 though quite adequate to the effects, 
 are not in themselves necessarily per- 
 
 manent, the period may reasonably be 
 expected to arrive at which a resump- 
 tion of cash payments may be mado 
 with safety, and without inconven- 
 ience. Awaiting, then, this period, 
 the situation of the countiy can only 
 be rendered alarming by a premature 
 recurrence to measures which the peti- 
 tioners are satisfied must cramp the 
 commercial intercourse of England 
 with foreign countries, contract its 
 trade and manufactures, and be inju- 
 rious to its best interests. The peti- 
 tioners, therefore, most humbly pray 
 that the House will reject every pro- 
 posal which may be made for a hasty 
 and premature adoption of such a 
 measure." 
 
 60. On the other hand, it was argued 
 by Mr Peel, who was the chairman of 
 the committee, and moved the adop- 
 tion of its report : "The present posi- 
 tion of the bank calls, in the first in- 
 stance, for an interim measure before 
 the final measure is adopted. In con- 
 sequence of the notices issued in 1816 
 and 1817 by the bank, with the very 
 best intentions, in which they under- 
 took to pay in specie all notes dated 
 previously to January 1, 1817, a very 
 large amount of treasure had been 
 drawn from the bank. The whole 
 which had been issued by the bank 
 since January 1816 had amounted to 
 £5,200,000. ' The issue of that treasure 
 had not been attended with any good 
 to the nation ; and he thought, indeed, 
 it might have been foreseen that, un- 
 less their issue had been accompanied 
 by a simultaneous reduction of the 
 number of bank-notes, the gold would 
 find its way to those places where there 
 was a greater demand for it. There 
 was little doubt, at present, as to the 
 place of its destination, for, by a report 
 of the minister of finance in France, it 
 appeared that, within the first six 
 months of the last year, 125,000,000 
 francs (£5,000,000) had been coined 
 at the French mint, of which it was 
 understood three-fourths had come 
 from this country. In these circum- 
 stances, it was necessary to pass a bill 
 restraining the payments in gold imtil 
 the final measure shall pass ; and the 
 circumstances of the bank were such, 
 
190 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. IV. 
 
 that it had become necessary that the 
 hill should go through its several stages 
 that evening." The necessity of the 
 case being evident, a bill continuing 
 the restriction, till the final measure 
 was adopted, passed both Houses with 
 very little opposition. 
 
 61. The grand debate on the final 
 measure came on on the 21st May, 
 and preparatory to it tAvo petitions 
 ■were presented to the House of Com- 
 mons — one from the directors of the 
 Bank of England, and another from 
 the merchants and bankers of the city 
 of London, in which the effects of the 
 proposed measure are foretold AA-ith a 
 clearness, and, as the event has proved, 
 a truth, which render them among the 
 most valuable and instructive docu- 
 ments recorded in history. That from 
 the bank directors, with great pro- 
 priety disclaimed any interested view 
 of the matter, but submitted to the 
 legislature what must be the eftect of 
 a return to cash payments in the exist- 
 ing financial, commercial, and mone- 
 tary state of the country.^' The peti- 
 
 * The petition of the bank directors stated 
 — " That, in tlie view of the committee, the 
 measure of the bank resuming cash payments 
 on the 5th July next, the time prescribed by 
 the existing law, is utterly impracticable, and 
 Avould be entirely inefficient, if not ruinous. 
 The two committees have arrived at this 
 conclusion, at a period when the outstand- 
 ing notes of the bank do not much exceed 
 £25,000,000, or when the price of gold is 
 about £4, Is. per ounce, and when there is 
 great distress from the stagnation of com- 
 merce and the fall in the price of imported 
 articles. It must be obvious that, as long 
 as such a state of things shall last, or one in 
 any degree similar, without either consider- 
 able improvement on one side, or growing 
 worse on the other, the bank, acting as it 
 does at present, and keeping its issues nearly 
 at the present level, could iiot venture to re- 
 turn to cash payments with any possibility of 
 benefit to the public or safety to its establish- 
 ment. The proposal of the committee is, that 
 the bank shall not resume payments in coin 
 for four years, but shall be obliged, from 1st 
 May 1821, to discharge their notes in stan- 
 dard gold bullion, at Mint price, when de- 
 manded, in sums not amounting to less than 
 tliirty ounces ; and that from 1st February 
 1820 the bank should pay their notes in 
 bullion, if demanded, in sums not less than 
 sixty ounces, at the rate of £4, Is. per 
 ounce ; and from first October 1820 to 1st 
 May 1821, at £3, 19s. 6d. per ounce. The 
 bank directors are obliged to observe that, 
 as it is incumbent on them to consider the 
 effect of any measure to be adopted as ope- 
 
 tion of the merchants and bankers of 
 London went a step farther, and pro- 
 phesied the consequences of the pro. 
 posed measure in the following re- 
 markable terms: "Your petitioners 
 have reason to apprehend that mea- 
 sures are in contemplation, with refer- 
 ence to the resumption of cash pay- 
 ments by the Bank of England, which, 
 in the humble opinion of your peti- 
 tioners, will tend to a forced, lyrecijn- 
 tate, and higlily injurious contraction 
 nf the cu7'renci/ of the country. That 
 the consequences of such a conti'action 
 ■will be, as your petitioners humbly 
 conceive, to add to the burden of the 
 public debt, greatly to increase the 
 pressure of the taxes, to lower the 
 value of all land and commercial pro- 
 perty, seriously to affect and embar- 
 rass both public and private credit, to 
 embarrass and reduce all the opera- 
 tions of agriculture, manufactures, and 
 commerce, and to throw out of employ- 
 ment (as in the calamitous year 1816) a, 
 great proportion of the industrious and 
 labouring classes of the community. 
 
 rating upon the general issue of their notes, 
 by which all the private banks are regulated, 
 and of Avhich the whole currency, exclusive 
 of the notes of private bankers, is composed, 
 they feel themselves obliged, by the new situ- 
 ation in which they have been placed by the 
 bank restriction of 1797, to bear in mind not 
 less their duties to the establishment over 
 which they preside, than their duties to the 
 community at large, whose interests, in a pe- 
 cuniary and commercial relation, have in a 
 great degree been confided to their discretion. 
 The directors being thus obligedto extend their 
 views, and embrace the interests of the whole 
 community in their consideration of this mea- 
 sure, cannot but feel a repugnance, however 
 involuntary, to pledge themselves in appro- 
 bation of a system Avhich, in their opin- 
 ion, in all its great tendencies and opera- 
 tions, concerns the country in general more 
 than the immediate interests of the bank 
 alone. Wlien the bank directors are now to 
 be called upon, in the new situation in which 
 they are placed by the Restriction Act, to 
 procure a fund for supporting the whole na- 
 tional currency either in bullion or coin, and 
 when it is proposed that they should effect 
 this measure within a given period, by regu- 
 lating the market price of gold by a limita- 
 tion of the amount of the issue of bank-notes, 
 with whatever distress such limitation may be 
 attended to individuals or the community at 
 large, they feel it their bounden and imperi- 
 ous duty to state their sentiments thus ex- 
 plicitly in the first instance to his Majesty's 
 Ministers on this subject, that a tacit consent 
 and concurrence at this juncture may not at 
 
1819.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 191 
 
 That your petitioners are fortified in 
 the opinion thus expressed by the 
 distresses experienced by commercial, 
 trading, manufacturing, and agricul- 
 tural interests of the kingdom, from 
 the partial reduction of the bank issues, 
 Avhich, it appears, has recently taken 
 place. Neither the manner nor the time 
 •which, your j-tetitioners have reason 
 to apprehend, is intended to be pro- 
 posed for the resumption of cash pay- 
 ments, is suited to avoid the evils they 
 anticipate. The petitioners, therefore, 
 liumbly crave that the time, as at pre- 
 sent fixed by law, for the termination 
 of the restrictions on cash payments 
 l3y the Bank of England, may be ex- 
 tended to a period which shall not 
 tend to a forced and precipitate con- 
 traction of the circulating medium of 
 the country, or to embarrass trade, or 
 to injure public credit, agriculture, 
 manufactures, and commerce." 
 
 62, These petitions from Bristol and 
 London, coming, as they did, from the 
 first commercial men in England, and 
 couched in such strong yet respectful 
 language, showed how strongly the mer- 
 cantile classes had taken the alarm at 
 the proposed resumption of cash pay- 
 ments by the Bank of England, and how 
 clearly their practical experience and 
 native sagacity had detected the real 
 tendency of a measure fraught with 
 the most momentous consequences, 
 but which it was known had obtained 
 the assent of both branches of the le- 
 gislature. The ]ietition was rendered 
 the more remarkable by its being pre- 
 
 Rome future period be construed into a pre- 
 vious implied sanction on their part of a 
 system which they cannot but consider as 
 fraught with very great uncertainty and risk. 
 They cannot venture to advise an unrelent- 
 ing continuance of pecuniary pressure upon 
 the commercial world, of which it is impos- 
 sible for them either to foresee or estimate 
 the consequences. The directors have already 
 submitted to the House of Lords the expedi- 
 ency of the bank paying its notes in hnllion 
 at the market price of the day, with a view of 
 secinghowfar favourable commercial balances 
 may operate in restoring the former order of 
 things, of which they might take advantage ; 
 and with a similar yiew they have proposed 
 that Government should repay the bank a 
 considerable part of the sums that have been 
 advanced iipon Exchequer bills. These two 
 measures would allow time for a correct 
 judgment to be formed upon the state of the 
 
 sented to the House of Commons by 
 Sir Robert Peel, who had made a co- 
 lossal fortune under the cash restric- 
 tion system, and who now stood for- 
 ward to oppose his eldest son, Mr 
 Peel, who was prepared to terminate 
 it. The honourable baronet observed: 
 "The petition he held in his hand 
 came from a body of men entitled to 
 the very first consideration— a body of 
 men Avho, in times of public distress or 
 calamity, were tlie very first to come 
 forward to relieve the Government. 
 The Bank Eesti'iction Act could not 
 have passed in 1797 if the merchants 
 and bankers of London had not, at a 
 similar meeting, expressed themselves 
 strongly in its favour. The petition, 
 he now held in his hand was that of a 
 great and important body, all of the 
 first respectability, praying that the 
 resolutions which were intended to bo 
 submitted to the House might not be 
 carried into efi'ect. They were the 
 best .judges of such a measure, for 
 their whole fortunes were wound up 
 with it. Although, also, they were 
 the men in the country best qualified 
 to give evidence, from their great 
 transactions and connection vriih our 
 manufactures and commerce, yet they 
 had not been examined before the 
 committee. He entreated, therefore, 
 that before a measure so destructive 
 of the commercial interests, and, with, 
 them, of every other interest in the 
 country, the House would pause, in 
 order to collect that information which, 
 was so much wanted. 
 
 bullion market, and upon the real result of 
 those changes which the late war may have 
 produced, in all its consequences, of increased 
 jnMic deht, increased taxes, increased prices, 
 and altered relations as to interest, capital, 
 and commercial dealings with the Continent, 
 and how far the alterations thus produced 
 are temporary or permanent, and to what 
 extent and in what degree they operate. The 
 directors therefore feel that they have no 
 right whatever to invest themselves, of their 
 own accord, with the responsibility of coun- 
 tenancing a measure in which the whole com- 
 munity is so deeply involved, and possibly to 
 compromise the universal interests oj the empire 
 in all the relations of agricnlture, manufac- 
 titres, commerce, and revenue, by a seeming 
 acquiescence or declared approbation on the 
 part of the directors of the Bank of England." 
 --Petition of the Bank of England, 20th May 
 1819; Pari Debates, xi COl, 604. 
 
192 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. IV 
 
 63. "At the meeting from which 
 this petition originated, he was in 
 company with many of the best friends 
 of the country ; but he should not do 
 justice to two persons wlio attended 
 there if he did not say that they be- 
 haved in a way not the least disorderly 
 in the world, for they were in close 
 alliance with his Majesty's ]\Iinisters, 
 — they inveighed against any attempt 
 at deferring the period of resuming 
 cash payments. The circumstance so 
 new, of these men being supporters 
 of the administration, constituted the 
 subject of a very good caricature ; but, 
 at the same time, it filled him Anth 
 the most dismal forebodings. To see 
 the noble lord and his honourable 
 friend, on the one hand, and j\Iessrs 
 Himt and Wooler on the other, united 
 in their attempt to pull down the 
 mighty fabric erected by the immortal 
 Pitt, was at once ludicrous and pain- 
 ful. He implored the House to pause 
 before they engaged in any such at- 
 tempt. It Avas true, in resisting it he 
 should have to oppose a very near and 
 dear relation. But Avhile it Avas his 
 own sentiment that he had a duty to 
 perform, he respected those A\dio did 
 theirs, and aa^Iio considered them to be 
 paramount. The gentlemen Avho op- 
 posed him at the meeting of AAdiich he 
 had spoken Avere rather indignant at 
 his mentioning tlie name of I\Ir Pitt. 
 His OAA'n impression AA'as certainly a 
 strong one in his favour; he alAA'ays 
 thought him the first man in the 
 country. He aa^cII remembered one 
 occasion, AA'hen that near and dear re- 
 lation Avas only a child, he obserA^ed to 
 some friends AA'ho AA'cre standing near 
 him, that the man Avho discharged his 
 duty to his country in the manner in 
 Avhich Mr Pitt had, did most to be 
 admired, and Avas most to be imitated ; 
 and he thought at that moment, if 
 the life of his dear relation should be 
 spared, he AA'ould one day present him 
 to his country to folloAV in the same 
 path." 
 
 64. On the other hand, it was argued 
 by Sir Robert Peel's son, Mr Peel, Avho 
 then made his first important steji in 
 public life, and Avas the chairman of 
 .the committee the resolutions of Avhich 
 
 AA^ere proposed to the House for adop- 
 tion :* "He AA'as bound to say that, in 
 consequence of the AA-eight and great 
 respectability of the cAddence laid be- 
 fore the committee, and the discussions 
 Avhich had ensued upon it, his opinion 
 in regard to this question had under- 
 gone a great change. He AA'as ready 
 to avoAA', Avithout shame or remorse, 
 that he AA'ent into the committee Avith 
 a very different opinion from that 
 AA-hich he at present entertained ; for 
 his AdcAA's of the subject AA-ere most 
 materially different from Avhat they 
 were Avlien he voted against the resolu- 
 tions brought forAA'ard in the Bullion 
 Committee in 1811 by Mr Horner. 
 After giAing his best attention to the 
 
 * The proposed resolutions Avere as fol- 
 lows : — 
 
 " I. That it is expedient farther to continue 
 the restriction upon cash payments by the 
 bank for a time, to be limited in such man- 
 ner and on such conditions as shall be pro- 
 Aided by Parliament, Avitli the vicAv to insure 
 its final termination at the period to be fixed. 
 
 "II. Tliat, preA'iously to the resumptiou 
 of cash payments by the bank, it is expedi- 
 ent that the bank should be required, at a 
 time to be fixed by Parliament, to gi\'e in 
 exchange for its notes gold duly assayed and 
 stamped at his Majesty's Mint (if demanded 
 to an amount not less than a number of 
 ounces to be limited), A-aluing the same in 
 such exchange at a price not exceeding £4, 
 Is. per ounce. 
 
 "III. That at the expiration of a farther 
 period, to be also fixed by Parliament, the 
 bank should be required to gi\'e in exchange 
 for its notes, gold, so assayed and stamped, 
 to an amount not less than a certain number 
 of ounces to be limited, and A'aluing the same 
 in such exchange at the ^Mint price. 
 
 " IV. That at some time between the two 
 periods above mentioned, the bank should 
 be required to gi\'e in exchange for its notes, 
 gold, so assayed and stamped, A'aluing the 
 same at a price between £4, Is. and the Mint 
 price ; and that, after the price at which gold 
 shall be A^alued in such exchanges shall have 
 been once loAvered, it shall not again be 
 raised. 
 
 "V. That after the period shall have ar- 
 rived at which the bank shall be required to 
 give gold in exchange for its notes at the 
 Mint price, a farther period, to be fixed by 
 Parliament, should be allowed, and a certain 
 notice given before tlie bank shall be required 
 to pay its notes in cash. 
 
 "VI. That it is expedient that all laws 
 which prohibited the melting or exportation 
 of gold or silver coin of the realm, and the 
 ex-portation of gold or silver bullion made of 
 such coin, should be repealed."— Government 
 Resolutions, May 21, 1S19; Farl. Debates, 
 xl. eo6, 
 
1819.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 193 
 
 subject, lie liad no hesitation in stat- 
 ing, that though he should probably 
 even now vote against the practical 
 measure then recommended, yet he 
 concurred in the fourteen first resolu- 
 tions proposed to the House by that 
 able and much -lamented individual. 
 He conceived them to represent the 
 trae nature and law of our monetary 
 system. It was without shame or re- 
 pentance he thus bore testimony to 
 the superior sagacity of one with whose 
 views he agreed on that point, although 
 he diflered so much from him on many 
 other great political questions. 
 
 65. " After the repeated declaration 
 of Parliament, that it was advisable 
 that the bank should, at the earliest 
 possible period, resume cash payments, 
 he had hoped that the only points ne- 
 cessary for them to proceed to that 
 night, would be to fix on the period 
 wlijen the restriction should cease, and 
 to adopt the most feasible mode of 
 carrying their intention into efl'ect. 
 But it was impossible for him to con- 
 ceal from himself that new and extra- 
 ordinary opinions had been promul- 
 gated, which, if the House were pre- 
 pared to act on them, must inevitably 
 lead to an indefinite suspension of cash 
 payments. When he recollected that 
 the necessity of a resumption of cash 
 payments was recognised in the pre- 
 amble of several acts of Parliament, 
 Avhen he knew that no one objection 
 was formerly made to the principle 
 of so doing, he confessed he was not 
 prepared to hear that a principle the 
 very reverse was to be contended for. 
 But judging from several publications, 
 iDy which he feared the public mind 
 might be influenced, it did appear 
 that the return to cash payments was 
 viewed in some quarters with appre- 
 hension ; and if weight and authority 
 were given to the sentiments and prin- 
 ciples contained in these works, the 
 House must be prepared to legislate 
 for an indefinite suspension. It is 
 therefore absolutely necessary that Par- 
 liament should in the contest make 
 up its mind whether a metallic stan- 
 dard of value should not be resorted 
 to. After an experience of tv*"enty- 
 
 VcOL. I. 
 
 two years, during which it was aban- 
 doned, it did appear impossible that 
 any considerate man could hesitate 
 upon that question, or upon the ex- 
 pedience of returning to the ancient 
 system of fixing upon some- standard 
 of value. 
 
 66. "Upon the necessity of estab- 
 lishing such a standard, he could ap- 
 peal to the opinion of all writers upon 
 political economy, and to the practice 
 of every civilised countrj^, as well as 
 our own, prior to the year 1717. All 
 the witnesses examined before the com- 
 mittee, with the exception of Mr Smith 
 of Norwich, a very respectable man, 
 recommended the establishment of 
 this standard. Even he, when asked 
 whether he would propose an indefinite 
 suspension of cash payments without 
 any standard of value, answered, ' No ; 
 the pound should be the standard.' 
 Being asked what he meant by a pound, 
 he answered, ' I find it difiicult to ex- 
 plain it ; but every gentleman knows 
 it : it is something which has existed 
 in this country for eight hundred years 
 — three hundred years before the in- 
 troduction of gold.' Mr Locke, with 
 all his powers of understanding, could 
 not succeed in defining what he meant 
 by a pound. Sir Isaac Newton him- 
 self was for a time misled on this 
 subject ; but at length he came back 
 to the simple doctrine, that the true 
 standard of value was a certain definite 
 quantity of gold bullion. Every sound 
 writer on the subject came to the same 
 conclusion, that a certain weight of 
 gold bullion, with an impression on it 
 denoting that it was of a certain weight 
 and of a certain fineness, constituted 
 the only true, intelligible, and adequate 
 standard of value ; and to that stan- 
 dard the country must return, or the 
 lifiiculties of our situation would be 
 aggravated as we proceeded. These 
 difficulties were imiversally known, 
 and they would not be diminished by 
 our declining to acknowledge their ex- 
 istence ; and it is notorious that the 
 restoration of a metallic standard of 
 value is essential to our relief from 
 these difficulties. 
 
 67. " The issues of the Bank of Eng- 
 
194 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. IV. 
 
 land were the foundation on whicli tlie 
 whole superstructure of the country 
 hanks Avas raised, and those issues 
 were made either in the purchase of 
 gold, the discount of mercantile bills, 
 or the purchase of Government securi- 
 ties. It is a delusion to say that the 
 issues of the hank are regulated by the 
 demands and necessities of the mer- 
 cantile world. How caa you distin- 
 guish between the advances it makes 
 to Government in loans, or discount- 
 ing Exchequer bills, and a paper cir- 
 culation emanating directly from it ? 
 The bank, no doubt, is safe ; the sol- 
 vency of their establishment is beyond 
 all doubt. But does it follow that, 
 because the bank is able to discharge 
 all its engagements, therefore there 
 can be no over-issue of its paper? If 
 solvency alone was a sufficient proof 
 that there was no excess of circulation, 
 the theory of Mr Law was just, and 
 the land as well as the funds might be 
 made the basis of a circulating medium. 
 There was, in fact, no test of excess or 
 deficiency, but a comparison with the 
 price of gold. This was not the con- 
 clusion of theory only ; the last few 
 years had afforded the most ample con- 
 firmation of it, 
 
 68. ' ' In the year 1815 our commerce 
 was in full of activity ; a great impulse 
 had been given, speculation was at its 
 height, and the exports were great be- 
 yond example. But 1816 and 1817 
 came — the natural result of those over- 
 strained hopes and expectations. A 
 languor proportionate to the degree of 
 excitation succeeded. An immense 
 accumulation of property had taken 
 l^lace, for which there was no demand. 
 Prices fell — the country banks stopped 
 their issues — and thousands were in a 
 moment stricken to the ground, by a 
 blow which they could not foresee, 
 and against which it was impossible to 
 provide. Tlie Bank of England notes 
 in circulation previous to 1814 were 
 £23,000,000; in 1815, £25,000,000; 
 1816, £26,000,000 ; end of 1817, 
 £29,000,000. At the latter period, 
 trade revived, and importations were 
 made from all parts of the world. 
 Many Averc deceived by a nominal 
 profit, which, in truth, resolved itself 
 
 into an excess of currency ; and the 
 same scene of distress and embarrass- 
 ment was renewed. Mr Gladstone, the 
 great Liverpool merchant, had stated 
 before the committee that the value 
 of grain and provisions imported into 
 Liverpool, from Ireland, in 1817, was 
 £1,200,000 ; and in 1818, £1,950,000. 
 He added, that in 1816, 270,000 bales 
 of cotton were imported into the 
 same place; in 1817, 350,000; 1818, 
 457,000. The consequence of this 
 prodigious excess in the supply was a 
 fall in the price of cotton of 40 per 
 cent. Mr Gladstone added, that in 
 1818, goods to the value of £3,000,000 
 were stored in Liverpool beyond what 
 had been done in the preceding year. 
 All this over - trading was procluctive 
 of no lasting advantage even to the 
 parties engaged in it ; but to the 
 labouring classes it was attended with 
 incalculable mischief The unequal 
 and fluctuating demands for labour 
 deranged all the relations of humble 
 life. The rapidity with which these 
 changes succeeded one another defeated 
 all private arrangements, discouraged 
 the steady accumulation of savings, 
 and frequently overwhelmed the la- 
 bourer Avith Avant and misery. 
 
 69. " The only effectual check which 
 can he imposed on these evils is a check 
 on the over-issue in Avhich they all 
 originate, and this can only be applied 
 by the establishment of a metallic 
 standard of value ; for the issue of 
 paper lias not, like the Avise provisions 
 of Providence, or the prudent regula- 
 tions of man, any counteracting prin- 
 ciple Avithin itself. The paper system 
 Avent on very Avell as long as the excita- 
 tion lasted ; but it Avas sure, on its 
 relapse, to scatter distress and ruin. 
 Private bankers, at first anxious to 
 accommodate, no sooner perceived the 
 symptoms of declining credit, than, in 
 the eagerness to provide for their own 
 security, they refused farther aid, and 
 increased the AA'ant of confidence. This 
 is the great defect of the paper system ; 
 and the question the House has to con- 
 sider is, Avhether a system fraught Avith 
 so many exils is to be permitted to 
 continue ? Its evils in future are not 
 to be measured by the past. Hith«rto. 
 
1819.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 195 
 
 there has always been some check 
 — the admonitions of Parliament had 
 heen respected ; "but if once a hope 
 should be held out that the suspension 
 might last for an indefinite tune — that 
 the amount of the circulating medium 
 ■was to be left to the discretion of the 
 directors — they would be controlled by 
 lio consideration but that of their own 
 profits, and it is impossible to over- 
 estimate the mischief that would ensue. 
 The committee had perceived that a 
 anere declaration on the subject would 
 be useless, and that mercantile trans- 
 actions would continue in their present 
 course, instead of being adapted to a 
 return to the ancient standard. It 
 would answer no good purpose to de- 
 clare in favour of a return to cash pay- 
 ments without fixing upon some defi- 
 nite period for the resumption ; for 
 such a j^romise had already been made 
 no less than five times, and every time 
 j)roved delusive. The country, then, 
 to be satisfied, must see that a serious 
 resolution existed upon the subject. 
 
 70. "It was when engaged in the 
 conquest of Wales, and amidst his ef- 
 forts to. subdue Scotland, that Edward 
 3. first tm-ned his attention to the re- 
 formation of the coin ; and the next 
 great reformer in that respect was 
 Queen Elizabeth. At her accession to 
 the throne she found that the coin 
 had been debased 400 per cent in the 
 Teign of Henry VIII. and Edward VI. ; 
 when there should have been eleven 
 ounces, there were only three. The 
 price of everything, in consecpience, 
 had risen greatly, and there were con- 
 siderable commotions throughout the 
 country. By the advice of Burleigh, 
 she determined to restore the value of 
 the coin ; and when the difficulties of 
 the attempt, in the distracted state of 
 her dominions and precarious title to 
 the throne, were represented, that able 
 minister replied — ' So far should such 
 considerations be from deterring your 
 Majesty from the pursuit, they should 
 rather be considered as the motives 
 for perseverance, as in the end they 
 must raise and establish the character 
 of the country, increase the attach- 
 ment of your Majesty's subjects, and 
 command the respect even of your 
 
 enemies.' Such a conduct was the 
 proiidest eulogium on her merits. Tho 
 inscription on her tomb, after enumer- 
 ating the qiieen's titles to distinction, 
 concluded with these words — ' Gallia 
 domata, Belgium sustentum,pax funda- 
 ta, moneta in justum valorem reducta.' 
 The glories of the present reign ex- 
 ceeded the glories of Elizabeth, and it 
 was to be hoped the hour was near at 
 hand when the triumphant parallel 
 would be completed. 
 
 71. "It is a mistake to say that the 
 country Avas indebted for all its mili- 
 tary honour in the late war to an 
 inconvertible paper currency. Had 
 not the countiy enjoyed its full share 
 of prosperity and military glory before 
 1797, when that blessing was first ac- 
 corded us? Let them adhere to that 
 good faith in time of peace which they 
 had shoAvn with such magnanimity 
 through all the dangers of war, and 
 towards the foreigners whose counti'ies 
 were at war with them. Let them 
 recollect that the fluctuations of price 
 which an inconvertible paper currency 
 occasioned were injurious to the la- 
 bourer, who found no compensation in 
 the rise of his wages at one time for 
 the evils inflicted by their depression 
 at another. Every consideration of 
 sound policy, and every consideration 
 of strict justice, should induce them to 
 return to the ancient and permanent 
 standard of value. It is a most delu- 
 sive idea to suppose that the evils of 
 an inconvertible paper currency A\ill 
 be obviated by obliging the bank, as 
 has been proposed, to pay their notes 
 in bullion at the current price it bore 
 in the market at the time. He warned 
 the House against the adoption of a 
 measure so fatal — a measure fraught 
 with destruction to the ends proposed ; 
 — a plan Avhich would reduce gold to 
 the standard of paper, instead of paper 
 to the standard of ^'old, and inevitably 
 lead to the interminable continuance, 
 the total adoption, of a paper medium, 
 and only nuiltiply ad injinitum the 
 difficulties Avith which the subject was 
 at present surrounded. 
 
 72. "When people talked of gold 
 rising in price, were they prepared to 
 show it had risen in intrinsic value ? 
 
196 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. IV. 
 
 Let them not talk of its price in paper, 
 Imt in any other commodity of a real 
 and fixed value. Did a given quantity 
 of gold at present buy any more corn, 
 or any more silver, than it Avould have 
 done lifty years ago? Setting aside 
 the fluctuations of seasons, which of 
 course materially aft'ected the price of 
 grain, it would be found that gold did 
 not, within the period alluded to, 
 through its increased price, command 
 more of any fixed commodity than in 
 former times. So far from that being 
 the case, it positively commanded less 
 than it did formerly ; and on this ac- 
 count — because they had found a sub- 
 stitute for gold; and beyond that— 
 because they had a greater stock of 
 that metal, and consequently its value 
 was less than it was fifty years ago. 
 There could not, as long as the pound 
 remained the standard, be any corre- 
 sponding variation between the price 
 of gold and the increase of taxation." 
 73. So general was the concurrence 
 of the Houses of Commons and Lords 
 in these opinions, that in searching 
 for the leaders of the debate on the 
 other side, we must recur to names 
 unknown to fame, though well known 
 as engaged in vast and important spe- 
 culations ; and on that account the 
 more worthy of attention, for they 
 w^ere practical men, Avho spoke from 
 their actual experience of what would 
 be the result of the proposed change. 
 It was stated by JNIr Alderman Hey- 
 gate and Mr Gurney: *' It was gene- 
 rally supposed, and in fact commonly 
 assumed, as an incontrovertible posi- 
 tion, that our paper was depreciated 
 to a certain extent. Great as the au- 
 thorities and splendid as the names 
 were, which were cited in the report 
 of the committee as supporters of that 
 opinion, yet research and inquiry 
 would convince every imbiassed mind, 
 not only that no such depreciation did 
 now exist, but that it never could 
 exist. The preliminary point for 
 inquiry is, Was our money depreciated 
 or not ? If it was, we were bound to 
 devise a remedy ; if it was not, Parlia- 
 ment should pause before they put in 
 force enactments which could not but 
 have the most distressing consequences. 
 
 Can the circulation be called exces- 
 sive ? Is it not, on the contrary, too 
 small, when it is recollected that it is 
 no larger now than it was in 1792 ? It 
 could not be considered as excessive, 
 if we considered the enormous increase 
 of population, property, and taxes, in 
 the intermediate period, during which 
 the inhabitants of the empire had in- 
 creased at least fifty per cent ; the 
 revenue had risen from £16,000,000 
 a-year to £54,000,000, and the Na- 
 tional Debt from £240,000,000 to 
 £800,000,000. Add to this the still 
 greater increase of our colonies, com- 
 merce, docks, public buildings, agri- 
 culture, manufactures, and undertak- 
 ings of all kinds, and no man can 
 deny that, so far from our circulation 
 being excessive, it is greatly within 
 the wants of the community. 
 
 74. " The argument that the supply 
 of gold is dependent on the paper cir- 
 culation, and that it will always be 
 driven out of the country when an 
 over-issue of that takes place, is utter- 
 ly erroneous, and is disproved by the 
 facts. In November 1817, the notes 
 in circulation exceeded £29,000,000, 
 and the price of gold was £4, Os. 6d. 
 the ounce. Since that period there 
 had been a reduction of £3, 000, 000 in 
 the notes in circulation, and yet the 
 price of gold had been somewhat 
 higher. Gold, in the last years of the 
 war, was as high as £5, 4s. an ounce ; 
 and, without any reduction in the 
 amount of bank paper in circulation, 
 it fell in 1816 to £4, Is. the ounce. 
 The truth is, gold is a valuable com- 
 modit}', an article of commerce in uni- 
 versal request, and, like every other 
 such article, it varies in price accord- 
 ing to the varying demand for it in 
 this or otlier countries. Nothing 
 could be more dangerous than to make 
 our entire circulating medium depen- 
 dent on the supply of gold, and impose 
 upon the bank the necessity of con- 
 stantly referring to its price as the 
 measure whereby to regulate the 
 amount of their own issues. The cir- 
 culation of the country banks is entire- 
 ly regulated by the profuseness or 
 caution of the issues of the Bank of 
 England ; and the whole circulation 
 
1819.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 197 
 
 being in this manner dependent on 
 that basis, in what situation shall we 
 be if, the moment the price of gold 
 rises, and it, in consequence, disap- 
 pears from circulation, our whole paper 
 is, at the same time, drawn in ? This 
 was exactly what happened in 1816. 
 Gold was then on a par Avith paper ; 
 and yet such Avas the calamity, and so 
 extensive the distress at that unfor- 
 tunate period, that it pervaded every 
 part of the country. The landed pro- 
 prietor could get no rents, the manu- 
 facturer no market, the labourer no 
 employment. Bankruptcy was uni- 
 versal. Even if next autumn the har- 
 vest should be abundant, the ex- 
 changes become favourable, and the 
 price of gold fall, still every prudent 
 banker must, if the proposed plan 
 receives the sanction of Parliament, 
 limit his issues, and every prudent 
 merchant and manufacturer his under- 
 takings ; and thus, with all the ele- 
 ments of prosperity at our command, 
 universal distress must again ensue. 
 This anticipation was supported by all 
 the evidence taken before the commit- 
 tee, and by none more than that of Mr 
 Baring, the individual, perhaps, in ex- 
 istence, best qualitied to form an opin- 
 ion on the subject. But if the price 
 of gold should rise, and exclianges 
 prove unfavourable, can imagination 
 itself assign any limit to the disasters 
 which must ensue ? 
 
 75. "The right honourable mover 
 of the resolutions has eulogised the 
 conduct of Queen Elizabeth in restor- 
 ing the purity of the coin ; but were 
 the circumstances of that period par- 
 allel ? "Were they not rather a con- 
 trast to the present ? The country 
 was not then burdened with a debt 
 of £800,000,000, and the necessity of 
 raising a revenue of £54,000,000 an- 
 nually. "What might have been wise 
 and magnanimous in that princess, 
 might now be the height of impru- 
 dence and infatuation. It is a most 
 fallacious idea to suppose that, if the 
 proposed plan were adopted, the price 
 of gold would permanently remain at 
 the present level. It might do so, in 
 so far as this country is concerned ; 
 but who can be sure that nothing is 
 
 likely to occur abroad which Avill at 
 once raise the price of gold, and occa- 
 sion such a run upon the Bank of 
 England as will seriously injure, if 
 not wholly destroy, credit ? In such 
 a case, the situation of the bank, and 
 with it of every country bank, would 
 be full of hazard. Their only chance 
 of safety would be in an appeal to 
 Parliament to i-elax the law ; but it 
 might not be sitting at the time ; and, 
 at all events, it Avould undoubtedly be 
 reluctant to interfere till the very 
 last extremity, and great distress had 
 already been undergone. If, however, 
 the recommendations of the report 
 were adopted, every merchant, manu- 
 facturer, and banker, would regulate 
 his dealings with a view to the possi- 
 bility of such an event ; and if it oc- 
 curred, Avhere would be the employ- 
 ment of the poor ? and how fearful 
 the increase of the poor-rates ! This 
 is the expectation of a large portion 
 of that part of our community engaged 
 in carrying on agriculture, trade, and 
 manufactures ; and coming events are 
 already foreshadowed by the great de- 
 cline of confidence, and decrease of 
 orders and employment, which has 
 taken place since the secret commit- 
 tees were appointed in the present 
 session of Parliament. 
 
 76. " The avowed object of the new 
 system is to establish a fixed standard 
 of value ; but although by its adoption 
 you may confer steadiness on that of 
 gold, at what cost will that be pur- 
 chased, in the price of all other com- 
 modities ? Can any man, if the re- 
 solutions are adopted, say what will 
 be the condition or value of his pro- 
 perty in February next ? If a run 
 upon the bank takes place at that 
 time, it may be compelled to stop pay- 
 ment in a fortnight. The countr}^, 
 which has so cheerfully borne the bur- 
 dens of the war, is at least entitled to 
 be saved from the risk of losing its 
 currency, and having the miseries ta 
 undergo consequent on a universal de- 
 struction of credit. The rise in the 
 price of provisions has no natural or 
 immediate eftect on the wages of the 
 -abouring classes, but a cessation of 
 employment has an instantaneous and 
 
198 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [clfAP. IV. 
 
 destmctive efifect upon them. All we 
 have suffered from the terrible fluctu- 
 ation of prices since the peace is to 
 be ascribed to the erroneous determi- 
 nation avowed by Government, that 
 an ounce of gold should, under a debt 
 of £800,000,000, happen what might, 
 pass for no more than £3, 17s. lO^d. 
 an ounce — a determination which only- 
 fixes it at that price by destroying 
 credit, ruining industry, and occasion- 
 ing a frightful fluctuation in the prices 
 of all otlier commodities. It is said by 
 the supporter of the measure proposed 
 (j\Ir Ricardo) that the variation of 
 'prices it will produce loill not exceed 
 3 'per cent ;* but it will be found that 
 it will be above 20 per cent ; and if 
 so, how are our farmers to pay their 
 rents, or the nation its taxes, and 
 the interest on its debts, public and 
 private ? 
 
 77. " It is said that an alteration 
 on the standard would be a fraud on 
 the national creditors, and that, injus- 
 tice to them, we must return to the 
 old standard. But, to say nothing 
 of the comparative amount borrowed 
 since the restriction, it should be re- 
 collected there are two parties to a 
 bargain. Has the national creditor 
 called for this change ? Had he 
 thought the change would prove bene- 
 ficial to him, the Three per Cents 
 ■would have risen to 100, instead of 
 falling, as they have now done, to 66. 
 But the national creditor saw, what 
 was undoubtedly the fact, that in- 
 creased pressure upon those who must 
 pay him his interest lessened his secur- 
 ity, and he would gladly continue to 
 take his share in a currency somewhat 
 diminished in value, together with his 
 neighbours, rather than incur the risk 
 of being exempted from that which, in 
 fact, had operated as a sort of property- 
 tax on property of every description, 
 and which had insured the regularity, 
 if it had diminished the value, of the 
 stockholders' dividends. " 
 
 * "The difficulty is only that of raising 
 the currency 3 per cent in value (hear, hear); 
 and who can doubt that, even in those states 
 Vfhere the currency is wholly metallic, it often 
 suffered a variation equal to this without in- 
 eonvenience to the public?"— Mr Ricardo's 
 Speech, May 24, 1819; Pari Deb., xl. 743. 
 
 78. Upon this debate the resolutions 
 were agreed to without one dissentient 
 voice, the proposed amendment of Al- 
 derman Heygate being withdi-awn. 
 Mr Canning stated "that he would 
 take this as nothing less than a unani- 
 mous determination of Parliament that 
 the country should return, as speedily 
 as possible, to the ancient standard of 
 value in the establishment of a metallic 
 currency," which was accordingly done 
 by the act which passed in terms of 
 the resolutions.* 
 
 79. On one occasion, counsel, plead- 
 ing in the House of Lords before Lord 
 Eldon, opened the case by saying — 
 " My lords, this is an appeal from a 
 wmnimous judgment of the Court of 
 Session." "So much the worse for 
 you," observed the Chancellor; "for 
 that renders it the more probable that 
 the case was either not understood or 
 not properly considered." When the 
 question was put to the Convention, 
 whether Louis XVI. was guilty or in- 
 nocent, they unanimously declared 
 him guilty ; the subsequent narrow 
 division was on the nature of the 
 punishment to be inflicted only. Pos- 
 terity has reversed the sentence ; it 
 
 * The resolutions were :— 
 
 " I. That it is inexpedient to continue the 
 restriction of cash paj-nients beyond the time 
 at present limited by law. 
 
 " II. That it is expedient that a definite 
 period should be fixed for the termination of 
 the restriction on cash payments, and that 
 preparatory measures should be taken to 
 facilitate and insure, on the arrival of that 
 period, the payment of the notes of the Bank 
 of England in the current coin of the realm. 
 
 "III. That the debt of £10,000,000 due by 
 Government to the bank should be provided 
 for and gradually paid. 
 
 "IV. That it is expedient to provide by 
 law, that from and after 1st February 1S20, 
 the bank shall be liable to deliver on demand, 
 gold of standard fineness, having been assayed 
 and stamped at his Majesty's Mint, a quan- 
 tity of not less than sixty ounces being re- 
 quired in exchange for such an amount of 
 bank-notes of the bank as shall be equal to 
 the value of the gold so required, at the rate 
 of £4, Is. per ounce. 
 
 " V. That from 1st October 1S20 the bank 
 shall be liable to deliver gold at the rate of 
 £3, 19s. 6d. per ounce, and from 1st May 1821 
 at £3, 17s. lO^d.; and that from 1st May 1823 
 the bank shall pay its notes on demand in the 
 legal coin of the realm. 
 
 " VI. That all laws prohibiting the melting 
 and exportation of coin shall be repealed."— 
 Farl. I>c&.,xl. 701. 
 
1819.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 199 
 
 has unanimously declared liim inno- 
 cent. This is not the time to discuss 
 the effects of this great measure, with 
 whicli, for good or for evil, the future 
 destinies of Great Britain, and, vnth 
 it, of half the globe, are wound wp. 
 At present three things only are wor- 
 thy of observation, and should be kept 
 in mind in considering the amj)le com- 
 Bientary Avhich subsequent events have 
 furnished on this unanimous decision 
 of the legislature. The first is, that 
 no allusion was made on either side 
 to the great defalcation then going on, 
 and which had been in progress for ten 
 years before the discussion began, in 
 the supply of the precious metals 
 for the use of the globe from the South 
 American mines, from the revolu- 
 tionary convulsions raging in that 
 quarter, although the effect of those 
 convulsions had been to reduce the 
 annual supply of the precious metals 
 available for the circulation of man- 
 kind to little more than a fourth of 
 its former amount. The second, that 
 the ablest speakers who supported the 
 resolutions — in particular, Mr Peel 
 and Mr Ricardo — maintained that the 
 change of prices, arising from this 
 measure, would not exceed 3 per cent ; 
 and that its adoption was the only way 
 to guard against the evils of great va- 
 riations in prices. The third is, that 
 these views were xmanimously adopted 
 by the legislature — the opponents of 
 the measm-e being too few in number 
 to risk a division— at the very time 
 when a contraction of the currency- 
 was so much to be deprecated, from 
 the great falling-off in the supply cf 
 the precious metals from the Soutk 
 
 American mines, and the vast addition 
 to the wants and transactions of the 
 world wliich was daily taking place 
 from the continuance of peace, the ex- 
 tension of commerce, and rapid in- 
 crease of population, as well in Europe 
 as in the States of North America ; 
 and the immense loans Avhich at that 
 veiy time required to be provided for, 
 contracted by the French Government. 
 80. The finances of the country un- 
 derwent a very thorough discussion in 
 this session of Parliament, both on occa- 
 sion of a motion by LordCastlereagh for 
 a select committee to inquire into the 
 income and expenditure of the country, 
 and of a series of finance resolutions 
 which ]\Ir Vansittart brought forward 
 on 3d June. These resolutions, and 
 the report of the committee, are very 
 valuable, as exhibiting the financial 
 state of the empire, and the resources 
 it possessed at the time when the great 
 change in its monetary policy was 
 adopted. The results were extremely 
 satisfactory — much more so than could 
 have been anticipated, when it is con- 
 sidered what an enormous weight of 
 debt, funded and unfunded, remained at 
 the close of the year; that £17,000,000 
 of taxes had been taken off in the first 
 year of the peace, and the revenue that 
 remained had been seriously impaired 
 by the repeated fluctuations of the cur- 
 rency, induced by the constant terror 
 of resuming cash payments which hung 
 over the bank ; and that, Avith very few 
 exceptions, and those of short periods 
 only, general distress had prevailed in 
 the country.* It was stated in Mr 
 Yansittart's resolutions, that, by the 
 removal of the property and war malt 
 
 * Income and 
 
 Expenditure of 
 
 Great Britain and Ireland 
 
 
 
 FOB THE Year 1S19: — 
 
 
 I. Income. 
 
 
 II. Expenditure 
 
 
 Custoriis, 
 
 £11,692,661 
 
 Interest of National Debt and 
 
 
 Excise, .... 
 
 25,565,640 
 
 Sinking Fund, 
 
 £46,467,997 
 
 Stamps 
 
 6,889,074 
 
 Interest on Exchequer bills, . 
 
 779,992 
 
 Post-office, . 
 
 1,790,19) 
 
 Civil List, and charges on Con- 
 
 
 Lesser items— 
 
 
 solidated Fund, . 
 
 2,538,666 
 
 Lottery, 
 
 665, .300 
 
 Civil Government of Scotland, 
 
 129,993 
 
 Unclaimed dividends, . 
 
 237,312 
 
 Lesser paj-ments, . 
 
 389,161 
 
 Imperial moneys, . 
 
 • 374, 90f 
 
 Navy 
 
 6,395,552 
 
 
 
 OrflnaTiPP 
 
 1,538,209 
 9,450,650 
 
 Total revenue, 
 
 56,040,108 
 
 VyivAiiaixv^Cj • • • • 
 
 Army, .... 
 
 Loans, . 
 
 18,756,087 
 
 Local objects, . 
 
 53,101 
 
 
 
 Miscellaneous, . 
 
 . 1,855,948 
 
 Total, '. ' 
 
 £74,796,196 
 
 —Ann. Beg. 1820, 618. 
 
 
 Total, ■ . . 
 
 £69,599,276 
 
200 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE: 
 
 taxes, the income of Great Britain had 
 been reduced by £18,000,000 yearly; 
 that the interest and charge of the 
 debt, funded and unfunded, of Ireland, 
 exceeded its revenue by £1,800,000 
 annually ; that the revenue of the 
 United Kingdom, for the year ending 
 5th January 1818, Avas £51,665,458^ 
 while, for the year ending 5th January 
 1819, it was £54,620,000, showing an 
 increase of above £3,000,000— which, 
 however, was reduced l)y arrears of war 
 duties on malt and property to only 
 £49,334,927 as tlie real income in 1817, 
 while the income in 1818 included only 
 £556,639 of these. The general result 
 was, that there was in 1818 a total 
 surplus of £3,558,000 applicable to the 
 reduction of the national debt ; and if 
 £1,000,000 was allowed as the interest 
 of the loan required to keep the ex- 
 penditure off the Sinking Fund, there 
 would remain £2,500,000 of real sur- 
 plus revenue and really paid-off debt. 
 81. Mr Vansittart stated, in refer- 
 ence to future finance measures of Gov- 
 ernment — " That in consequence of 
 the extensive and searching investiga- 
 tions that had lately taken place into 
 our finance situation, its strong and its 
 weak points were now fully kno\Am 
 both in this country and abroad ; while 
 at the same time, by the return of our 
 army from France, and the great re- 
 ductions which had been made in our 
 establishments both by land and sea, 
 we had arrived at what might be called 
 our peace establishment, from which 
 no material reductions were to be ex- 
 pected. At the same time, our cur- 
 rency had at length been restored to its 
 proper basis ; and as the military pen- 
 sions, which constituted so large a part 
 of the cost of the arm}^ must soon 
 3'early diminish, it becomes Parliament 
 at the same time to take measures for 
 putting our finance on a proper founda- 
 tion. This can only be done, advert- 
 ing to the magnitude of our public 
 debt, by applying £5,000,000 at least 
 annually to its reduction. The Sinking 
 Fund is about £15,000, 000 a-year ; and 
 the loan this year will be £13,000,000. 
 This leaves an excess of £2,000,000 
 really applicable to the reduction of 
 debt; and, therefore, £3,000,000 addi. 
 
 [chap. IV. 
 
 tional taxes would require to be laid 
 on, to make up the requisite annual 
 surplus. Of the loan of the year I 
 propose to devote one -half in liquida- 
 tion of the unfunded debt, and one- 
 half in repaying part of the £10, 000, 000 
 advanced by the bank." Parliament 
 agreed to these proposals, which were 
 obviously founded in statesmanlike -SAis- 
 doni, and the new taxes imposed were 
 on foreign wool and tobacco, tea, coffee, 
 and cocoa-nuts. This was a great step 
 in the right direction ; for not only was 
 a considerable sinking fund secui'ed, 
 but it was obtained Avithout recurring to 
 the odious and unjust system of direct 
 taxation, Avhich falls with very unequal 
 weight upon a small part only of the 
 community, but by indirect taxation 
 chiefly on luxuries, which is in general 
 so light, and spread over so large a sur- 
 face, that it is no exaggeration to say 
 the money is got Avithout any one being 
 sensible of the burden of its collection. 
 82. Sir James ]\Iackintosh, in this 
 session of Parliament, brought fonvard 
 the subject of a reform of the criminal 
 law, in a speech replete with master- 
 ly statements and statesmanlike views, 
 Avhicli showed how little the cause had 
 lost by the work of Romilly having been 
 transferred to him. He observed: "I 
 do not propose to form a new criminal 
 code. Altogether to abolish a system 
 of law, admirable in its principle, in- 
 ten^'oven Avith the habits of the Eng- 
 lish people, and under Avhich they have 
 long and happily lived, is a propositioji 
 loo extraA'agant to be for a moment 
 listened to. ISTeither is it proposed to 
 ibolish the punishment of death. The 
 right of inHicting it is a part of the 
 right of self-defence AA'ith which all 
 societies, as well as indiAdduals, are 
 pndoAved. Like all other punishments, 
 the infliction, of death is an evil, if 
 unnecessar)'- ; but, like any other evil 
 employed to remedy a still greater one, 
 it is capable of becoming a good. Nor 
 is it proposed to take aAA'ay the poAver 
 of pardon from the CroAvn. On the 
 contrary, my object is to restore to the 
 Sovereign the real and practical enjoy- 
 ment of that prerogative, of which 
 usage in modern times has nearly de- 
 prived him. My object is to bring the 
 
1819.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 201 
 
 letter of the law more near its prac- 
 tice ; to make the execution of the law 
 form tl\e majority, its remission the 
 minority, of cases. It is impossible, 
 indeed, to frame a system of law so 
 graduated that it can be applied to 
 every case A\nthout the intervention of 
 a discretionary power; but there is 
 good reason to complain of a system of 
 law such as that which at present pre- 
 vails in England, when the remission 
 of the law forms the rule, and its exe- 
 cution the exception. The object of my 
 reform is to transfer into the statute- 
 book the exceptions to rigour, Avhich 
 the wisdom of modern times has intro- 
 duced into its practice. 
 
 83. "It is said the progress of the 
 country in manufactures is the princi- 
 pal cause of the gi'eat increase of crime 
 which has taken place. But is our 
 progress in wealth and manufactures 
 to be arrested ? Great cities are, Avith- 
 out doubt, the hotbeds of crime ; but 
 can cities be pi-evented from becoming 
 large in the later stages of society ? It 
 is to the causes of increase which arise 
 from errors of legislation, and a perni- 
 cious code of laws, that the attention 
 of Parliament should chiefly be direct- 
 ed, because it is there alone that the 
 means of reformation are in our hands. 
 The game - laws are, without doubt, in 
 rural districts, a prolific source of de- 
 moralisation ; and the returns of com- 
 mitments show a gi'eat increase since 
 1808, when our paper currency first 
 became seriously depreciated. Bat tlni 
 main ground for a reformation of the 
 criminal law is, that it is not so effica- 
 cious as it ought to be in checking thf 
 increase of crime arising from these 
 various causes, and that in consequence 
 of its excessive severity. There are no 
 less than two hundred felonies on the 
 statute-book punishable with death; 
 but, by the returns from London and 
 Middlesex from 1749 to 1819— a pe- 
 riod of seventy years — there are only 
 twenty-five sorts of felonies for which 
 any indiA-iduals have been executed ; so 
 that there are a hundred and seventy- 
 five capital felonies respecting which 
 the law, during that time, has never 
 been enforced ! In the thirteen years 
 since 1805 there are only thirteen de- 
 
 scriptions of felonies on which capital 
 convictions have taken place in Eng- 
 land and Wales ; so that there are one 
 hundred and seventy capital felonies 
 which have practically gone into de- 
 suetude. 
 
 84. " This extraordinary multiplica- 
 tion of crimes, against which the sanc- 
 tion of death was pronounced, has 
 arisen mainly from the Revolution of 
 1088 — in other respects productive of 
 so much good — by the facility which 
 it aflbrded to every class to get any 
 off'ence Avhich ti-enched at all on them 
 declared capital. It is inconceivable 
 how heedlessly and recklessly this was 
 done in former times. The anecdotes 
 which are current of this extraordinary 
 and shameful facility I am almost 
 ashamed to repeat. Mr Burke told 
 me that on one occasion, when he was 
 leaving the House, one of the messen- 
 gers called him back. Mr Burke said 
 he was going on urgent business. 
 ' Oh ! ' replied the messenger, *it will 
 not keep you a single moment ; it is 
 only a felony Avithout benefit of clergy.* 
 Mr Burke added, that although, from 
 his political career, he was not enti- 
 tled to ask any favour of the ministry, 
 yet he was persuaded he had interest 
 enough, at any time, to obtain their 
 assent to a felony without benefit of 
 clergy. This unfortunate facility in 
 granting an increase in the severity of 
 the law to every proposer, with the 
 most impartial disregai'd of political 
 consideration, arose and was carried on 
 at the very time when the humane 
 feelings of the country were daily more 
 and more refining under the influence 
 of knowledge ; and this it was which 
 produced the final separation between 
 the letter and practice of the law, for 
 the Government and the nation alike 
 revolted at executing laws which in 
 moments of heedlessness the Legisla- 
 ture had sanctioned. ]\lost justh' did 
 that great and good man. Sir William 
 Grant, say that it was impossible both 
 the law and the practice can be right ; 
 that the toleration of such a discord 
 was an anomaly which ought no longer 
 to exist ; and that as the law might be 
 brought to an accordance with the 
 practice, but it was impossible to bring 
 
202 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. IV, 
 
 tlie practice into accordance witli the 
 law, the law ought to be altered for a 
 wiser and more humane system. The 
 last century has exhibited a continual 
 confederacy of j)rosecutors, witnesses, 
 counsel, juries, judges, and the advisers 
 of the Crown, to prevent the execution 
 of the law. 
 
 85. "The crimes against which our 
 penal code, as it at present stands, 
 denounces the punishment of death, 
 may be divided into three classes. In 
 the first are numbered murder, shoot- 
 ing, stabbing, and such other offences 
 as endanger life, and on which the 
 extreme sentence of the law is invari- 
 ably executed. In the second class are 
 included arson, highway robbery, pira- 
 cy, and other simikr offences, in which 
 the law, though not always, is very 
 frequently carried into effect. On these 
 two di^^sions I admit that at pi'csent 
 it would be unsafe to make any altera- 
 tion. But there is a third class — some 
 connected with frauds of various kinds, 
 but others of the most frivolous and 
 fantastic description, against which 
 the punishment of death is denounced 
 in our statute-book, but never now 
 carried into execution, and in which it 
 never was executed, even in former 
 times, without exciting the utmost 
 disgust and horror in all good men— 
 such as cutting down a liop-\'ine, or a 
 tree in a gentleman's park ; or cutting 
 the head of a ffsh-pond, or being found 
 on the high-road at night with the 
 face blackened. These trifling and 
 even ridiculous capital felonies are 
 about a hundred and fifty in number ; 
 and although for the last seventy years 
 they have in no one instance been car- 
 ried into execution, yet there they 
 stand, at this hour, a perpetual monu- 
 ment of savage barbarity, and an eter- 
 nal proof of the difference between the 
 written law and its practical execution. 
 From the whole of this class of cases I 
 propose to take away in law, as has 
 long been done in practice, the capital 
 sanction. 
 
 86. " But even in those cases where 
 the punishment of death may still, 
 without shocking our moral feelings, 
 be inflicted, it seems expedient, in 
 every point of view, that the extreme 
 
 punishment of the law should, if not 
 entirely removed, be at least extremely 
 limited. I do not contend for the 
 entire abolition of the punishment of 
 death : in some crimes, and especially 
 murder, it ought to be inflicted. The 
 courts of law should, in such cases, be 
 armed with the awful power of taking 
 away the offender's life ; and thus it 
 may be seen that, in this country, that 
 may be done by justice which may not 
 be done by power. But in order to 
 render that authority fully impressive, 
 I am convinced that the punishment 
 of death should be abolished in those 
 cases where inferior punishments are 
 not only applicable, but usually ap- 
 plied. Nothing can be more detri- 
 mental to the purposes of justice than 
 the frequency yxiih which the sentence 
 of death is pronounced from the judg- 
 ment-seat, with all the solemnities 
 prescribed for the occasion, when it is 
 e^ddent, even to those against whom 
 the sentence is pronounced, that it will 
 not be carried into effect. The fre- 
 quency of escape in such cases takes 
 away the whole effect of capital sen- 
 tence as an example. 'A single escape, ' 
 says Fielding, ' excites a greater degree 
 of hope in the minds of criminals than 
 twenty executions excite of fear. ' The 
 whole effect of punishment, as an ex- 
 ample, is destroyed when the sjnnpathy 
 of the spectators is with the criminal 
 when he is executed, or against the 
 law when sentence is pronounced. 
 
 87. " In all nations, and in all 
 stages of societj', an agreement between, 
 the laws and the general feeling of 
 the people is essential to their efficacy. 
 But this agreement becomes of un- 
 .speakable importance in a country in. 
 which the charge of executmg the laws 
 is in a great measure committed to the 
 people themselves. God forbid that 
 I should ^\'ish to throw any impediment 
 whatever in the way of our civil govern- 
 ment ; on the contrary, it is my object 
 to remove such as exist. My object 
 is to make the laws popular, to recon- 
 cile public opinion to their enactments, 
 and thus to redeem their character. ; 
 It is to render their execution easy, 
 theirterror overwlielming, theirefficacy 
 complete, that I implore the House to 
 
1819.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 203 
 
 give to the subject their most serious 
 consideration. The just and faithful 
 administration of the law is the great 
 bond of society — the point at whicli 
 authority and obedience meet most 
 nearly. If those who hold the reins 
 of government, instead of attempting 
 a remedy, content themselves with 
 vain lamentations on the increase of 
 crime — if they refuse to conform the 
 laws to the opinions and dis2:)Ositions 
 of the public, that growth must contri- 
 bute to spread a just alarm." 
 
 88. To these just and able argu- 
 ments, it was replied by Lord Castle- 
 reagh, Mr Canning also coinciding 
 with him: "My own views do not 
 difier materially from those wliich have 
 been enforced by the honourable gen- 
 tleman with so much learning and 
 ability. The great point, however, is 
 to proceed with due caution ; for un- 
 less this is done, the cause of crimi- 
 nal reform itself will be endangered 
 by the experienced failure of its effects. 
 This result has abeady taken place 
 in one instance. In the year 1815, 
 Sir Samuel Romilly brought in a bill 
 which became law, taking away the 
 punishment of death for stealing from 
 the person. What was the result ? 
 AVhy, that the convictions for that 
 offence had increased fourfold ; * — that 
 crime, the punishment of which had 
 relaxed, had increased in a gi-eater pro- 
 portion than other crimes. Tlie argu- 
 ment, therefore, that a relaxation of 
 punishment would produce diminution 
 of crime, was not in every instance well 
 founded. • This did not show tliat the 
 Parliamentary inquiry moved for shouLi 
 not be granted ; but" it was a warning 
 how cautiously and deliberately it 
 should be entered into. The commit- 
 tee moved for, was not to be authorised 
 to consider the question of secondary 
 punishments. But how was it to bring 
 about any practical good unless it did 
 so ? For if the punishment of deatL 
 
 * Convicted for Stealing from the Per- 
 son, FROM 1810 TO 181S. 
 
 Years. 
 
 Convicted. 
 
 Tears. 
 
 Convicted 
 
 1810, . 
 
 64 
 
 1815, . 
 
 131 
 
 ISll, , 
 
 83 
 
 1816, . 
 
 234 
 
 1812, . 
 
 78 
 
 1817, . 
 
 257 
 
 1813, . 
 
 1814, . 
 
 135 
 311 
 
 1818, . 
 
 262 
 
 is to be taken away, is not the very 
 lirst thing to be considered, what pen- 
 alties are to be substituted in their 
 room? Out of the 13,000 criminals 
 with whom our jails are annually 
 crowded, at least 10,000 are those to 
 whom such secondary punishments are 
 applicable. 
 
 89. " It is fortunate that the leam-. 
 ed mover has not been led away by the 
 theoretical innovations as to the abo- 
 lition of the punishment of death iivall 
 cases. When was there a nation which 
 had ever been able to dispense with 
 that painful neces.sity ? Indeed, the 
 mover's speech is to be admired, not 
 less for what is contained than what is 
 omitted in it. It may be true that 
 the great increase whicli has taken 
 place in the crimes for which the pun- 
 ishment has been mitigated, has been 
 owing to the increased number of pro- 
 secutions. But is it possible, with 
 any consistency, to say ffrst that the 
 increase of crime has been owing to 
 undue severity in its punishment, and 
 then that a still gi-eater increase has 
 been owing to its relaxation ? If there 
 is truth in the argument on the other 
 side, the diminished severity of punish- 
 ment, and consequent increase of con- 
 victions, should have led to a decrease 
 in the crimes committed. The com- 
 mittee already appointed, and now ac- 
 tually sitting, on the state of the jails 
 in the kingdom, with a view not only 
 to the safe custody, but to the refor- 
 mation of prisoners, would have to 
 consider much wdiich should be em- 
 braced in the present motion ; that on 
 the punishment of transportation, an- 
 other part. It Avould be prudent to 
 await the result of their labours, before 
 engaging in any more extensive inquiry 
 as to the general amendment of the 
 criminal law ; for what could be more 
 dangerous than to abolish generally 
 the punishment of death, without being 
 prepared to say what secondary penal- 
 ties could be inflicted in its stead ? " 
 
 90. It was evident, from the feeble 
 manner in which Sir James IMackin- 
 tosh's motion for the appointment 
 of a committee to inquire into our cri- 
 minal laws was resisted, that Govern- 
 ment felt that the case was indefensible. 
 
204 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [CUAP. IV. 
 
 and that the sense of the House, as 
 well as the nation, was in favour of the 
 desired reformation. They only resist- 
 ed the motion by a side-wind, in order 
 to gain time, or bring forward a mo- 
 tion themselves, on which they might 
 get a committee of their own appoint- 
 ment. In this, however, they were 
 unsuccessful, for, on a division. Sir 
 James's motion Avas carried by a ma- 
 jority of 19 — the numbers being 147 
 to 128. 
 
 91. This was the first decisive ric- 
 tory gained in the legislature l)y the 
 advocates of criminal reform, and as 
 such it deserves consideration. It was 
 the turning-point between two sys- 
 tems. For a hundred and fifty years 
 before it, every successive session of 
 Parliament had been marked by one 
 or more additions to the catalogue of 
 xjapital crimes, until at length they had 
 reached the enormous number of two 
 hundred. Since that time, the penal 
 sanction has been taken away by stat- 
 ute in so many cases, and the mercy 
 of the Crown exercised so liberally in 
 others, that for ten years past no per- 
 sons have been sentenced to death in 
 Great Britain but for murder ; and 
 execution has never taken place, except 
 in wilful and cold-blooded cases of that 
 crime. The number of persons who 
 suifer the extreme penalty of the law 
 is now never above fifteen or twenty in 
 
 a year in England, and three or four 
 in Scotland ; and the melancholy spec- 
 tacle of public executions does not take 
 place a tenth part as frequently as it 
 used to do, before Romilly and Mack- 
 intosh began their humane labours.* 
 So far there is great cause for con- 
 gratulation on the part of all the friends 
 of humanity. But the subject is sur- 
 rounded with difficulties ; and if there 
 is good cause for rejoicing in this re- 
 spect, there is equal ground for appre- 
 hension in another. The difficulty 
 arises, not from the argument, but the 
 fact, and the results which have actu- 
 ally followed this great relaxation of 
 our penal code. 
 
 92. It has been followed by a very 
 great increase both of committals and 
 convictions ; the former, however, iu 
 a considerably greater proportion than 
 the latter — indicating that, though the 
 administration of the criminal law has 
 become more regular, and there is an 
 increased inclination on the part of 
 injured persons to prosecute, and of 
 juries to convict, yet no decrease, but^ 
 on the contrary, a very great increase 
 of crime has taken place. + The in- 
 crease of commitments, since the leni- 
 ent system first began to be carried 
 into-eff'ect in 1822, has been most 
 alarming ; for they have swelled in 
 Great Britain and Ireland during that 
 period from 27,000 to 74,000, or above 
 
 Sextenced to De.^th in England and W.^les. 
 
 Years. 
 
 Sentenced. 
 
 Executed. t Years. 
 
 Sentenced. 
 
 Executed. 
 
 1816 
 1817 
 1818 
 1819 
 1820 
 
 390 
 1302 
 1254 
 1314 
 1236 
 
 95 ji 1845 
 115 II 1 1846 
 
 97 1 i 1847 
 108 1 ' 1848 
 107 1 1849 
 
 49 
 56 
 61 
 CO 
 66 
 
 8 
 12 
 15 
 
 Since 1839 no person has teen executed in Ingland but for wilful murder ; before th& 
 change in the law, the murderers were seldom nore than a foui'th of the number executed. 
 — Porteb's Progress of the Nation, 635— third Edition. 
 
 t Convictions in England and 
 
 Wales— PER cent of Committals. 
 
 Years. 
 
 Per Cent. 
 
 1 Year. 
 
 Per Cent. , 
 
 1805 
 1810 
 1815 
 1820 
 1825 
 
 60.43 
 61.35 
 62.46 
 67.23 
 69.01 
 
 1830 
 
 1835 
 
 ; 1841 
 
 1845 
 1 1849 
 
 70.72 1 
 71.04 
 
 73.05 1 
 71.60 ■ 
 75.49 • ; 
 
 — Poeteb's Progress of the Nc^ion, p. 638— third editipo. 
 
1819.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 201 
 
 280 per cent ; while, in the same pe- 
 riod, population has only advanced 
 from 21,000,000, in the two islands, to 
 26,700,000, or about 30 per cent ; in 
 other words, crime has increased about 
 eight times as fast as the numbers of 
 the people.* This is a sufficiently 
 startling resiilt, the more especially as 
 the last year (1849) was undisturbed 
 either by Irish famine or rebellion ; 
 and tiie free - trade measures, from 
 which the most general blessings had 
 been predicted for the empire, had been 
 for three years in full operation in 
 Great Britain. And as it is well known 
 to all persons practically engaged in 
 these matters, that so far from com- 
 mitments for trial being of late years 
 issued for more trivial crimes than 
 formerly, the case is just the reverse ; 
 and cases are constantly now disposed 
 of by the police magistrates, by the 
 crime being stated as a minor ofience, 
 or the heavier sanction of the law 
 having been taken away, and chas- 
 tised by a few weeks' imprisonment, 
 for which, thirty years ago, sentence 
 of death or trans^Dortation was pro- 
 nounced. + 
 
 93. In truth, however, this anomaly 
 is more apparent than real ; and this 
 disheartening result, so far from dis- 
 proving, only proves more clearfy the j 
 justice of Sir James ]\Iackintosh's 
 principles. Crime has increased so im- 
 mensely, chiefly because these principles 
 were applied only to the punishment of 
 death, and not followed out, as the^ 
 should have been, through the whole 
 ramifications of oifences, and the pen- 
 
 alties attached to them. His funda- 
 mental principle was, that certainty of 
 punishment is the only eflectual mode 
 of deterring from crime, and that this 
 can never be attained unless the feel- 
 ings of the people coincide with the 
 law, and co-operate in its execution. 
 No reasonable being can doubt the 
 soundness of this principle ; but, to be 
 effective, it should be applied univer- 
 sally. When the capital sentence is 
 taken away from a great variety of 
 off'ences, if certainty of secondary pun- 
 ishment is not imposed in its stead, 
 the temptation to the commission of 
 crime, from the hope of comparative 
 impunity, is of course increased. Un- 
 fortunately, however, many causes 
 have contributed to render secondary 
 punishments in the British empire 
 more uncertain and ineffective, at the 
 very time Avhen the punishment of 
 death has in all cases, except in wilful 
 murder, been taken away. One class 
 trusted to education to arrest the pro- 
 gress of crime ; forgetting that in Eng- 
 land the educated criminals were al- 
 ready double of the uneducated — and 
 in Scotland, four and a half to one. 
 Another rested their hopes on the ef- 
 fect of the improvement of prison dis- 
 cipline in reforming the criminals, an 
 illusion of all others the greatest ; for 
 experience has now abundantly proved 
 that neither solitary confinement, nor 
 long imprisonment, nor any amount 
 of moral and religious instruction 
 within the walls of a prison, has the 
 least effect in amending the lives of 
 prisoners in their own country, when 
 
 Commitments for Serious Crimes in Great Britain and Ireland. 
 
 Years. 
 
 England. 
 
 Scotland. 
 
 Ikeland. 
 
 Total 
 
 Population of whole. 
 
 18-2-2 
 
 12,241 
 
 1,691 
 
 1.3,251 
 
 27,183 
 
 21,500,000 
 
 lS-23 
 
 12,263 
 
 1,733 
 
 14,632 
 
 28,628 
 
 
 1824 
 
 13,698 
 
 1,802 
 
 15,258 
 
 30,748 
 
 
 1825 
 
 14,437 
 
 1,876 
 
 15,515 
 
 31,828 
 
 
 1820. 
 
 14,164 
 
 1,999 
 
 16,318 
 
 34,481 
 
 
 1845 
 
 24,303 
 
 3,537 
 
 16,696 
 
 44,536 
 
 
 1S46 
 
 25,107 
 
 4,069 
 
 18,492 
 
 47,668 
 
 
 1847 
 
 28,883 
 
 4,635 
 
 31,209 
 
 64,677 
 
 
 1848 
 
 30,349 
 
 4,909 
 
 38,522 
 
 73,780 
 
 
 -1849 
 
 27,806 
 
 4,357 
 
 41,982 
 
 74,162 
 
 26,700,000 
 
 —Porter's Progress of the Nation, pp. S, 635 667, 668— third edition ; and Pari. Returns. 
 
 t The Author has witnessed confirmatiou of this, times without number, during thirty 
 years that he has been engaged in the administration of the criminal law of Scotland ; and 
 he speaks from his own experience. 
 
206 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. IV. 
 
 they arc discharged from it.* In the 
 meanwhile, the great increase of pris- 
 oners transported, who swelled from a 
 few hundreds to nearly five thousand 
 annually, and the extremely injudici- 
 ous step of sending them all, without 
 any intermixture of untainted settlers, 
 to Van Diemen's Land — the most re- 
 mote colony of Great Britain, and the 
 least accessible to free colonists, where 
 the convicts have now come to be more 
 than a third of the entire inhabitants, 
 rendered transportation there so great 
 an evil, and so much an object of dread 
 to other colonies, that a general resist- 
 ance to the reception of penal emi- 
 grants was manifested, and for several 
 years none excepting young women 
 were removed to the colonies. Thus 
 transportation, after being pronounced 
 as a sentence, was not carried into 
 effect; the jails soon became incapa- 
 ble of holding the multitudes crowded 
 within their walls ; Government quiet- 
 ly let them go, after a year or two of im- 
 prisonment had been undergone ; and 
 they were soon back in their old haunts, 
 committing new crimes, and gi^'ing 
 their old associates the most encourag- 
 ing accounts of the ease with which, 
 "by a little address, liberation from the 
 severest sentence of transportation 
 could be obtained. + 
 
 94. The true principles to follow in 
 dealing with secondary punishments, 
 
 as Avith that of death, is to render them 
 as certain as -possible, and to consider 
 imprisonment at home as only a pre- 
 paration for, and means of teaching a 
 trade to, those who are ultimately to 
 be transported. For juvenile offenders 
 and trifling cases, a very short impri- 
 sonment, as of a week, or a flogging, 
 should be inflicted, merely with a view 
 to terror. For a second offence of any 
 sort, or a first of more serious, a pro- 
 longed imprisonment — • as of nine 
 months or a year — should be the pen- 
 alty, during which the convict should 
 be carefully instructed in a trade. 
 For the next offence, transportation 
 should invariably be inflicted, and as 
 invanably carried into execution. And 
 if it be objected that the colonists 
 will not receive the convicts, the an- 
 swer is, that no such difficulty was ex- 
 perienced till, by the abolition of the 
 assignment system, and keeping con- 
 \dcts in gangs, and sending them all 
 in overwhelming multitudes to one col- 
 ony, and that the most xlistant and 
 inaccessible to free settlers, it became 
 an object of dread rather than ambi- 
 tion to all others ; that this difficulty 
 will at once be overcome by engaging, 
 on the part of Government, to send 
 three untainted colonists for one con- 
 vict 10 any colony which y\i\\ receive 
 the latter ; or establishing an entii'e 
 new penal colony, to which all un- 
 
 Instruction of Criminals over the British Empire in 1841 and 1848. 
 
 
 ''norwrUe!''|l'"P"f«'^tl>-- 
 
 Well. 
 
 S"P-o-| edSd. 
 
 Total 
 uneducated. 
 
 1S41. 
 England . . . 
 Scotland . . . 
 Ireland . . . 
 
 1848. 
 England . . . 
 Scotland . . . 
 Ireland . . . 
 
 9,220 
 
 696 
 
 7,152 
 
 9,691 
 
 13,732 
 
 2,248 
 3,084 
 
 17,111 
 
 2,253 
 
 554 
 
 5,631 
 
 2,884 
 
 126 
 
 42 
 
 81 
 
 18,171 
 
 2,834 
 8,733 
 
 20,076 
 3,985 
 
 9,220 
 
 686 
 
 7,152 
 
 9,691 
 911 
 
 —Farl. Retttrns, 1841-48. 
 
 In France, it appears from M. Guerry'.s taHes that in all the eighty-four departments, 
 Avithout exception, the amount of crime is in pioportion to the amount of instruction ; -while 
 in Prussia, where education is more general tian in any other country in the world, being 
 enforced by Government on every citizen with a family, the proportion of serious crimes to 
 the population is twelve times greater than in Fiance, where half the people can neither read 
 nor write.— Guerry's Tables. 
 
 t At the spring circuit at Glasgow, in April 1848, out of 117 ordinary criminals indicted, 
 there were 22 who had been convicted at that place within two years previously, and sen- 
 tenced to various periods of transportation, Qone under seven years ; and the previous 
 sentence was stated in the indictment as an aggravation of the offence. The same was 
 the case for several years, and obtains, though in a lesser degree, to this day. 
 
1819.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 207 
 
 tainted persons emigrating at the ex- 
 pense of Government might be sent — 
 a system Avliich Avould at once convert 
 all the refractory colonies into peti- 
 tioners for a portion of the fertilising 
 stream. And if it should prove other- 
 ^^•ise, Australia is large enough to 
 aftbrd room for the establishment of 
 new penal colonies, regarding Avhich 
 no consent need be asked for thou- 
 sands of years to come.* 
 
 95. Another subject of general inter- 
 est was discussed in Parliament this 
 year, Avhich was that of the succours 
 cdandestinely furnished by the British 
 to the insurgents in Soiith America. 
 Ever since the contest between the splen- 
 did colonies of Spain and the mother 
 country had begim in 1810, of Avhich 
 an account has been given in a chap- 
 ter of the author's former work, it 
 liad been regarded with wann inter- 
 est in Great Britain ; partly in conse- 
 (]^uence of the strong and instinctive 
 attachment of its inhabitants to the 
 cause of freedom, and sympathy with 
 all who are engaged in asserting it ; 
 partly in consequence of extravagant 
 expectations formed and fomented by 
 interested parties, as to the vast field 
 that, by the independence of these 
 colonies, would be opened to British 
 commerce and enterprise. As Idng as 
 the war in Eiu'ope lasted, this sym- 
 pathy was evinced only by an anxious 
 observance of the struggle ; for the 
 physical resources of the country were 
 entirely absorbed in the terrific con- 
 test Avith j^apoleon. But when peace 
 succeeded, and the armies of all the 
 European states Avere in great part re- 
 duced, the interest taken in the caus) 
 of South American independence begau 
 to assume a more practical and effi- 
 cient form. Great numbers of officer, 
 from all coimtries, wearied of the mon- 
 otony of pacific life, or tempted by the 
 high rank and liberal pay ottered them 
 in South America, began to go over t) 
 the ranks of the insurgents, and ers 
 long rendered their forces greatly mora 
 
 * In the essay on "Crime and Transpor- 
 tation," in the Author's Essays, \6l. i. p. .547. 
 this very important and interesting subject is 
 discnssed more at length, and in detail, that 
 is practicable in a work of general liistory. 
 
 formidable than they had previously 
 been. The En^-.lish, prompted by the 
 love of freedom, wandering, and ad- 
 venture, which seems to be inherent 
 in the Anglo-Saxon character, Avera 
 soon pre-eminent in this respect ; and 
 the succours they sent over ere long 
 assumed so formidable an appearance 
 as attracted the serious notice of the 
 Spanish government. Xot only did 
 great numbers of the Peninsular veter- 
 ans, officers and men, go over in small 
 bodies, and carry to the insurgents the 
 benefit of their experience and the 
 prestige of their fame ; but a British 
 adventurer, Avho assumed the title of 
 Sir Gregor M 'Gre^^or, collected a con- 
 siderable expedition in the harbours 
 of this country, Avith which, in Britisli 
 vessels and imder the British flag, he 
 took possession of Porto Bello, in South 
 America, then in the undisturbed pos- 
 session of Spain, a country at peace 
 with Great Britain, This violent ag- 
 gression led to strong remonstrances 
 on the part of the Spanish government, 
 in consequence of Avhich Government 
 brought in a Foreign Enlistment Bill, 
 which led to violent debates in both 
 Houses of Parliament. 
 
 96. On the part of GoA'ernment, it 
 AA-as argued by the Earl of Liverpool, 
 Lord Bathurst, and Lord Castlereagh : 
 "As the laAV at present stands by the 
 9th and 29th Geo. II., and the 9th 
 Geo. III., it is made felony, Avithout 
 benefit of clergy, to seduce subjects of 
 this_ country to enlist in the serAdce of 
 foreign poAvers. These enactments are 
 quite general, and apply to all foreign 
 countries AA'ithout exception, and have 
 no special reference to the raising 
 troops for the serAdce of the Pretender, 
 though they Avere probably conceived 
 Avith that vicAv. Soon after the late 
 peace Avas concluded, it Avas discovered 
 that several British officers had left 
 this country to take service Avith the 
 insurgents of South America. At first, 
 Avhile the number AA-as inconsiderable, 
 the Government did not consider it 
 necessary to notice their engagements. 
 "When, hoAvcA-er, tlie number increased, 
 it was notified to officers on half-paj^ 
 that if they enlisted in foreign service 
 they would lose their half-pay. This 
 
208 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [CIIAP. IV. 
 
 notice, however, had not the desu-ed 
 effect. The enlistment of recruits for 
 South America \yent on openly : seve- 
 3"al large bodies embarked in British 
 harbours for that countiy, and lawyers 
 thought it doubtful whether the exist- 
 ing Acts of Parliament could reach 
 them. It became necessary, there- 
 fore, to do something more efficient ; 
 and this was alike called for by our 
 position as a neutral power, and by 
 the special engagements under which 
 Ave stood with Spain, relative to the 
 South American insurgents. 
 
 97. "By the treaty of 1814 with 
 the cabinet of Madrid, Great Britain 
 had expressly become bound to furnish 
 no succours to the Spanish insurgents, 
 aud the Government declared their re- 
 solution to observe a strict neutrality ; 
 and a proclamation, founded on this 
 principle, was issued in 1817, warning 
 his Majesty's subjects not to accept 
 any military conmiissions from, nor give 
 any aid to, either of the parties. This 
 principle was strictly acted upon by 
 the British Government ; and although 
 some British officers were serving by li- 
 cencein the Spanish army, itwas under- 
 stood they were not to act against the 
 insurgents ; and this understanding 
 had been enforced in two instances. 
 A change of the law, however, had be- 
 come necessary, because the severity of 
 the penalty denounced in it rendered 
 it impossible to carry it into execution. 
 It is proposed in the present act to 
 take away the capital sanction, and 
 declare persons enlisting in foreign ser- 
 vice guilty of misdemeanour only, and 
 to declare the supplying the belliger- 
 ents with warlike stores, and equip- 
 ping vessels for Avarlike purposes, the 
 like offence. The laAV thus mitigated, 
 in conformity Avitli the spirit of the 
 age, may be really carried into effect, 
 so as to show that Ave are sincerely 
 in earnest in the neutrality Ave have 
 declared. 
 
 98. "Such a determination is one 
 Avhich is not to be regarded as a tem- 
 porary, but a permanent resolution — a 
 declaration of the policy Avhich, in all 
 similar circumstances, has regulated 
 just and considerate neutral States, 
 
 and Avhich it is incumbent on this 
 country in an especial manner steadily 
 to adhere to. It is expressly provided 
 for by the treaty Avith Spain in 1814 ; 
 but, irrespective of that treaty, it is 
 incumbent on us by the eternal prin- 
 ciples of justice and the acknoAvledged 
 maxims of international laAv. It is 
 impossible to say aa^c are at peace or 
 amity Avitli a country, tlie subjects of 
 Avhich are entitled to make Avar at 
 pleasure AA-ith the subjects of our own. 
 country. Such a species of hostility 
 is Avar in its A'ery Avorst form ; for it is 
 Avar AA-ithout its laAvs, its restraints, its 
 direction, or its objects. It is not na- 
 tional hostility directed to public pur- 
 poses, but priA-ate piracy aiming at 
 nothing but individual plunder. Can 
 Ave permit armaments fitted out in 
 this coimtry to attack the peaceable 
 colonies or possessions of another coun- 
 try, or to aid its insurgents in sever- 
 ing themselves from its dominion ? 
 This case has actually occurred in the 
 recent seizure of Porto Bello, a towTi 
 of iS^ew Spain, by an expedition com- 
 manded by a person Avho assumed the 
 title of Sir Gregor M'Gregor. If this 
 Avas sanctioned against Porto Bello, 
 might it not equally be done against 
 Corunna, Cadiz, or Madrid itself? 
 Was :his consistent with justice ? "Was 
 it noc, on the contrary, sanctioning 
 the grossest injustice ? Of all States 
 in the Avorld, Great Britain is the one 
 which has the most decided interest to 
 resist the promulgating of such doc- 
 trines ; for not only is Ireland the pei- 
 i:etual field of domestic discontent and 
 foreign tampering, but her colonies in 
 every part of the Avorld at once invite 
 aggression, and render defence almost 
 lopeless. 
 
 99. " The same case has occurred in 
 former times AAith other countries, and 
 leen always met by the steady resist- 
 ance for Avhich Ave noAv contend. In 
 ]792 a treaty was concluded between 
 Great Britain and the United States, 
 l)y Avhich it Avas stipulated that the 
 subjects of neither poAver should ac- 
 cept commissions in the serA^ice of any 
 irince or state at Avar Avith the other, 
 rhe government of the United States, 
 
1819.] 
 
 when the war broke out between this 
 countiy and France, immediately 
 passed a law prohibiting the enlisting 
 of their citizens in the ser\Tlce of any 
 foreign prince or power, or furnishing 
 them with ships or warlike stores ; and 
 this act, which punished any infringe- 
 ment of its provisions by line or im- 
 prisonment, though at first temporary, 
 ■was afterwards made permanent. In 
 1818 the Americans extended this law 
 to any power, whether recognised or 
 not, expressly in order to meet the case 
 of the succours sent to the Spanish in- 
 surgents in the southern parts of their 
 continent. It is true that volunteer- 
 ing into foreign service was permitted 
 in the reigns of Elizabeth, Charles I., 
 and James II. ; but then it Avas only 
 because the services entered into were 
 those of States at war with the avoAved 
 ;memies of Great Britain, and at a 
 time when the virulence of religious 
 warfare rendered hostilities as cease- 
 less between Catholics and Protestants 
 as ever they had been between Mussul- 
 mans and Christians. But can this be 
 predicated of our old and faithful allies 
 the Spaniards, who have stood by our 
 side in the terrible Peninsular struggle 
 during seven years with Napoleon ? 
 And are we prepared, as the first proof 
 of our gi-atitude to them for the de- 
 voted fidelity Avith Avhich they fulfilled 
 their engagements towards us during 
 war, to aid their enemies, on the re- 
 turn of peace, in dismemlDering their 
 dominions ? " ^ 
 
 100. On the other hand, it was con- 
 tended by Lord Holland, Lord Lans- 
 downe, and Mr Tierney : ' ' The pre- 
 sent bill has been brought forward, not 
 on any general ground of policy, for it 
 is directly contrary to the practice of 
 England in its best days, but solely in 
 consequence of a specific application 
 from the court of Spain. Had, then, 
 that power any right to make that de- 
 mand, either upon the ground of the 
 general law of nations, or the terms of 
 any particular treaty ; and if she had 
 not, are there any reasons of justice or 
 expedience which call upon us to de- 
 part from the undoubted law, and still 
 
 ore und 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 HISTOEY OF EUROPE. 
 
 209 
 
 try for above a century back ? Both 
 questions must be answered in the 
 negative. The German jurists, par- 
 ticularly Martens, say that it is per- 
 fectly consistent with neutrality to 
 give every assistance to either of the 
 belligerents, except Avarlike expedi- 
 tions set on foot by the Government. 
 This principle has been constantly 
 acted upon in this country. It was 
 done, and to a very great extent, in 
 the reign of Elizabeth, Avhen the Dutch 
 Avere struggling for their independ- 
 ence ; and in that of James, Avhen 
 GustaAois Adolphus Avas contending, on 
 the plains of Germany, for the cause of 
 religious freedom all over the Avorld. 
 Could it be said that the eflbrts of in- 
 diAdduals to support the cause of South 
 American independence Avere Avarlike 
 expeditions, in the sense of the Ger- 
 man jurist ? * Every State,' says Mar- 
 tens, 'has a right to give liberty of 
 raising troops in its dominions, and 
 marching them through the country, 
 and 2nay grant to one State A\'hat it 
 refuses to another, Avithout infringing 
 its neutrality.' It is in vain to say 
 this is a noA'el and unheard-of doc- 
 trine ; it has been constantly acted 
 upon in this country. Queen Eliza- 
 beth alloAved her subjects to enlist to 
 any extent in the service of the Dutch 
 commouAvealth, though never in that 
 of Philip of Spain; and James I., a 
 great jurist, though certainly no hero, 
 alloAA'ed 2800 soldiers to be raised for 
 the service of Gustavus Adolphus, 
 Avhile he remained undisturbed in his 
 relations of amity AA'ith the Emperor, 
 against AA'hom they acted. It may be 
 asserted, Avithout fear of conti'adiction, 
 that for four centuries, and doAvn to 
 the year 1792, Avhen the Netherlands 
 Avere engaged in a revolt against Jo- 
 seph II., there never Avas a period in 
 which British subjects Avere not en- 
 gaged in giA'ing succour, as indivi- 
 duals, to otlier States ; and no instance 
 can be shoAvn in Avhich Goveimment 
 interfered in the manner noAV proposed 
 to prevent them. 
 
 101. " But it is said the GoA'ern- 
 ment of Spain is entitled to particular 
 rights by the treaty of 1814, already 
 o 
 
210 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. iv» 
 
 alluded to. Not a hint on this sub- 
 ject had been given when the treaty 
 •was signed ; but now, after the lapse 
 of five years, they come forward and 
 claim performance of certain stipula- 
 tions in their favour. It is impossible 
 to suppose tliat the clause in that 
 ti-eaty is to be understood in the sense 
 now put upon it ; for, if so, how is it 
 possible to explain the silence of both 
 governments in regard to it during the 
 last five years ? Nay, in the treaties 
 with France, the subjects of the two 
 countries are interdicted from issuing 
 letters of marque ; so that, according 
 to the doctrine of Government, this 
 country, not having the advantage of 
 a treaty of commerce with Spain, was 
 to be held as having incurred an ob- 
 ligation which only a treaty of com- 
 merce could have imposed. The strict 
 interpretation of this treaty would 
 bear very hai'd on the independent 
 states of South America ; for it is well 
 known that arms are sent openly from 
 this country to the government of old 
 Spain, to be used against the South 
 American states ; and, indeed, the 
 public journals have puijlicly declared 
 that the expedition from Cadiz was 
 only delayed for that purpose. The 
 execution of this treaty would not be 
 preserving even the balance of a strict 
 neutrality ; it would be enabling the 
 government of England to give assist- 
 ance to the government of old Spain, 
 while it withheld succour from the 
 states of South America, struggling 
 for their independence. 
 
 102. "Much had been said as to 
 the assistance given to the South 
 American states by the half-pay offi- 
 cers who have entered their service 
 from the army of this country ; but 
 there is much also to be said on the 
 other side, on behalf of that gallant 
 and meritorious body of men. It is 
 easy to make rhetorical flourishes 
 about soldiers retmng, and converting 
 their swords into pruning-hooks ; but 
 every one knows that, though that 
 sometimes took place in antiquitj', it 
 does not exist save in the dreams of 
 the poets in modern times. A large 
 body of men who have devoted them- 
 
 selves to war as a profession, and have 
 spent the best part of their lives in 
 its service, cannot, in general, turn to 
 any other profession ; and if unable 
 to maintain themselves in their proper 
 rank in this country, it is the height 
 of injustice to debar them from fol- 
 lowing out their profession in foreign 
 states. The commercial interests of 
 the country loudly call for the Gov- 
 ernment not to discourage a move- 
 ment eminently calculated to extend 
 and promote new fields for the enter- 
 prise of its merchants in the 'New 
 World. This is a great and important 
 consideration, which ought not lightly- 
 to be passed over. There is no man. 
 in England who can for a moment 
 suppose that the colonies of Spain 
 Avill ever return to the government of 
 the old country, attached as they are 
 to freedom by passion and inclination, 
 as well as by the prospect of enjoying 
 the blessings Avhich Providence has 
 so bountifully placed within their 
 reach. After the long, painful, and 
 bloody war shall have ended, and these 
 countries have obtained those first of 
 earthly blessings, liberty and inde- 
 pendence, it would be painful to think 
 that England, during its continuance, 
 had been linked only with the cause 
 of their tyrants ; and that, not con- 
 tent with dealing out a fair measure 
 of justice between the contending par- 
 ties, Parliament had thought fit to 
 invoke the aid of the common inform- 
 er against those persons who devoted 
 their abilities and ciiergies to the 
 cause of freedom in the New World. " 
 On this debate the Lords determined 
 in favour of Ministers by a majority 
 of 53 — the numbers being 100 to 47- 
 On a debate on the same subject in 
 the House of Commons, the majority 
 Avas 61 — the numbers being 190 to 
 129. 
 
 103. It was evident, from the com- 
 paratively narrow majority in the 
 Commons on this important subject, 
 that a strong national feeling had 
 come to prevail in the legislature in 
 favour of the insurgents in South 
 America ; and, in ti'uth, this feeling 
 was but the reflection of a still stronger 
 
1819.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 211 
 
 one in tlie nation on the subject. The 
 English people were all but unanimous 
 in favour of the cause of South Ameri- 
 can independence. All classes joined 
 in the desii-e to see the Spanish colo- 
 nies emancipated from what was sup- 
 posed to be, and in some respects with 
 justice, the tyranny of the mother 
 country. The philanthropic and en- 
 thusiastic saw a boundless career of 
 happiness opened to those immense 
 regions, if they were extricated from 
 the meshes of governors and priests, 
 and blessed Avith Anglo - Saxon free- 
 dom and institutions. The democratic 
 party rejoiced in the establishment of 
 republican institutions all over the 
 world. The half-pay officers, languish- 
 ing in obscurity and poverty, were 
 easily persuaded to enter the service 
 of states which offered them high 
 rank, liberal pay, and a grant of land 
 at the conclusion of the contest. Not 
 a few of the giddy youth were caught 
 by the brilliant uniforms which were 
 displayed at the shop-windows, and 
 which, donned the moment they re- 
 ceived their commissions, enabled 
 them to figure at balls in London 
 before they had undergone any of the 
 perils of real wai-fare. The covetous 
 and selfish — and they were by far the 
 largest class— looked forward to an 
 immense addition to our export trade, 
 to the future extension of which no 
 limits could be assigned if the Spanish 
 monopoly was broken down, and a 
 colonial trade, wliich, before the war, 
 amounted to above fifteen millions 
 sterling of exports from old Spain, was 
 thrown open to British enterprise. 
 The two strongest principles in the 
 Anglo-Saxon mind— the love of free- 
 dom and the love of gain — were so 
 firmly enlisted in favour of the South 
 American insurgents, that all attempts 
 to check it were vain. The Act of 
 Parliament passed remained a dead 
 letter. The embarkation of troops, 
 stores, and loans of money, continued 
 ■without intermission ; and, as detailed 
 in a former work, Spanish America 
 was thereby rendered independent, 
 and severed from the dominion of old 
 Spain. 
 
 104. Yet, though success attended 
 these efforts of Great Britain in favour 
 of the Spanish insurgents, as it did 
 those of France in support of the 
 ISI'orth American insurgents in the last 
 century, there can be no doubt that 
 in both cases the conduct was equally 
 criminal, and equally a violation of 
 the law of nations. Admitting that 
 the doctrine of Martens, on which 
 Lord Lansdowne so strongly rested, is 
 well founded, and that it is no viola- 
 tion of neutrality for one belligerent 
 to be allowed to levy men in the do- 
 minions of a neutral power, that was 
 a very different thing from the course 
 which was now adopted in Great Bri- 
 tain in regard to the South American 
 insurgents. There was no levying of 
 men by isolated foreign agents, as in 
 the wars of the Duke of Alva or 
 Gustavus Adolphus. Joint-stock com- 
 panies were formed ; loans to an enor- 
 mous extent granted to the govern- 
 ments of the insurgent states, at a 
 very high rate of interest, provided 
 for by retaining twenty or thirty per 
 cent off the sum subscribed ; and gi-eat 
 expeditions sent out, which at last 
 amoimted to 8000 and 10,000 men, 
 fully armed and equipped by the 
 companies engaged in the undertaking, 
 in order to secure for them the pay- 
 ment of their dividends. Never had 
 the Government of England during 
 the war, before the Spanish contest 
 commenced, furnished such effective 
 succours to its allies on the Continent, 
 both in men, money, and arms, as 
 were now sent out by private com- 
 panies and individuals to aid the cause 
 in Avhich they were so deeply interested 
 in the New World ; and the success 
 gained was proportionally great ; for 
 it, and it alone, prolonged the con- 
 test, and at length severed the colo- 
 nies from the parent state. 
 
 105, But immediate siiccess is not 
 always the test either of the wisdom 
 or justice of national measures. God 
 visits the sins of the fathers upon the 
 children, but it is often on the third 
 and fourth generations. From 1814 
 to 1824 England acted most iniqui- 
 tously in aiding in the dismemberment 
 
212 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. IV." 
 
 of an allied state, with which she was 
 in perfect amity at the time, and which 
 had faithfully stood by her during her 
 previous struggle ; and, like France, 
 for a similar faithlessness before, she 
 has got her reward. By aiding the 
 revolution in America, France brought 
 on revolution upon herself a few years 
 after ; and the same result followed, 
 though from a diiferent series of causes, 
 the English efforts to dismember the 
 allied Spanish empire in the next cen- 
 tury. The prolongation of the con- 
 test, which raged without intermission 
 for fifteen years, from 1810 to 1825, 
 utterly ruined the mines of South 
 America, and brought down the an- 
 nual supply of precious metals for the 
 use of the globe from ten millions to 
 three millions annually ; thence, of 
 course, ensued a general reduction of 
 prices of every article over the whole 
 world, and especially its workshop and 
 trading emporium. Great Britain. Ac- 
 tuated by a similar motive, the love of 
 gain, and the desire of augmenting the 
 value of realised capital, England at 
 the very same time adopted the deci- 
 sive step, by the Act of 1819, of con- 
 tracting her paper currency, and ren- 
 dering it entirely dependent on the 
 retention of gold, beyond the limited 
 amount of fourteen millions — an 
 amount wholly inadequate to the 
 wants of the nation. At the moment 
 when, by its foreign policy, and the 
 aid given to the cause of insurrection, 
 the nation was so diminishing the 
 supply of the precious metals over the 
 globe, as to render their retention in 
 this country in adequate quantities a 
 matter of impossibility, it voluntarily 
 cut off the resource of a domestic paper 
 circulation, and dried up the springs 
 of industry by halving the currency by 
 which it was to be maintained, and, 
 what was still worse, rendering it 
 entirely dependent on the retention of 
 gold. Thence the terrible monetary 
 crisis of 1825, the long-continued and 
 widespread suffering which followed 
 that catastrophe, the Reform revolu- 
 tion which that suffering induced, the 
 total change in the commercial policy 
 of the empire which ensued in the 
 
 next twenty years, and the dissolution 
 of those bonds which united her col- 
 onies to the parent state, and held to- 
 gether the magnificent fabric of the 
 British empire. All this resulted from, 
 our own acts — was all the direct and 
 immediate consequence of our own in- 
 justice. The year 1819 was the turn- 
 ing-point in our policy, both foreign 
 and domestic ; all the vast changes 
 which have since ensued may be traced 
 to the ascendancy of the principles in 
 the nation which w^ere then brought 
 into operation. 
 
 106. And what gain has England 
 won, even in the first instance, to 
 compensate such widespread and last- 
 ing devastation? Admissions made 
 by the ablest leaders of the new sys- 
 tem, facts collected by its best statis- 
 ticians, give the answer. Lord Pal- 
 merston has told us, in his place in 
 Parliament, that Great Britain, be- 
 tween 1820 and 1840, had advanced 
 £150,000,000 in loans to the popular 
 states and republics of Spain and 
 South America, nearly the whole of 
 which had been lost by the faithless- 
 ness or insolvency of the states which 
 received them. If to this we add the 
 dreadful losses consequent on the 
 monetary crisis of 1825, the direct 
 consequence, as will immediately ap- 
 pear, of the speculations entered into 
 in 1824 by British capitalists in South 
 America, at a time when the main- 
 tenance of our currency at home was 
 rendered entirely dependent on our 
 retention of the daily declining sup- 
 plies of gold, we shall have a loss of at 
 least three hundred millions sterling 
 inflicted upon Great Britain, the direct 
 consequence of her own selfish pursuit 
 of gam at the expense of other interests 
 or states. 
 
 107. AVas, then, the gain from these 
 unwise or iniquitous measm'es such 
 as to compensate the direct and fear- 
 ful loss with which they were attend- 
 ed ? So far from it, the export trade 
 from Great Britain to South America, 
 which embraces nearly all of European 
 fabrics which the independent states 
 can take off, had sunk to £1,290,000 
 in 1827, and in 1824 had only reached 
 
1819.] 
 
 £2,300,000;* although the exports 
 from Spain alone to these colonies 
 before the war was £15,000,000, and 
 the imports from them £17,150,000, 
 the greater part of which immense 
 trade was in the hands of British 
 merchants, and not a little of it the 
 product of British manufactures, f As 
 if to demonstrate, too, that it is to the 
 Kevolution, and it alone, that this 
 prodigious decline is to be ascribed, 
 our exports to Brazil, which has re- 
 tained its monarchical government, 
 have averaged about £2, 500,000 for the 
 last twenty years. J And our exports 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 213 
 
 to America, exclusive of the United 
 States, were in 1809, before the Revolu- 
 tion began, no less than £18,014,219; 
 and in 1810, £15,640,166 ;§ while 
 at present they do not amount to a 
 half of that sum. Such have been 
 the etiects, even to the immediate in- 
 terests of England, of her iniquitous 
 attempt to dismember, by insidious 
 acts in peace, the dominions of a friend- 
 ly and allied power ! Providence has 
 a just and sure mode of dealing with 
 the sins of men, which is to leave 
 them to the consequences of their own 
 actions. 
 
 * Exports from Great Britain to South American States. 
 
 Years. 
 
 Mexico. 
 
 Texas. , Guatemala. 
 
 Columbia. 
 
 Rio dk la Plata. 
 
 PEhU. 
 
 Total. 
 
 1827 
 1828 
 1829 
 
 1840 
 1841 
 1842 
 
 £ 
 
 692,800 
 307,028 
 303,562 
 
 465,330 
 434,901 
 374,969 
 
 £ 
 
 £ 
 1,948 
 6,191 
 
 2,373 
 21,265 
 
 £ 
 213,972 
 261,113 
 232,703 
 
 359,743 
 158.972 
 231,711 
 
 £ 
 154,895 
 
 312,389 
 758,540 
 
 614,047 
 989,466 
 969,791 
 
 £ 
 228,466 
 374,615 
 800,171 
 
 799,991 
 536,046 
 684,313 
 
 £ 
 
 1,292,07*^ 
 1,261,330 
 1,549,048 
 
 2,239,454 
 2,140,440 
 2,260,784 
 
 — Porter's Pari. Tables, xii. 114. 
 
 t Imports from Spain, and Exports to it from the South Aiierican 
 Colonies in 1809. 
 
 Imports from Spai 
 
 N. 
 
 j Exports to Spain. 
 
 
 1 Agricultur.il Produce. 
 
 Precious Metals. 1 
 
 Porto Rico, . 
 Mexico, . . 
 New Granada, 
 Caraccas, . . 
 Peru and Chili, 
 Buenos Ayres ) 
 and Potosi, j 
 
 Piastres. 
 11,000,000 
 21,000,000 
 5,700,000 
 8,500,000 
 11,500,000 
 
 3,500,000 
 
 £ 
 
 2,750,000 
 5,250,000 
 1,450,000 
 2,150,000 
 2,875,000 
 
 875,000 
 
 Piastres. 
 9,900,000 
 9,000,000 
 2,000,000 
 4,000,000 
 4,000,000 
 
 2,000,000 
 
 £ 
 
 2,250.000 
 2,250,000 
 500,000 
 1,000,000 
 1,000,000 
 
 500,000 
 
 Piastres. 
 
 22,500,000' 
 3,000,000 
 
 8,000,000 
 5,000,000 
 
 £ 
 
 5,660,000 
 750,000 
 
 2,000,000 
 1,250,000 
 
 59,200,000 
 
 15,200,000 
 
 30,000,000 j 7,500,000 j 38,500,000 
 
 9,650,000 
 
 -Humboldt's Essai Politiq^ie sicr la Nouvelle Espagne, iv. 153, 154. 
 
 J Exports from Great Britain to Brazil and America, excluding 
 United States. 
 
 
 To Brazil. 
 
 To America 
 
 excluding United States 
 
 Tears. 
 
 
 Years. 
 
 
 1827 
 
 £2,312 109 
 
 1806 
 
 £10,877,968 
 
 1828 
 
 3.518,297 
 
 1807 
 
 10,439,423 
 
 1829 
 
 2,516,040 
 
 1808 
 
 16,591,871 
 
 1840 
 
 2,625,853 
 
 1809 
 
 18,014,219 
 
 1841 
 
 2,556,554 
 
 1810 
 
 15,640,166 
 
 1842 
 
 1,756,805 
 
 1811 
 
 11,939,680 
 
 —Porter's Farl. Tables, xii. 114. 
 
 § Porter's Progress of the Nation, p. 359— third edition. 
 
2U 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. v. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 PROGRESS OF LITERATTTRE, SCIENCE, THE ARTS, AXD MANXERS, IX GREAT 
 BRITAIX AFTER THE WAR. 
 
 1. Those who consider war a uni- 
 versal and unmitigated evil, and fields 
 of battle vast shambles, where human 
 beings massacre each other without 
 either object or pity, would do well to 
 consider the progress of Great Britain 
 and France in literature, science, and 
 the arts, during the forty years which 
 followed the close of the war, and com- 
 pare it Avith any other epoch which is 
 to be found in the annals of modern 
 times. In none does so great an im- 
 pulse appear to have been given to 
 human genius, nor were such efforts 
 made by human industry, nor such 
 triumphs achieved by human exertion. 
 Compared with this era, all preceding 
 ones sink into insignificance. Science 
 made splendid discoveries — literature 
 a mighty stride — genius was animated 
 by the noblest spirit. The eff"ect was 
 the same in England, France, and Ger- 
 many; the Augustine age of each is 
 that which immediately succeeded the 
 fall of Napoleon. The triumphs of 
 art, the additions made to the power 
 of man over the elements, were unpa- 
 ralleled during this period. Space was 
 almost annihilated — time essentially 
 abridged. The electric telegraph con- 
 veyed intelligence in a few minutes 
 from Paris to London. Steam con- 
 veyed the emigrants in ten days from 
 Britain to America, in six weeks to 
 India, in little more than two months 
 to Australia. In proportion to the 
 vehemence of the internal passions, 
 the hidden fires which impelled man- 
 kind into the wilderness of nature, 
 was the addition made to the facilities 
 by which they were to reach, the 
 powers by which they were to subdue 
 it ; and after the lapse of three thousand 
 years, Fire vindicated the right of the 
 
 poet to rank Prometheus as the great- 
 est benefactor of the human species. 
 
 2. It is not merely by the impulse 
 given to energy, and the extrication of 
 talent and vigour by the danger and 
 necessities of war, that it acts in this 
 decisive way in great emergencies upon 
 the fortunes of mankmd. A still more 
 important efi'ect takes place by the 
 direction Mdiich it gives to the passions 
 and the thoughts, by impelling theni 
 out of the narrow cu-cle of selfish 
 and individual objects, into the wider 
 sphere of public and national interest. 
 Selfishness is the upas-tree which in- 
 variably grows up and sheds its poi- 
 soned drops around during periods of 
 tranquillity, because then there is no 
 counter-attraction to the seductions 
 of sense — the suggestions of interest. 
 Every man sits under the shadow of 
 his own fig-tree, but every man thinks 
 of that fig-tree alone. In war he is 
 obliged, by the approach of danger, to 
 extend his view to the farthest parts 
 of the horizon — to become interested 
 in remote and future events ; to sym- 
 pathise with the fortunes of men around 
 him. in his own, or far removed in dis- 
 tant lands. This, when extended to 
 nations, is an immense advantage ; for 
 it is the application of a remedy to 
 the greatest weakness and radical curse 
 of humanity. The actors in war, 
 indeed, are often selfish, rapacious, 
 hard-hearted; though many among 
 them are noble, generous, devoted. 
 But the sufferers under it are actuated 
 in general by the generous emotions. 
 Among them is to be found the patir 
 ence which endures suffering, the hero- 
 ism which braves danger, the patri- 
 otism which sacrifices self to country. 
 It is in these emotions that the sprmg 
 
CHAP, v.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 215 
 
 is to be found of national gi-eatness, 
 even in the arts of peace ; it is not less 
 true in the moral than the material 
 "world, that "a nation makes the Past, 
 the Distant, and the Future predom- 
 inate over the Present — exalts us in 
 the scale of thinking beings. " 
 
 3. If the period succeeding the war 
 is one which is not rich in great events, 
 it is fruitful in great men ; if the tri- 
 imiphs of arms are awanting, those 
 of philosophy, literature, and the arts 
 •were memorable and everlasting. It 
 was distinguished by the first success- 
 ful application of steam to the purposes 
 of locomotion — a discovery of which 
 the original honour is due to Scotland, 
 but the first successful application to 
 America ; and of which the conse- 
 quences in their ultimate results are 
 destined to change the face of the moral 
 "world.* Like all the other changes 
 "which have made a great and lasting 
 impression on human affairs, its im- 
 portance was not at first perceived. 
 It was decried by philosophy, and re- 
 elected by the French savans, to whom 
 Napoleon remitted the consideration 
 of it as a means of forwarding the 
 invasion of Great Britain, t Practical 
 men, however, were not long of dis- 
 covering its importance ; and within a 
 few years of the time when the first 
 steam-boat — the Comet — was launched 
 upon the Clyde, several hundreds were 
 .sailing round the British Islands, For 
 long it was thought that steam could 
 not be used for long voyages ; and 
 naval men generally declared that, 
 from the fragility of the matei'ials 
 necessarily employed in generating it, 
 it would make no material change in 
 naval warfare. Time, however, has 
 now enabled us to estimate at their 
 true value these prognostications. The 
 Atlantic has been breasted by the Brit- 
 
 "* The first steam-boat ever constructed was 
 "built by Mr Miller of Dalswinton, in 1797. 
 The Author has seen it, as a curiosity, on the 
 Forth and Clyde Canal, One of the -workmen 
 engaged in its construction carried the secret 
 out to America, where it was eagerly em- 
 braced, and energetically carried into execu- 
 tion by Fulton in 1812. The first one which 
 ever sailed in the British seas was the Comet, 
 on board of which the Author made a voyage 
 in 1S13. 
 
 J See Alison's Europe, c. 34, § 67. 
 
 ish steamers — the duration and expense 
 of the voyage to New York have been 
 halved — the journey to Bombay, by 
 the Red Sea, is habitually performed 
 in six weeks ; and preparations are 
 making for conveying emigrants in 
 seven by the Isthmus of Panama or 
 that of Suez to Australia. Already 
 nearly the half of the British navy is 
 composed of steam -vessels of war ; and 
 the principal security of England is 
 founded on the belief that she could on 
 an emergency fit out a greater number 
 of those ocean giants than any other 
 power. 
 
 4. Less striking in appearance, but 
 not less important in reality, has been 
 the progress of the cotton manufac- 
 ture, the creature of steam, in the 
 British Islands, especially during the 
 years which immediately succeeded 
 the Peace. Rapid as had been its 
 advance during the war, its forward 
 movement, and the improvement in its 
 machinery, were still more marvellous 
 since its termination ; for British in- 
 dustry was then exposed to the com- 
 petition of foreign nations in which 
 labour was cheaper and taxes lighter, 
 and superiority could only be main- 
 tained by a continued addition to the 
 powers and simplification of the wheels 
 of machinery. But here the coal and 
 ironstone of Great Britain came to the 
 aid of its inhabitants ; and great as 
 had been the discovery of Watt, its 
 powers were quadrupled by the addi- 
 tions made to it by subsequent genius. 
 The marvels of the cotton manufacture, 
 in Britain, have since that time ex- 
 ceeded all other marvels ; and the vast 
 development of native wealth and in- 
 dustry during the last thirty years has 
 been mainly owing to its progress. 
 From the accounts laid before Parlia- 
 ment, it appears that the official value 
 of cotton goods exported, which in 
 1785 was £864,000, and in 1797 had 
 risen to £2,580,000, had mounted in 
 1814, at the close of the war, to 
 £17,655,000; and in 1833 had reached 
 the enormous amount of £46,000,000 ! 
 So great and rapid an increase is, per- 
 haps, not to be found in any single 
 branch of manufacture ; nor, perhaps, 
 in all branches put together, since the 
 
216 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. v. 
 
 "beginning of tlie world. I f these won- 
 derful statistics afford a key to much 
 of the strength exhibited in England 
 during the war, those which follow are 
 equally symptomatic of its Aveakness, 
 and of the prolific seeds of disti'ess 
 which the resumption of cash payments 
 and the contraction of the currency 
 had implanted, in the period succeed- 
 ing the peace, in the community. The 
 official value, which indicates the 
 quantity manufactured, had risen, be- 
 tween 1814 and 1832, from£l7, 600,000 
 to £46,000,000; the declared value, 
 which indicates the price received for 
 it, had sunk from £20,000,000 to 
 £18,450,000.* It is not surprising 
 that this extraordinary diminution in 
 the declared value of cotton goods ex- 
 ported took place at a time when so 
 great an increase in the production was 
 going forward, for such was the reduc- 
 tion in the cost of production, by the 
 application and improvement of ma- 
 chinery and contraction of the currency, 
 that the price of cotton yarn, No. 100, 
 which in 1786 was 38s., had sunk in 
 1832 to 2s. lid. ; and a piece of calico, 
 which in 1814 cost £1, 4s. 7d., was 
 
 * Cotton Manufactures and Yarn 
 
 EXPORTED FROM GREAT BRITAIN. 
 
 Tear. 
 
 Official Value. 
 
 Declared Value. 
 
 1697 
 
 £5,915 
 
 
 1780 
 
 355,060 
 
 
 1785 
 
 864,710 
 
 
 1797 
 
 2,580,568 
 
 
 ISOO 
 
 5,854,057 
 
 
 1810 
 
 18,951,994 
 
 
 1814 
 
 17,655,378 
 
 £20,033.132 
 
 1815 
 
 22,289,645 
 
 20,620,956 
 
 1816 
 
 17,564,461 
 
 15,577,392 
 
 1817 
 
 21,259,224 
 
 16,012,001 
 
 1818 
 
 22,589,130 
 
 18,767,517 
 
 1819 
 
 18,282,292 
 
 14,699,912 
 
 1820 
 
 22,531,079 
 
 16,516,758 
 
 1821 
 
 23,541,615 
 
 16,094,807 
 
 1822 
 
 26,911,043 
 
 17,218,801 
 
 1823 
 
 26,544,770 
 
 16,276,843 
 
 1824 
 
 30,155,901 
 
 18,376,515 
 
 1825 
 
 29,495,281 
 
 18,253,631 
 
 1826 
 
 25,194,270 
 
 14,013,675 
 
 1827 
 
 33,182,898 
 
 17,502,394 
 
 1828 
 
 33,467,417 
 
 17,140,114 
 
 1829 
 
 37,269,432 
 
 17,394,575 1 
 
 1830 
 
 41,050.969 
 
 19,335,971 
 
 1831 
 
 39,357,075 
 
 17,182,936 
 
 1832 
 
 43,786,255 
 
 17,344,676 
 
 1833 
 
 46,337,210 
 
 18,459,000 
 
 selling in 1833 for 6s. 2d. ! \\Tioever 
 will consider these figures with atten- 
 tion, will have no difiiculty in dis- 
 covering the principal causes at once 
 of the strength and weakness of the 
 British empire during and subsequent 
 tx) the war, and of the vast social and 
 political changes which so soon after 
 occurred in it. 
 
 5. The vast impulse given at this 
 period to industry was not confined to 
 the cotton manufacture ; though it, a-s 
 the greatest, was the most conspicu- 
 ous, and has attracted most attention. 
 In woollen goods, cutlery, hardware, 
 and iron, the progress was nearly a.s 
 rapid ; the last, in particular, Avas in a 
 manner a new creation in Great Britain 
 since the peace. The total quantit}'- of 
 pig iron MTOUght in Great Britain, in 
 1814, was 350,000 tons ; in 1835 it had 
 risen to 1,000,000 tons ; and in 1848, 
 had reached 2,093,000 tons.* Gene- 
 rally speaking, however, it was in the 
 useful arts only that this extraordi- 
 nary growth was perceptible ; in the 
 more delicate and ornamental, and 
 those which depended on the fine arts 
 for their design and beauty, Ave were 
 still greatly inferior to our Continental 
 neighbours. Remoteness of situation, 
 distance from the models of taste in 
 the remains of ancient genius, Avas the 
 cause of this inferiority. The necessity 
 of studying them, the value of schools 
 of design to diffuse and perpetuate a 
 knoAvledge of their beauty and of the 
 principles of art, AA-as unknown. A 
 quarter of a century had to elapse be- 
 fore the nation became sensible of its 
 inferiority in these respects, and en- 
 deavoured, by the general establish- 
 ment of elementary schools for the 
 study of the fine arts, to emancipate 
 itself from the necessity of recurring 
 to foreign artists for designs in all the 
 ornamental branches of manufactui-e. 
 * Iron mape in Great Britain. 
 
 —Pari. Paper, 1831, No. 145; and Finance 
 Accounts, 1834. 
 
 
 
 Years. 
 
 Tons. 
 
 1796 
 
 124,000 
 
 1830 
 
 653,000 
 
 1802 
 
 170,000 
 
 1835 
 
 1,000,000 
 
 1806 
 
 250,000 
 
 1836 
 
 1,200,000 
 
 1814 
 
 350,000 
 
 1840 
 
 1,500,030 
 
 1823 
 
 442,000 
 
 1847 
 
 1,999,000 
 
 1825 
 
 581,367 
 
 1848 
 
 . 2,093,736 
 
 1828 
 
 702,584 
 
 
 
 — Porter'3 Progress of the Nation, pp. 267, 
 269— third edition. 
 
CHAP, v.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 217 
 
 Since that period its progress in the 
 fine manufactures, and the designs 
 requisite for them, has been great and 
 rapid ; but at the Great Exhibition of 
 1851 it was apparent that even then 
 an equality Avith foreign taste had not 
 yet been attained. 
 
 6. If the triumphs of British art and 
 industry have been gi-eat during this 
 memorable period, those of its genius 
 and thought have been not less remark- 
 able, and still more lasting. This is 
 generally the case, after a great and 
 decisive national struggle : the energy 
 and talent developed during its con- 
 tinuance by the urgency of the public 
 dangers, is directed, on their termina- 
 tion, to pacific objects. Literature 
 then assumes its noblest character, and 
 is directed to its most elevated objects ; 
 for general have superseded individual 
 desires, and the selfish passions have, 
 by the j^ressure of common danger, 
 been for a time extinguished by the gen- 
 erous. This appeared — and from the 
 same cause — both in Greece and Rome, 
 and in modern Europe : the age of 
 Pericles and Euripides immediately 
 succeeded that of Themistocles ; the 
 genius of Cicero and Virgil illumin- 
 ated the era which had witnessed the 
 contests of C?esar and Pompey. The 
 era of Michael Angelo, Ariosto, and 
 Tasso, threw a radiance over the expir- 
 ing strife of the Crusades ; that of Bos- 
 suet, Moliere, and Racine over the de- 
 clining glories of the Grand ]\Ionarque ; 
 that of Shakespeare, Bacon, and Mil- 
 ton soon followed the fierce passions 
 of the Reformation. The period dur- 
 ing which this transcendant union ex- 
 ists is generally as short-lived as it is 
 "brilliant ; and the reason, being found- 
 ed in the very causes which produced 
 it, is of lasting influence. The vehe- 
 ment contests which awaken and draw 
 forth the latent powers of the human 
 soul, are necessarily of no very long 
 duration : one party or another is ere 
 long vanquished in the strife ; and 
 alike to the conquerors and the con- 
 quered succeeds a period of constrained 
 repose. It is at the commencement of 
 that period, when the sway of the gen- 
 erous passions awakened by former 
 common danger is still felt, and their 
 
 direction only is changed, that genius 
 appears in its brightest colours, and 
 works destined for immortal endurance 
 are produced. The lengthened dura- 
 tion either of the prosperity conse- 
 quent on success, or the humiliation 
 resulting from adverse fortune, does 
 not extinguish genius, but misdirects 
 it ; in the first case, by directing 
 effort to selfish objects — in the last, 
 by depressing it through the extinc- 
 tion of hope. 
 
 7. Sui Walter Scott is universally 
 considered as the greatest writer of 
 imagination of this century ; and his 
 reputation has been so widespread and 
 lasting, that it may reasonably be an- 
 ticipated that it will not materially 
 decline in succeedingtimes. Like most 
 other gi-eat men, the direction of his 
 genius was in a great degi'ee determin- 
 ed by the circumstances in which he 
 arose ; but its character was exclusive- 
 ly his own. Ho advanced to manhood 
 during the heart -stirring conflict with 
 the French Revolution ; and his mind, 
 naturally ardent, was early inflamed 
 by the patriotic and warlike feelings 
 which that contest naturally produced. 
 A volunteer himself in the yeomanry- 
 ranks, his animated strains induced 
 many to follow his example. The in- 
 fluence of those circumstances is very 
 conspicuous in his wTitings, and many 
 of the finest passages in his descrip- 
 tions of Flodden and Bannockbum 
 were suggested by the mimic warfare 
 on Portobello Sands, near Edinburgh, 
 where his corps exercised. This iu 
 some degree directed the application, 
 but it did not stamp the character, of 
 his genius. That was entirely his own. 
 C'lose observation of nature, whether 
 animated or inanimate, was his great 
 characteristic ; the brilliancy of fanc)', 
 the force of imagination, were directed 
 to clothing Avith sparkling colours her 
 varied creations. It is hard to say 
 whether his genius was most conspicu- 
 ous in describing the beauties of na- 
 ture, or delineating the passions of the 
 heart ; he Avas at once pictorial and 
 dramatic. To this he owes his great 
 success— hence his world-wide reputa- 
 tion. He was first known as a poet ; 
 but. charming as his poetic conceptions 
 
218 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. v. 
 
 "were, they were ere long eclipsed bj' 
 tlie widespread fame of his prose ro- 
 mances. The novels of the Author of 
 Waverlcy caused the poems of Walter 
 Scott to be for a time forgotten. But 
 time has re-established them in their 
 celebrity ; and great as is still the fame 
 of the Scott Novels, it is rivalled, and 
 hasat length come to be exceeded, by the 
 heart - stirring verses of Marmion, the 
 endui'ing charm of T7ie Lady of the Lake. 
 8. Sir Walter Scott commenced his 
 career under very peculiar circumstan- 
 ces, singularly favourable for the por- 
 traiture of character at difl'erent times 
 and under different aspects. Passing 
 much of his childliood on the banks of 
 the Tweed, his early fancy Avas kin- 
 dled by the tales of the Border chiv- 
 aliy ; educated in Edinburgh, he 
 dreamed, in maturer years, in the 
 grassy vale of St Leonards, of the 
 knights of Ariosto and the siege of 
 Jerusalem. But the charms of poetry, 
 the creations of romance, did not de- 
 tach his mind from the observation of 
 nature. Mounted on a hardy High- 
 land pony, he wandered over the moun- 
 tains of Scotland, observing its scenery, 
 inhaling its beauties, studying the 
 character of its inhabitants. On the 
 mountain's brow, by the glassy lake, 
 he engraved the features of the land 
 on his recollection ; by the cottage fire- 
 side he stored his mind with the feel- 
 ings and anecdotes of the peasantry ; 
 amidst the castle ruins he realised in 
 fancy the days of chivalry. The po- 
 etic temperament of his mind threw 
 over the pictures of memory the ra- 
 diance of imagination, without taking 
 away the fidelity of the recollection. 
 Thence the general admiration Avith 
 which his works were received. The 
 romantic found in them the realisation 
 of their imaginative cb-eams ; the anti- 
 quarian, a reminiscence of the olden 
 times ; the practical, a picture of the 
 characters they had seen around them, 
 and with which they had been familiar 
 from their infancy. Lord Jeffrey said, 
 in one of the early reviews of his Avrit- 
 ings, that Scott had opened an un- 
 workable vein, and that no human 
 ability could make the manners of the 
 olden time popular ; — a strange obser- 
 
 vation in a country in which the cre- 
 ations of Ariosto, the tenderness of 
 Tasso, charmed every successive gene- 
 ration of men ; and the error of which 
 subsequent experience has abundantly 
 demonstrated. 
 
 9. With these great and varied 
 powers Scott might have been a most 
 dangerous writer, if, like Yoltaire, he 
 had directed them to sapping the 
 foimdations of religion, or to the de- 
 lineation of the degrading or licentious 
 in cliaracter. But the elevated strain 
 of his mind preserved him from such 
 contamination. It was on the noble, 
 whether in high or low life, that his 
 affections were fixed ; the ordinary was 
 delineated only as a set-off to its lus- 
 tre. Thence his enduring fame — 
 thence his passport to immortality. 
 Nothing ever permanently floated 
 down the stream of time but what was 
 buoyant from its elevating tendency. 
 The degrading, the licentious, the 
 fetid, is for a time popular, and then 
 forgotten. Alike in delineating the 
 manners of feudal times, or the feel- 
 ings of the cottage, the dignity of man 
 was ever uppermost in his mind : he 
 was the poet of chivalry, but, not less 
 than the bard of natm-e, he never for- 
 got that — 
 
 " The rank is but the guinea stamp, 
 Tlie man's the gowd for a' that." 
 No man ever threw a more clianning 
 radiance over the traditions of ancient 
 tunes, but none ever delineated in a 
 nobler spirit the virtues of the present ; 
 and his discriminating eye discovered 
 them equally under tlie thatch of the 
 cottage as in the halls of the castle. 
 It has been truly said that the influ- 
 ence of his 'WTitings neutralised, to a 
 certain extent, the effect of the Reform 
 Bill ; but it is not less true that none 
 ever contributed more j)owerfully to 
 that purification, without which all 
 others are nugatory — the reform of the 
 human heart ; and perhaps he is the 
 only author of numerous works of fic- 
 tion of wliom it may with truth be 
 said, that he never An-ote a line which, 
 on deathbed, he could wish recalled. 
 
 10. It is to his earlier writings, how- 
 ever, that this unqualified praise ap- 
 plies. Wavcrley, Guy Mannering, The 
 
CHAP, v.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 219 
 
 Antiquary, The Bride of Lammermoor, 
 Old Mortality, are the perfection of 
 romantic pictures of later times ; The 
 A hbot, Qiicntin Durward, and Ivanhoe, 
 of the days of chivahy. But these rich 
 veins were at length exliausted ; and 
 the prolific fancy of the author diverg- 
 ed into other scenes and ])eriods in 
 which he had not such authentic ma- 
 terials to work with, and Avhere his 
 graphic hand was no longer to the same 
 degree perceptible. Some of his later 
 romances are so inferior to the first, 
 that it is difiicult to believe they have 
 been composed by the same master 
 spirit. It is on the .earlier novels, 
 which delineate the manners, feelings, 
 and scenes of Scotland, and a few, such 
 as Ivanhoe, Kcnihcorth, The Talisman, 
 and Quentin Duricard, which paint 
 those of other lands, that his fame as a 
 writer of romance will permanently 
 rest : another proof, among the many 
 which the annals of literature aff'ord, 
 that it is on a faithful representation, 
 either material or moral, of nature that 
 the permanent reputation of works 
 even of imagination must be founded, 
 and that the Ideal can be securely 
 rested on no other basis but the Real.'" 
 11. Lord Byrox is the author who, 
 next to Sir Walter Scott, has obtained 
 the most widespread reputation in the 
 world ; and yet his character and the 
 st^de of his writings differ so widely 
 from those of the Wizard of the North, 
 that it is difiicult to understand how, 
 at the same time, they attained almost 
 equal celebrity. He Avas not anti- 
 quarian in ideas, nor graphic in the 
 delineation of character. He neither 
 studied the days of chivalry in old 
 
 * Sir Walter Scott had a prodigious fund of 
 stories and anecdotes at command, both in 
 regard to the olden and the present time, 
 which he told with infinite zest and humour ; 
 and his conversation was always interspersed 
 ■with those strokes of delicate satire or ster- 
 ling good sense which abound in his writings. 
 But he had not the real conversational talent ; 
 there was little mtercliange of ideas when he 
 talked ; he took it nearly all to himself, and 
 discoursed of persons or old anecdotes, or 
 characters, not things. A great charm Avas 
 the entire simplicity and absence of affectation 
 by Avhich his manner was distinguished, and 
 which seemed to increase rather than dimin- 
 ish as he advanced in life, and with the growth 
 of his world-wide reputation. 
 
 romances, nor human nature in tho 
 seclusion of the cottage. He was in 
 an especial manner the poet of high 
 life. He has often delineated the Cor- 
 sairs of the Archipelago and the maids 
 of Greece ; but it was to please the 
 high-born dames of London that all 
 his pictures were drawn. Born of a 
 noble English family, but of a Scotch 
 mother, and nursed amidst the moun- 
 tains of Aberdeenshire, his ardent tem- 
 perament was first evinced in childhood 
 by a precocious passion for a Scottish 
 beauty, his poetic disposition awakened 
 by the mist-clad rocks of Lochnagar. 
 Thrown into the fashionable world in 
 London at a very early age, he soon 
 felt that satiety which genius never 
 fails to experience from the excess of 
 pleasure, and that dissatisfaction which 
 real greatness generally feels amidst the 
 vanities of fashion. Wearied with the 
 inanities of gay, the dissipation of pro- 
 fligate life, he sought change abroad : 
 the rocks of Cintra, the beauties of 
 Cadiz, the isles of Greece, successively 
 rose to his view ; and the brilliant mov- 
 ing panorama, seen through the eyes 
 of genius, produced the poem of Childe 
 Harold, which has rendered his name 
 immortal. 
 
 12. It is on this splendid production, 
 more than on his metrical romances, 
 that his reputation will ultimately rest. 
 The success of the latter was at first 
 prodigious, but it arose from a peculi- 
 arity which is fatal to durable fame. 
 They were so much admired, not be- 
 cause they were founded on nature, but 
 because they differed from it. Ad- 
 dressed to the exclusive circles of Lon- 
 don society, they fell upon the high-born 
 votaries of fashion with the charm of 
 novelty ; they breathed the language 
 of vehement passion, which was as new 
 to them as the voice of nature, speak- 
 ing through the dreamy soul of Rous- 
 seau, had been to the corrupted circles 
 of Parisian society half a century be- 
 fore. As such they excited an immense 
 sensation, and, even more than the 
 thoughtful and yet pictured pages of 
 Childe Harold, raised the author to tho 
 very pinnacle of celebrity. But no 
 reputation can be lasting which is not 
 founded on the imasces and feelings 
 
220 
 
 HISTORY OF EUEOPE. 
 
 [chap. V, 
 
 of nature : singularity, affectation, ca- 
 price, if wielding the powers of genius, 
 may acquire a temporary celebrity, but 
 it will be but temporary. Witli the 
 circumstances which nursed, the fash- 
 ion which exalted it, it falls to the 
 ground. It was ere long discovered 
 that his Corsairs and Sultanas were all 
 cast in one mould, and bore one image 
 and superscription ; their passions were 
 violent and powerfully drawn, but they 
 were all the same, and bore no resem- 
 blance to the diversified emotions of 
 real life. They were like the trees of 
 Vivarez or Perelle, so Avell known to 
 the lovers of engravings — rich, luxuri- 
 ant, and charming at first sight, but 
 characterised by decided mannerism, 
 very diff'erent from the veracious out- 
 lines of Claude or Salvator. 
 
 13. In one class of readers the 
 dramas of Byron have won for him 
 a very high reputation ; in another, 
 Don Juan is his jiassport to popularity. 
 But though characterised by ardent 
 genius, and abounding with noble 
 lines, his dramatic pieces want the 
 elements of enduring fame. They 
 are too wild for ordinary life, too ex- 
 travagant for theatrical representation. 
 They do not come home to our hearts ; 
 there is nothing in them which can be 
 enjoyed by the cottage fireside. Ap- 
 plause from the humbler classes would 
 never begin with their performance. 
 They are addressed to, and calculated 
 for, minds as high-strung and poetical 
 as his own ; and how many are they 
 amidst the multitude of ordinary 
 readers ? Bon Juan is different : 
 there is much in it which imhappily 
 too powerfully rouses every breast. 
 But although romances or poetry, in 
 which genius is mingled with licen- 
 tiousness, often, at first, acquire a 
 very great celebrity, at least with 
 one sex, they labour under an insur- 
 mountable objection — they cannot be 
 made the subject of conversation with 
 the other. Works of imagination 
 are chiefly interesting to both sexes, 
 because they portray the feelings 
 by which the}^ are attracted to each 
 other. "When they are of such a de- 
 scription that neither can communi- 
 cate those feelincrs to the other, the 
 
 great object of composition is lost, 
 and lasting celebrity to the author is 
 impossible.* 
 
 14. The same objection applies in 
 an equal degree to the earlier writings 
 of Moore ; but there is a much wider 
 acquaintance with the human heart 
 in his later poems, and a much more 
 graphic, and therefore touching, de- 
 lineation of human feeling than in the 
 Corsairs and Medoras of Byron. In. 
 some respects he is the greatest lyric 
 poet in the English language. "With- 
 out the discursive imagination of Aken- 
 side, without the burning thoughts of 
 Gray, without the ardent soul of 
 Campbell, he has written more that 
 comes home to the hearts of the young 
 and impassioned of both sexes than, 
 any other author — if a few lines in. 
 Burns are excepted — in the whole 
 literature of Great Britain. His Irish 
 and national melodies will be im- 
 mortal ; and the}'- will be so for this 
 reason, that they express the feelings 
 which spring up in the breast of every 
 successive generation at the most im- 
 portant and imaginative period of life. 
 They have the delicacy of refined life 
 without its fastidiousness — the warmth 
 of natural feeling without its rudeness. 
 He is in an especial manner the poet 
 of love ; but it is, at least in his later 
 works, the love of chivalry and ro- 
 mance rather than licence, and em- 
 bellished Avith all those images and 
 associations Avith which genius in suc- 
 cessive ages has heightened the warmth 
 of natural feeling. In his earlier 
 
 * It -was impossible that a man of Lord 
 Byron's genius could converse for any length, 
 of time without some sparks falling ; and his 
 celebrity and rank rendered him a great fa- 
 vourite, especially with women of fashion 
 and distinction. But he Avanted nature in 
 his ideas, and simplicity in his manner. He 
 never forgot him.self, and was constantly af- 
 fecting tlie roue, and man of fashion, rather 
 than the poet or literary man. Bon Juan 
 was the picture of liim in real life, much more 
 than any of his lieroes or Corsairs. The 
 author met him only once, at Venice, in ISIS, 
 when lie kindly entertained him with his 
 friend and fellow-traveller, Captain Basil 
 Hall. The conversation was charming, 
 chiefly from the historic anecdotes connected 
 Avith the places which Lord Byron mentioned; 
 but the impression left, on the Avhole, was 
 rather lowering than elevating to that pre- 
 viously formed by the study of his writings. 
 
CHAP, v.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 221 
 
 poems the case is unfoiiunately often 
 otherwise ; they are licentious Avithout 
 "being revolting — the most dangerous 
 combination Avhich can exist. Vast 
 numbers of his lines are committed to 
 memory by the young of both sexes ; 
 their charm is to many associated with 
 the magic of song — the smiles of beauty ; 
 and their enduring celebrity may be 
 anticipated by the widespread interest 
 which they have already awakened. 
 His mind, however, Avas brilliant and 
 tender, rather than powerful and mas- 
 culine ; he had none of the inde- 
 pendence of real greatness in his char- 
 acter. A sycophant of the great, pas- 
 sionately desirous of the favour of rank, 
 he was a constant hanger-on about 
 great houses, and entirely led by their 
 opinions. In this respect, both he 
 and Byron form a striking contrast 
 to the noble simplicity of Sir Walter 
 Scott, who, though equally tempted, 
 ■was never led astray. These weak- 
 Jiesses in both have been prominently 
 brought forward by the ill-judged zeal 
 of their biographers : what Moore 
 himself had done to the intrigues of 
 Byron, Lord John Russell has done to 
 the littlenesses of Moore. On reading 
 the amusing but somewhat gossiping 
 memoirs of these great men, one is 
 involuntarily led to exclaim, in refer- 
 ence to other eminent authors not 
 equally cared for after their decease, 
 " They were often crossed in life, but 
 they vvere fortunate in death : they 
 never had a biographer !" 
 
 15. The mind of Moore was essen- 
 tially Oriental : the images and ideas 
 of the East sparkle in all his verses. 
 His feelings were chivalrous — his soul 
 penetrated with the refinements of 
 Europe ; but his thoughts were of the 
 cloudless skies, and resistless genii, 
 and bewitching maids, of the land of 
 the sun. So strong was his propensity, 
 that it led to the composition of a 
 poem of Avhich the scene and charac- 
 ters were entirely laid in tlie East ; 
 and Lalla Rookh remains an enduring 
 monument of the charm produced by 
 the clothing of Oriental images and 
 adventure wath the genius and refine- 
 ment of the Western Avorld. But 
 though agreeable to persons of general 
 
 reading and varied information, it 
 will never be so popular with ordinary 
 readers as those lyric poems which, 
 express the feelings of the universal 
 heart. The greatest defect of his 
 compositions is a vein of conceit, 
 which, even in mature years, he was 
 never able entirely to overcome. Hi.s 
 images are always sparkling, often 
 brilliant ; but they are as frequently 
 far-fetched, and bespeak rather the 
 strained effort of fancy than the genu- 
 ine effusions of passion. His earlier 
 poems, published under the name of 
 Little, though often beautiful, are so 
 licentious that they are never now- 
 heard of but from the lips of the pro- 
 fessed votaries of pleasure. Great 
 part, in point of bulk, of his poems is 
 occupied with subjects of a satirical 
 cast or ephemeral character, many of 
 them disfigured by personal scandal or 
 party rancour : they will share the 
 usual fate of such productions ; they 
 will expire witii the manners or char- 
 acters which are satirised. There are 
 many lines in the Satires of Juvenal 
 and Horace which are in every mouth, 
 but the xchoh 2'>oems are seldom read, 
 except by schoolboys, into whom they 
 are driven by the force of the rod, or 
 pedants who aspire to the dignity of 
 wielding it. On the other hand, there 
 are several passages in the Satires of 
 the former of these poets, and entire 
 odes or other poems among the works 
 of the latter, which wall always be ad- 
 mired as the masterpieces of genius 
 and example of the utmost felicity of 
 expression. Many persons are amused, 
 some instructed, by the picture of the 
 follies of their own age, but com^mra- 
 tively few by the absurdities of those 
 which have preceded them ; and al- 
 though few are indifferent to tlie 
 scandal of their contemporaries, fewer 
 still take an intei-est in that of their 
 great-grandmothers.* 
 
 * The author met Moore only once, but 
 that was under very interesting circum- 
 stances. After an evening party at Paris iu 
 the Rue Mont Blanc in 1821, when he 
 charmed every one by his singing of liis own 
 melodies, especially the exquisite one on 
 genius outstripjiing wealtli in the race for 
 woman's favour, they -went away together, 
 and, falling into very interesting conversa- 
 tion, walked round the Place Yendome, iu 
 
222 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 fCHAP. V. 
 
 16. If tlie wide si^read of liis fame, 
 and deep impression produced by his 
 poems, is to be taken as the test of 
 excellence, Campbell is the greatest 
 lyric poet of England, and second to 
 few in the general scale of poetic merit 
 that Great Britain has ever produced. 
 "With the exception of Shakespeare and 
 Gray, there is no author of whom so 
 many ideas and lines have been riveted 
 in the general mind of his country, or 
 become, as it were, household words of 
 the English in every land. It is not 
 so much the felicity and brevity of ex- 
 pression, though they never Avere sur- 
 passed, which have won for him this 
 vast celebrity ; it is the elevation and 
 moral gi'andeur of his thoughts which 
 have so generall}^ fascinatedtlie minds of 
 men. He was in every sense the Bard 
 of Hope. Undoubting in faith, un- 
 tired in hope, he discerned the Rain- 
 bow of Peace amidst the darkest storms 
 of the moral world.* In the gloomiest 
 disasters he never despaired of the for- 
 tunes of mankind, and was prepared 
 to light 
 " The Torch of ITopG at Nature's funeral 
 
 pile." 
 The experienced in the ways of men 
 will probably be inclined to regard 
 many of his poems as Utopian and im- 
 practicable — the wise and reflecting, 
 as better adapted to a future than the 
 j)resent state of existence; but the 
 young, the ardent, and enthusiastic, 
 will never cease to turn to them, as 
 constant talk for three hours. They sepa- 
 rated at three in the morning, with regret, at 
 the foot of the Pillar of Austerlitz, and never 
 raet again. His conversation was very spark- 
 ling ; and as it abounded in the rapid inter- 
 change of poetical ideas, it impressed the 
 author more than the more discursive and 
 amusing anecdotes of Sir Walter Scott. 
 
 * Witness his noble lines on the partition 
 of Poland— 
 
 " Hope for a season bade the world farewell, 
 And Freedom shrieked as Kosciusko fell;— 
 Yet thy proud lords, unpitied land ! shall see 
 That Man hath yet a soul, and dare be free : 
 A little while along thy saddening plains 
 The starless night of Desolation reigns ; 
 Truth shall restore the light by Nattire given, 
 And, like Prometheus, bring the fire of 
 
 Heaven. 
 Prone to the dust Oppression shall be 
 
 hurled — 
 Her name, her nature, withered from the 
 
 world." 
 
 Pleasures of Hops. 
 
 fraught with the noblest aspirations of 
 our nature ; and we may despair of the 
 fortunes of the species when the ad- 
 miration for The Pleasures of Hope be- 
 gins to decline. 
 
 17. Great as is the reputation of 
 that noble poem, that of his lyrical 
 pieces is still greater. They are at pre- 
 sent, perhaps, the most popular poems 
 of the kind in the English language ; 
 and there is no appearance of their 
 fame diminishing. The Ramhow, the 
 Mariners of England, the Stanzas to 
 Painting, LocJiiel's Waiming, the Ode 
 to Winter, the Last Man, Hohenlinden, 
 the Battle of the Baltic, have become 
 so engraven on the national heart that 
 their impression may be regarded as 
 indelible. They bear a very close re- 
 semblance to the ballads and poems of 
 Schiller, and share in all the noble 
 feelings, and yet simple and home- 
 spun images, by which those beautiful 
 strains are distinguished. They have 
 all the terseness and felicity of expres- 
 sion which have rendered Horace im- 
 mortal, without any of the licentious- 
 ness which disfigures his pages. But 
 his poems are very unequal: many, 
 especially of the later ones, are so 
 feeble and inferior, that it could hardly 
 be believed they proceeded from the 
 same hand as his earlier productions. 
 No man was ever more felicitous in 
 his images, or convej'^ed a beautiful 
 idea in more pure and striking meta- 
 phor. His well-knoAvn image — 
 
 " 'Tis the sunset of life gives me mj'stical. 
 lore. 
 And coming events cast their shadows be- 
 fore," — 
 
 is perhaps the most perfect and un- 
 mixed metaphor in the English lan- 
 guage. His genius was brilliant, but 
 it was precocious, and declined as life 
 advanced ; its flame rose up at once to . 
 a towering height, but it did not, like 
 that of Burke, Bacon, and Rousseau, 
 gather strength with all the acquisi- 
 tions of life ; and of him could not be 
 said, as was done of ancient eloquence, 
 "Materia alitur, motibus excitatur, et 
 urendo clarescit." 
 
 18. If the Pleasures of Ho-pe to the 
 end of time will fascinate the young 
 and the ardent, those of Memory mil 
 
CHAP, v.] 
 
 Lave equal charms for the advanced in 
 years and the reHecting. Kogehs has 
 struck a chord which -will for ever vi- 
 hrate in the human heart, and lie has 
 touched it Avith so much delicacy and 
 pathos, that his poetry is felt as the 
 anore charmmg the niore that the taste 
 is improved and the mind is filled with 
 the recollections of the past. His 
 verses have not the vehemence of 
 Byron's imagination, nor the ardour 
 of Campbell's soul : ' * thoughts that 
 breathe and words that burn " Avill be 
 looked for in vain in his compositions. 
 He was not fitted, therefore, to reach 
 the highest flights of lyric poetry. He 
 3iever could have written the Feast 
 of Alexander, like Dryden; nor the 
 Bard of Gray, nor the Stanzas to 
 Painting of Campbell ; but he pos- 
 sessed, i)erhaps, in a still higher de- 
 gree than any of them, the ])ov;er of 
 casting together pleasing and charm- 
 ing images, and pouring them forth in 
 soft and mellifluous language. This is 
 liis great charm ; and it is one so great, 
 that, in the estimation of many, par- 
 ticiilarly those with whom the whirl 
 and agitation of life is past, it more 
 than compensates for the absence of 
 every other. To the young, who have 
 the future before them, imagination 
 and hope are the most entrancing 
 powers, for they gild the as yet un- 
 trodden path of life with the wdshed- 
 for flowers. But to the aged, by whom 
 its vicissitudes have been experienced 
 and its enjoyments known, memory 
 and reflection are the faculties which 
 confer the most unmixed pleasure, for 
 they dwell on the past, and recall its 
 most enchanting moments. Campbell 
 had the most sincere admiration for 
 Kogers, and repeatedly said that he 
 was a greater poet than himself 
 "Without going such a length, it may 
 safely be affirmed that there is none 
 more chaste, none more refined; and 
 that some of his verses will bear a com- 
 parison with the most perfect in the 
 English language.* 
 
 * As, for example, the Invocation to Me- 
 mory — 
 " Hail Memory, hail ! within thy sparkling 
 
 mine, 
 From age to age what bouncUess treasures 
 
 shine! ^ 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 223 
 
 19. If ever two poets arose in strik- 
 ing contrast to each other, Rogers and 
 SouTHEY are the men ; and yet they 
 appeared in the same age, and flour- 
 ished abreast of each other. Rogers is 
 the poet of home ; his charm consists 
 in painting the scenes of infancy — por- 
 traying the endearments of youth ; and 
 he is read by all with such pleasure in 
 mature life, because he recalls ideas 
 and revives images which all have 
 known, but which have been almost 
 forgotten, though not destroyed, by the 
 cares and anxieties of life. Southey 
 embraces a Avider sphere, but one less 
 calculated permanently to interest the 
 human heart. His knowledge was im- 
 mense — his reading unbounded — his 
 memoiy tenacious; and he availed 
 himself of the vast stores these pro- 
 vided, Avith graphic poAver and scru- 
 pulous fidelity. He Avas a historian in 
 poetry as Avell as prose ; and narrated, 
 Avith all the power of diction, and em- 
 bellished with the richest hues of na- 
 ture, many of the most stirring events 
 Avhich have occurred in the annals of 
 mankind. But it is rare, indeed, to 
 find a man Avho can clothe reality in 
 verse Avith the coloiu's of fiction. 
 Homer, Virgil, and Shakespeare, have 
 alone done so since the beginning of 
 time ; and the secret of their success 
 Avas not their graphic poAA^er nor their 
 brilliant imagination, so much as their 
 profound knoAA'ledge of what is in all 
 ages the same — the human heart. 
 Sonthey's 31 adoc, Don Eodej'icl', and the 
 Curse of Kehama, are splendid metri- 
 cal romances, but they do not contain 
 the traits AA-hich speak at once to all 
 mankind — they are addressed to the 
 learned and studious, and these are a 
 mere fragment of the human race. 
 Admired, accordingly, by the well-in- 
 formed, they are already comparatiA'ely 
 unknoAvn to the great body of readers ; 
 and the author's poetical fame rests 
 chiefly on Thalaha, in AA'hich his bril- 
 liant imagination revelled Avitliout con- 
 trol, save that of high moral feeling. 
 
 Thought and her shadowy brood thy call 
 
 obey, 
 And space and time are subject to thy sway t 
 Thy pleasures most Ave feel, Avhen most alone, 
 The only pleasures we can call our oAv-n ! " 
 Fkaswcs of Memory. 
 
224 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. v. 
 
 in the waterless deserts, and palm- 
 shaded fountains, and j)atriarchal life 
 of the happy Arabia. 
 
 20. If Southey's knowledge as a 
 historian has impeded his success as a 
 j)oet, liis fancy as a poet has not less 
 seriously marred his fame as a his- 
 torian. He ^\T0te several large his- 
 torical Avorks, of which the Annals of 
 the Peninsular War and the History 
 of Brazil are the most considerable ; 
 but though both possess merits of a 
 very high order, and abound in pas- 
 sages of great descriptive beauty, the}^ 
 have never attained any high reputa- 
 tion, and are now well-nigh forgotten. 
 He had not the patience of research 
 and calmness of judgment indispensable 
 for a trustworthy historian. His facts 
 in many places will not bear investi- 
 gation; he Avas credulous in the ex- 
 treme, and graA^ely retailed statements 
 on the authority of inflamed chronicles 
 which subsequent inquiry dispi'oved, 
 and common sense at the moment 
 might at once ha\'e discovered to be 
 false. LiAung secluded and retired, he 
 AA'as entirely ignorant of the realities 
 of life, and never had been brought in 
 contact Avith men in their business 
 transactions— the only way in AA'hich 
 a thorough knowledge of their secret 
 .springs of action can ever be attained. 
 The Avant of this is painfully conspicu- 
 ous both in his historical and social 
 AATitings ; but though this deficiency 
 must prevent them from permanently 
 holding the place in general estimation 
 AA'hich might have been anticipated 
 from the genius and acquirements of 
 the author, they must always com- 
 mand respect from the erudition they 
 display, the reflection they evince, and 
 the elevated moral and religious feel- 
 ings by Avhich they are ahvays charac- 
 terised.* 
 
 * The author met Southey only once, but 
 he then saw much of him, under very inter- 
 esting (urcaiustanc.es. Traveling throu<:h 
 the highlands of Scotland in autumn 1819, 
 Avith his friend Mr Hope, the late Lord Jus- 
 tice-Clerk of Scotland, they were put into a 
 room at Fort Augustus, the inn being crowded, 
 with two other gentlemen, \\\}o proved to be 
 Mr Telford, the (;elebrated engineer, a very 
 old friend of the author, and Southey. It 
 may readily be believed the conversation did 
 not flag m such society; it continued from 
 
 21. In all these respects, except the 
 last, the neighbour of Southey in 
 the mountains of Cumberland, Words- 
 AVOHTH, presents the most decided con- 
 trast. He had not his information — 
 Avas not distracted by any prose com- 
 po.sitions — and made no attempt to 
 Avork on the numerous and varied fields 
 of thought or industry Avhich Southey 
 has tilled Avith so much zeal. But on 
 that very account he Avas more success- 
 ful, and has left a far greater reputation. 
 He Avas less discursive than his bril- 
 liant rival, but more profound. Little 
 attended to as Avorks of that stamp 
 generally are in the outset, they gra- 
 dually but unceasingly rose in public 
 estimation ; they took a lasting hold 
 of the highly educated youth of the 
 next generation ; and he noAV numbers 
 among his dcA'Out Avorshippers many 
 of the ablest men, deepest thinkers, 
 and most accomplished and discrimi- 
 nating Avomen of the age. Indeed, 
 great numbers of persons aa-Iiosc mental 
 poAvers, cultivated taste, and extensive 
 acquirements entitle their opinion to 
 the very highest consideration, yield 
 him an admiration approaching to 
 idolatry, and assign him a place second 
 only to Milton in English yjoetry. He 
 is regarded by them in much the same 
 light that Goethe is by the admiring 
 and impassioned multitudes of the 
 Fatherland. 
 
 22. It maA' be doubted, hoAVCA'er, 
 Avhether, Avith all his depth of thought, 
 simplicity of mind, and philosophic 
 wisdom, WordsAvorth aa^U ever get 
 that general hold of the English Avhich. 
 Goethe has done of the German mind. 
 The reason is, that he is not equally 
 imaginative. He is a great philosophic 
 poet ; and, to minds of a reflectmg 
 turn, no writer possesses more durable 
 or enchaining charms. But hoAv many 
 are the thoughtful or reflecting to the 
 great body of mankind ? Not one in 
 twenty. Goethe, on the other hand, 
 is not only simple and reflecting, but 
 he is in the hidiest dec^ree imaginative. 
 
 nine at night till two in the morning, Avithout 
 a moment's intermission. Southey was very 
 brilliant, but yet unassuming. He left an im- 
 preRsif)n on the mind Avhicli has never been 
 effaced. 
 
CHAP, v.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 225 
 
 His creative genius transports ns al- 
 ternately to the Cliersonesiau Taurus, 
 the palace of Fcrrara, and the clitis of 
 the Brocken. He is equally at home 
 in the prison of Count Egmont, the 
 Avickedness of Mephistopheles, the 
 jealousy of Tasso, the sorrows of 
 Werther, or the adventures of Wilhelm 
 Mcister. "Wordsworth had nothing 
 dramatic in his composition ; he had 
 an eye alive to the beautj^ a soul re- 
 sponsive to the melody, of nature ; 
 hut he had not the power of bringing 
 the events of life with the colours of 
 reality before the mind of the reader. 
 His reflection was vast on the stream 
 of human affairs, his sagacity gi-eat in 
 detecting their secret springs ; but he 
 viewed them as a distant unconcerned 
 spectator, not an impassioned ener- 
 getic actor. Goethe had as little turn 
 for action as Wordsworth, but he had 
 incomparably more power of narrating 
 its passions ; he kept out of the whirl 
 himself, but he lent the whole force of 
 his mind to delineating the feelings 
 of those who were tossed about by its 
 billows. The English poet was more 
 l^ure than the German ; the former 
 iilways dwelt in the ethereal regions of 
 the upper air, the latter often gro- 
 velled in the sensual passions of a 
 lower atmosphere. As the active bears 
 so great a proportion to the speculative 
 part of mankind, Goethe, who depicts 
 the feelings of the former, will always 
 be a more general favourite than 
 Wordsworth, who delineates the spec- 
 ulations of the latter ; but that veiy 
 circumstance only enhances the admir- 
 ution felt for the English poet by that 
 small but gifted portion of the human 
 species who, mingling with the active 
 ■part of the world, yet judge them Anth 
 the powers of the speculative. 
 
 23. Coleridge, in some respects, 
 bore a close resemblance to Words- 
 ■\vortli, but in others he was widely 
 ■diti'erent. He was deep and reflecting, 
 learned in philosophic lore, and fond 
 of critical disquisition. He "vvas less 
 abstract than AVordsworth, but more 
 dramatic — less philosophic, but more 
 pictorial. Deeply penetrated with the 
 genius of Schiller, he has transferred 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 the marvels of two of the great Ger- 
 man's immortal dramas on Wallenstein 
 to the English tongue with the exact- 
 ness of a scholar and kindred inspira- 
 tion of a poet. His ode to Mont Blanc 
 is one of the sublimest productions 
 in that lofty style in the English 
 language. But he is far from having 
 attained the world-wide fame of Gray, 
 Bui-ns, and Campbell in that branch 
 of poetry. The reason is, that his 
 ideas and images are too abstract, and 
 too little drawn from the occurrences 
 or objects of common life. He was 
 deeply learned, and his turn of mind 
 strongly metaphysical ; but it is neither 
 by learning nor metaphysics that last- 
 ing celebrity, either in oratory or poe- 
 try, is to be attained. Eloquence, to 
 be popular, must be in advance of the 
 age, and hut a little in advance. Poe- 
 try, to move the general mind, must 
 be founded on ideas common to all 
 mankind, and feelings with which 
 every one is familiar, but yet educe 
 from them novel and pleasing concep- 
 tions. It reaches its highest flights 
 when, from these common ideas and 
 objects, it draws forth uncommon and 
 elevating thoughts ; conceptions which 
 meet mth a responsive echo in every 
 breast, but had never occurred, at least 
 with equal felicity, to any one before. 
 Every sketch of English poetry at this 
 point must be imperfect in which a 
 prominent place is not assigned to 
 Shelley — too soon, alas ! cut off in 
 his brilliant career ; but, while it last- 
 ed, inferior in genius to none of his 
 great compeers. He had more true 
 poetry in his mind than Coleridge, for 
 he dwelt less on abstract thoughts or 
 metaphysical subtleties, and more on 
 the feelings and emotions which find 
 a responsive echo in every human 
 breast. He was more the poet of man, 
 than any of the Lake poets, and less of 
 philosopher, and thence a wider found- 
 ation for his fame. What has impeded 
 it is a fault which longer life and more 
 experience would have led him to 
 eschew. It is to be feared he was 
 actually infidel ; at least, he is scep- 
 tical and unsettled in his ideas on 
 religious points ; and whoever is so, 
 p 
 
22c 
 
 HISTOHY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. v. 
 
 ■whatever temporary celebrity lie may 
 attain, is debarred from enduring fame. 
 The poet is the high-priest of nature : 
 it is to mingle the hopes of immortal- 
 ity with the sorrows of time that men 
 revert to his shrine ; and he who is 
 wanting to that vocation, as he does 
 not satisfy the craving of the heart, so 
 he will never obtain its lasting homage. 
 24. The genius of woman at this 
 period produced a rival to Coleridge, 
 if not in depth of thought, at least in 
 tenderness of feeling and beauty of ex- 
 pression. Mks Hemaxs was imbued 
 with the very soul of lyric poetry ; she 
 only required to have written a little 
 less to be one of the greatest in that 
 branch that England ever produced. 
 A small volume, containing twenty or 
 thirty of her best pieces — and these 
 only such as " The Graves of a House- 
 hold," "The Deserted Hearth," "The 
 Cliffs of Dover, " " The Voi ce of Sprmg, ' ' 
 "The Ancestral Homes of England," 
 and the like — would at once take its 
 place beside the lyric poems of Collms, 
 Gray, and Campbell. Melancholy had 
 Duarked her for its own ; she was deep- 
 ly impressed with the Avoes of life, and 
 it is in working up mournful reflec- 
 tions and images -ttdth the utmost 
 tenderness and pathos that her great 
 excellence consists. There she is per- 
 haps unrivalled in the English lan- 
 guage. She had undergone more than 
 the usual share of the sufferings of 
 humanit}^ ; for, married early in life, 
 and, as it proved, unhappil}^ she was, 
 in after times, thrown, in some degree, 
 for the support of herself and her sons, 
 upon the resources of her own genius. 
 Thence at once her excellence and her 
 failings : her sufferings made her por- 
 tray grief with faithful power, for she 
 had felt it herself ; her circumstances 
 impelled her to do so in dangerous jn-o- 
 fusion. It is impossible to be a great 
 and voluminous lyric poet : the fame 
 of Horace and Pindar rests on as few 
 great odes as the finest of Schiller, or 
 as Gray or Campbell have left to the 
 world. The diamond, the brightest 
 and purest of all substances, lies hid 
 in the recesses of nature, and is draAvn 
 forth only in small portions, and dis- 
 tant intervals, to fascinate the world. 
 
 2.5. Memorable, indeed, in poetic an- 
 nals is the age which produced seven 
 such poets as those who have now been 
 considered ; and immortal would be 
 the British muse, if she never added 
 another string to her IjTe. But there 
 were other poets at the same period 
 whose talents adorned the poetic litera- 
 ture of the day, and whose genius would 
 have conferred lustre on any preceding 
 age. Crabbe was a writer of a totally 
 different character fi'om any of the 
 preceding ; but, nevertheless, of very 
 high merit. He had nothing imagina- 
 tive in his disposition — none of the 
 spirit of chivalry, none of the ardour 
 of romance. But he had a feeling, 
 sensitive heart — warm sjanpathy with 
 the sufferings of the poor, gi-eat power 
 of delineating them. Living in a coun- 
 try village, and surrounded with dis- 
 tress, wliich his humanity prompted 
 him to seek out, and afliuence did not 
 enable him to relieve, he endeavoured 
 to support the cause of the poor by 
 painting their lives, their virtues, their 
 sufferings, and thus enlisting the sjin- 
 pathy of the rich in their behalf. In 
 this attempt he was eminently success- 
 ful ; and whoever wishes to obtain a 
 faithful picture of the real condition of 
 the rural population of England at that 
 period, will do well to consult his gra- 
 j)hic pages. But their reputation is 
 sensibly on the decline : he is now sel- 
 dom read, and still seldomer quoted ; 
 none of his lines have sunk into the 
 public mind, and become as household 
 words. The reason is that the}^ want 
 the lofty spirit, the elevating tendency, 
 which is the only passport to immor- 
 tality. Such a lofty spirit is perfectly 
 consistent with the delineation of hum- 
 ble life. "We see it in the lives of the 
 patriarchs in Holy "Writ — we see it in 
 the poems of Burns — we see it in the 
 tales of Sir "Walter Scott. Gray has 
 made the most popular poem in the 
 English language out of the reflections 
 in a country churchyard on 
 
 " The short and simi)le annals of the poor." 
 
 But the mere delineation of humble 
 life, without the heroism which digni- 
 fies, or the magnanimity which rises 
 superior to it, however popular for a. 
 
CHAP, v.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUEOPE. 
 
 227 
 
 season, never has a duralDle reputation. 
 Time ever vindicates the immortal des- 
 tiny of man ; nothing can permanently 
 float down its stream but Avhut is buoy- 
 ant from its elevating tendency. 
 
 26. JoA^'XA Baillie is an authoress 
 of a totally oj^posite character — of less 
 grai)hic, but greater imaginative pow- 
 ers. In the seclusion of a Scottish 
 manse were nurtured in her breast, in 
 early life, the romantic visions of real 
 genius ; the past, with its heroes, its 
 minstrels, its damsels, its tragedies, 
 floated before her eyes ; she aimed at 
 delineating the passions, but it was the 
 passions as they exist in noble breasts. 
 Less stately and pompous than Cor- 
 neille, less veliement and impassioned 
 than Schiller, her dramas bear a certain 
 affinity to both ; they belong to the 
 same family, and give token of the same 
 elevated and heroic spirit. The great 
 defect of her tragedies is, that they 
 want those touches of nature and gen- 
 uine pathos which go at once to the 
 soul, and thrill every succeeding age 
 by the intensity of the emotions they 
 awaken. Everything is in sonorou's 
 Alexandrine verses ; stately, dignified, 
 and often beautiful ; but sometimes 
 tedious, and often unnatural, at least in 
 impassioned scenes. She had no con- 
 cejition of stage effect ; and on this 
 account, as well as from the English 
 being habituated to the rapid dialogue 
 and strokes of nature in Shakespeare, 
 her dramas have never succeeded in 
 actual representation. But to minds 
 of an elevated and sympathetic cast, 
 they form, and will ever form, a charm- 
 ing subject of study in the library : 
 and whoever reads them -w-ith a kindred 
 spirit will acquiesce in the elegant com- 
 pliment of Sii- Walter Scott — 
 
 " And Avon swans, while rang the grove 
 With Basil's hate and Montl'ort's love, 
 Resj)onsive to the vocal strain, 
 Deemed their own Shakespeare lived again." 
 
 27. Tenxyson belongs to a period 
 in English annals somewhat later than 
 the one with which Ave are now en- 
 gaged ; but the whirl of political events 
 will not permit a reciu'rence to the in- 
 viting paths of poetry and literature — 
 and he vdll, perhaps, not regret being 
 placed beside his great compeers. He 
 
 has opened a new rein in English 
 poetrj^, and showii that real genius, 
 even in the most advanced stages of 
 society, can sti'ike a fresh chord, and, 
 departing from the hackneyed ways of 
 imitation, charm the world by the con- 
 ceptions of original thought. Out of 
 the events of ordinary life, the usual 
 sorrows and severances of humanity, 
 lie has educed a variety of beautiful 
 ideas;- and his poem In Mcmoriamv 
 proves how an event, unhappily too fre- 
 quent — the death of a valued and ac- 
 complished early friend — can awaken 
 the deepest and most thrilling feelings 
 of the pathetic. His imagination, wide 
 and discursive as the cbeams of fancy, 
 wanders at will, not over the real so 
 much as the ideal world. The grottoes 
 of the sea, the caves of the mermaid, 
 the realms of heaven, are alternately 
 the scenes of his song. His versifi- 
 cation, wild as the song of the elfin 
 king, is broken and irregnilar, but often 
 inexpressibly charming. Sometimes, 
 however, this tendency leads him into 
 conceit ; in the endeavour to be ori- 
 ginal, he becomes fantastic. There is 
 a freshness and originality, however, 
 about his conceptions, which contrast 
 strangely with the practical and inter- 
 ested views Avhich influence the age in 
 which he lived, and contribute not a 
 little to their deserved success. They 
 were felt to be the more charming, be- 
 cause they were so much at variance 
 with the prevailing ideas around him, 
 and reopened those fountains of ro- 
 mance which nature has planted in 
 every generous bosom, but Avhich are 
 so often closed by the cares, the anxie- 
 ties, and the rivalry of the world. 
 
 28. It was hardly to be expected that 
 the same age was to be equally celebra- 
 ted in prose compositions ; it is rarely 
 that the sober thought required in 
 works of absti'act reasoning, and the 
 ardent temperament which is the soul 
 of poetry, coexist in the same genera- 
 tion. Yet such a union, though un- 
 frequent, is not unknown ; and the 
 ages of JEschylus, Sophocles, Socrates, 
 and Thucydides — of Cicero, Virgil, 
 Horace, and lAvy — of Bossuet, Fene- 
 lon, Eacine, and Moliere — are sufficient 
 to prove that, when it does occm\ it 
 
228 
 
 HISTOEY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. v. 
 
 leads to tlie very highest efforts of hu- 
 Tiian intellect. It could not, in truth, 
 he other\vise ; for repetition and mo- 
 notony of ideas are the hane of litera- 
 ture not less than of imagination ; and 
 the social con\nilsions which lead to 
 the most daring flights of the poetic 
 muse, tend equally to cast down the 
 barriers which resti'ain thought, and 
 induce the collision of opinions, from 
 which, as from the striking of flint 
 and steel, the light of truth is elicited. 
 It is not at once, however, that the 
 bright illumination always appears ; 
 clouds and dust often, for a time, fol- 
 low the shock ; and it is only when 
 they have rolled away that the pure 
 flame at length shines forth. 
 
 29. As a philosopher, Dugald Stew- 
 art stands at the head of the Avriters 
 of the age ; hut yet he belonged rather 
 to the one which had preceded it. His 
 ■writings are the efflorescence of the 
 ideas which grew in the days of Mon- 
 tesquieu and Helvetius, of Reid and 
 Hume. French philosophy and Scotch 
 metaphysics met in his mind ; but he 
 arrayed the offspring of the marriage 
 in brilliant colours. His learning was 
 great, his taste exquisite: all the phi- 
 losophy of mind, from the days of Plato, 
 was present to his memory ; all the 
 images of poetry, from the time of 
 Homer, floated in his imagination. 
 The author is not afraid of exaggerat- 
 ing, either from the recollections of 
 early friendship, or the reverence of 
 academic instruction, when he places 
 him at the head of the didactic orators 
 of the age. His lectures were -s^Titten, 
 but always interspersed with long in- 
 terludes of extempore effusion ; and 
 on these occasions the glow of his 
 eloquence, and rich ti-easures of his 
 memory, were poured forth with a 
 profusion which ti'ansported every one 
 who listened to it. Philosophers may 
 contest many of his opinions, states- 
 men search in vain for instruction in 
 his writings, the searchers for novelty 
 complain of want of original thought ; 
 but none ever listened to his lectures 
 without having an image engraven on 
 the memory which no length of time 
 can efface. 
 
 30. Yet with these manv and tran- 
 
 scendent merits, Stewart had several 
 wants ; and hence his fame with poste- 
 rity -SA-ill be greatly less than it was -snth 
 the age in which he lived. The very 
 qualities which rendered him so great 
 as a teacher to the young, disqualified 
 him from being the leader of opinion 
 to those engaged in active life ; he 
 lived in thought with the past, and 
 therefore he failed to meet the wants 
 of the present. He was the man of the 
 former age, but not of the one in whicli 
 he lived ; he brought his pupils down 
 the stream of time with admirable skill 
 to the edge of the ocean on which they 
 were to embark ; but he there left them, 
 without either rudder or compass, to 
 the mercy of the waves. He did more ; 
 he imbued them with doctrines which, 
 if carried out to their full extent, would 
 lead to the most disastrous conse- 
 quences. In metaphysics, he had cor- 
 rected the errors of Locke and Hume 
 by the sound sagacity of Reid ; but in 
 politics he was still guided by the vi- 
 sions of Turgot in tlie days of Xapo- 
 leon ; in political economy he was a 
 follower of Quesnay and Smith, in the 
 age whicli was resounding with the 
 gloomy predictions of Malthus. He 
 discoursed admirably on the thoughts 
 of preceding times, but he drew little 
 light from the events of his own ; and 
 his writings are distinguished rather by 
 great learning, refined taste, and cor- 
 rect judgment, than original thought, 
 or a just appreciation of the social 
 changes in the midst of which he him- 
 self was placed. His character in pri- 
 vate was simplicity itself. His con- 
 versation was charming, but it was so 
 from the spontaneous outpourings of 
 a mind that was full, not any attempt 
 at display ; and the society and admi- 
 ration of the men and women of the 
 highest rank and greatest talents of the 
 age, had never for an instant disturbed 
 the benevolence of disposition and sim- 
 plicity of character, which are the in- 
 variable accompaniment of the highest 
 intellectual powers. 
 
 31. The successor of Dugald Stewart 
 in the chair of ]\Ioral Philosophy at 
 Edinburgh, Dr Thomas Browx, was 
 a man, if not of so cultivated, at least 
 of a more orisjiual cast. His mind was 
 
HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 229 
 
 of a very peculiar kind ; it was a cross 
 ■between the Scotch metaphysician and 
 the German romancer. He had all the 
 acnteness and analytical turn of Hume 
 or Hutchison, and all the ardour and 
 tenderness of Goethe or Schiller. It is 
 not often that such opposite qualities 
 and powers coexist in the same mind ; 
 Lut, when they do, they seldom fail in 
 j)roducing a very gi-eat impression, and 
 conferring durable fame. Rarity is not 
 the least ingredient in earning pemia- 
 aient popularity ; it is common minds 
 with their works which are swept down 
 the gulf of time. Inferior in learning 
 to Stewart, Brown was more original ; 
 lie di"ew less from the thoughts of others 
 — more from the ideasof his 0A\m breast. 
 He was extremely acute, and inferior to 
 none in the masterly manner in which 
 lie analysed the feelings and detected 
 the errors of former inquirers. But it 
 was other qualities which gave him his 
 great success. Himself of a poetical 
 turn of mind, his taste was exquisite, 
 and he adorned his lectures by those 
 chamiing fragments of former genius 
 which, often more than even original 
 composition, contribute to the power 
 of eloquence. The success of his pub- 
 lished Lectures accordingly was im- 
 mense ; they have already gone through 
 sixteen editions — by far the greatest 
 aiumber of any book on the subject in 
 the English, or j)erhaps any other lan- 
 giaage. So vast a circulation proves 
 that they had extended beyond the 
 narrow circle of metaphysicians into 
 the great sphere of general readers. A 
 premature death, brought on in some 
 degree by the intensity of his studies, 
 cut him off in the flower of his age, 
 and deprived Great Britain of one of 
 the most eminent philosophers, and 
 liis friends of one of the most amiable 
 men, that ever existed. 
 
 32. If Scotland, in Brown, gave to- 
 ken of its national character, by exhi- 
 biting the combination of poetic genius 
 with metaphysical acnteness, the prac- 
 tical and sagacious turn of the Anglo- 
 Saxon mind was not less clearly evinced 
 in Paley. He belongs rather to the 
 age of George III. than to that of his 
 successor ; but he is too eminent to be 
 omitted in a survey of English litera- 
 
 ture at this period. His mind was 
 essentially Englisii, and English in its 
 best mood. He was not remarkable 
 for his learning, though far from being 
 ill-informed ; but the bent of his mind 
 was not towards scholarship. He was 
 eminently practical in his ideas; his 
 thoughts, descending from the clouds, 
 ever turned to some object of actual 
 importance in real life. In this respect 
 he bore a closer allinity to Socrates 
 than any other modern philosopher. 
 His mind was not of the most elevated 
 cast, and accordingly he made utilitij 
 the great object of life and measure of 
 actions. He will never be a favourite, 
 accordingly, with that handful of men 
 who nevertheless alone do great things 
 in the world, who aim at the noble and 
 generous in all things, and let the use- 
 ful take care of itself.* But Avhile his 
 disposition precluded him from rising 
 to the highest rank in literature, which 
 never is to be attained but by the in- 
 fluence of lofty feelings, within his 
 limits, and in a lower sphere, he was 
 very admii-able and eminently useful. 
 His Natural Theology is the best work 
 on the sublimest subject of human con- 
 templation — the wisdom of God in the 
 works of nature — that exists in our 
 language; his Moral PMloso])?)]/, a clear 
 exposition of the leading traths and 
 most useful branches of ethics. That 
 so very eminent a man, who had ren- 
 dered such services to his countiy, 
 should not have been raised to the high- 
 est dignities in the Church, to which 
 so many inferior men were elevated, is 
 the strongest proof of the narrow and 
 timid principles on which patronage in 
 those days was regulated. George III. 
 said of him, *' Paley is a great man — 
 will never be a bishop, will never be a 
 bishop ; " — words which at once mark 
 the acknowledged superiority of his 
 intellect, and the inferiority of those 
 who were then intrusted with the dis- 
 posal of Church preferment. 
 
 33. SiE. William Hamilton, who 
 held in the University of Edinburgh 
 the chair of logic, is a philosojiher 
 
 * " Paucorum civium egregiam virtutem 
 cuncta patravisse, eoqiie factum, ut divitias 
 paupeitas, multitudinem paucitas suijeraret." 
 — Sallust, JBdl Cat. § 53. 
 
230 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. v. 
 
 widely different from either Stewart or 
 Brown, but in some respects superior 
 to either. He has not the exquisite 
 taste of the former, nor the poetic 
 genius of the latter ; hvit in learning, 
 especially of later metaphysicians, he is 
 above them both. He is less wedded 
 to the Scotch school : an accomplished 
 classical and jirofound German scholar, 
 he has dived deeper than either of his 
 predecessors into the varieties and dis- 
 crepancies of the human mmd on the 
 subject. His reputation, accordingly, 
 Is very great upon the Continent — 
 greater, indeed, than that of any Eng- 
 lish metaphysician. He has not so 
 much a creative as a wonderfully dis- 
 cursive mind : few idees meres have 
 flowed from his brain, but a most sur- 
 prising and just appreciation of the 
 ideas of others. The celebrity of his 
 writings, even though they exliibit 
 metaphysics in their least attractive 
 light, is a proof that this science, 
 though occasionally obscured by utili- 
 tarian ideas, can never die, but also 
 rises into fresh eminence from the re- 
 action against such thoughts in former 
 days. 
 
 34. If original views were awanting 
 in this accomplished ^vl'iter, they were 
 not so in tlie great political philoso- 
 pher of the age, Mr Malthus. On 
 him, at least, the experience of passing 
 events was not thrown away ; and the 
 collision of thought struck out new 
 and original ideas, which cast a broad 
 light on political science. Action and 
 reaction seems to be the law, not less 
 of the moral than the material world ; 
 it is only after violent oscillations 
 either way that the pendulum of 
 thought takes its lasting position in 
 the centre. From the earliest period 
 of civilised history it had been thought 
 that the strength of a State depended 
 mainly on the amount of its popula- 
 tion ; and it had passed into a maxim, 
 both with statesmen and philosophers, 
 that to increase the numbers of the 
 people was the surest way both to aug- 
 ment the national resources, and add 
 to the sum of human happiness. In 
 the end of the eighteenth century, 
 however, the aspect of things, both in 
 the Old and the Kew World, led this 
 
 original thinker to distrust these pro- 
 positions. The social misery which 
 had terminated in such convulsions in 
 France — the increasing and alarming 
 weight of the poor-laws in England — 
 the dense misery which overspread the 
 fields of Ireland — appeared to give no 
 countenance to the idea that the oldest 
 periods of social progi-ess were the hap- 
 piest ; while the extraordinary rapidity 
 with which population was advancing 
 in America, atibrded the clearest indi- 
 cation of the capability of advance with 
 which, under fa vom-able circumstances, 
 the human species was invested. Mr 
 "Wallace had previously demonstrated 
 that the rate of human increase, if un- 
 checked, was that of a geometrical pro- 
 gression ; and as that rapidity of pro- 
 gress had actually been realised for 
 nearly two centuries in the United 
 States on the other side of the Atlantic, 
 Malthas arrived at the conclusion that 
 it would obtain universally, if the 
 powers of human multiplication were 
 not restrained by adverse external cir- 
 cumstances. These appeared to be, 
 Moral Restraint — or a prudential ab- 
 stinence from marriage till the means 
 of providing for a family had been at- 
 tained — and Vice and Misery ; and so 
 general and widespread did the opera- 
 tion of the two latter checks seem to 
 be, compared to the limited sphere 
 of the former, that he arrived at the 
 melancholy conclusion that the great 
 source of human suffering was to be 
 found in the disproportion between the 
 powers of human increase, and those 
 by which subsistence can be provided 
 for the growing multitude. Popula- 
 tion was capable of increasing in a 
 geometrical, while, by the utmost ef- 
 forts of industry, subsistence could not 
 be made to advance in more than an 
 arithmetical ratio : the former was 
 thus constantly pressing on the latter ; 
 this pressure increased with the advanc- 
 ing age of society ; and so severe did 
 it at length become, that all other 
 sources of misery were as nothing com- 
 pared to the original and inherent 
 causes of distress which arise necessar- 
 ily and immediately from the consti- 
 tution of our nature, and our position 
 in the world. 
 
v.] 
 
 HISTOPcY OF EUROPE. 
 
 231 
 
 35. To produce a great and imme- 
 diate effect on general opinion, there is 
 nothing so efficacious as some image 
 ^vhicli strikes the senses, or some terse 
 expression of familiar illustration, 
 ^vhich conveys in the clearest possible 
 manner a simple idea to the mind. It 
 is the most difficult thing in the Avorld 
 for reason or experience to combat 
 •such an influence. Government, for 
 jnany a long day, was twitted with 
 "the ignorant impatience of taxation," 
 of which, in vexation at losing the 
 income-tax, Lord Castlereagh spoke ; 
 and many convulsions which shook 
 the most powerful States have arisen 
 from the cry at the high price of pro- 
 visions, or the exhibition of the big 
 and little loaf. The celebrated para- 
 dox of ]\Ialthus was of this description. 
 The idea he struck out was novel — the 
 illustration by which it was conveyed, 
 equally clear and felicitous. The geo- 
 metrical and arithmetical progression 
 were soon in every mouth. JMen 
 caught with alacrity at an expression 
 whi-ch seemed to express with precision 
 an idea which had been long floating 
 in their minds, and which explained 
 in the clearest possible way some of 
 the most alarming anomalies in our 
 social position. It was satisfactory to 
 be able to lay upon Providence many 
 evils which had formerly been suppos- 
 ed to have been induced by ourselves ; 
 and it was not the least agreeable con- 
 sequence of such a doctrine, to a large 
 portion of societ}^, that the necessity of 
 public and private charity Avas in a 
 great measure removed by the obvious 
 inadequacy of such remedies to close 
 the real sources of human suffering. 
 
 36. Political economy is not less 
 certain in its conclusions than the ex- 
 act sciences, Avhen it is founded on a 
 sufficiently broad deduction of facts, 
 and the whole circumstances bearing 
 on a particular result are carefully 
 taken into view. But it is the most 
 uncertain of all branches of thought, 
 when conclusions are drawn from in- 
 sulated or detached facts, and general 
 inferences are deduced from partial 
 premises. The geometrical and arith- 
 metical progression is nothing more 
 than a huge fallacy, only the more 
 
 deceptive from its wearing an air of 
 mathematical precision. There is no 
 relation between the increase of popula- 
 tion and subsistence, but that of causo 
 and effect ; if mouths increase fast, 
 hands increase as fast also, and hands 
 in a right governed State will never 
 vv-ant employment. Population, it is 
 mathematically certain, is capable, if 
 unchecked, of advancing in a geome- 
 trical ratio ; and it is equally certain, 
 that the earth, if unchecked, will fly 
 to the centre of attraction, be lost in. 
 the sun, and the vision of the poet be 
 realised — 
 
 " Roll on, ye stars, exult in youthful prime ; 
 
 Mark Avit'h bright curves the printless steps 
 of Time. 
 
 Xear and more near your beamy cars ap- 
 proach, 
 
 And lessening orbs on lessening orbs en- 
 croach ! 
 
 Flowers of the sky ! ye too to Fate must 
 yield, 
 
 Frail as your silken sisters of the field : 
 
 Star after star on heaven's high arch shall 
 rush, 
 
 Suns sinic on suns, and systems systems 
 crush ; 
 
 Headlong, extinct, to one dark centre fall. 
 
 And daric, and night, and chaos mingle 
 all ! " 
 
 But the centrifugal force averts the 
 catastrophe, and for ever retains the 
 heavenly bodies in their orbits. It is 
 the same in human affair's ; there are 
 centrifugal as well as centripetal forces 
 in the moral as well as in the material 
 Avorld. The passions of men, the 
 moving powers of mind, the changes 
 in the objects of general desire in the 
 progress of society, ruled by Omni- 
 potence, hold the balance as even in 
 the former as the opposite forces of 
 attraction and repulsion do in the lat- 
 ter. Even in the age in which IMalthus 
 lived, this Avas demonstrated. AVhile 
 the attention of men, fascinated by the 
 novelty of his doctrine, and the strik- 
 ing example of ISTorth American in- 
 crease, Avas fixed on the alarming 
 poAvers of human miiltiplication, the 
 human race was disappearing in its 
 original seats, and the most gloomy- 
 apprehensions Avere entertained of its 
 entire extinction on the plains of 
 Shinar and in the Delta of Egypt. 
 And Avithin half a century of the time 
 Avhen the terrors of undue multiplica- 
 
232 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 tion in these islands got possession of 
 the British mind, a stop was put to 
 British increase ; the increase of wealth, 
 "by raising prices in its busy hives of 
 industry, induced the desire for sup- 
 plies from foreign States, in which, 
 being poorer, they could be raised at a 
 less cost ; the cry ibr Free Trade bridled 
 the powers of population in these 
 islands ; and for the first time in five 
 centuries our numbers declined, and 
 the annual exodus of 350,000 of our 
 people proved that Providence, when 
 the appointed season arrives, can ti-ans- 
 port the chosen race to the promised 
 land.* 
 
 37. Not^vithstanding this funda- 
 mental error, Malthus was a great 
 political philosopher, and "".lie very 
 promulgation of his error was an im- 
 jDortant step in the advance to truth. 
 It is by slow degrees and frequent os- 
 cillations that the pendulum at length 
 settles in the centre. We must never 
 despair of the cause of truth, because, 
 in the first instance, it is violently 
 impelled from one side to the other. 
 His mind was vigorous and capacious 
 — his understanding clear — his infor- 
 mation immense. He cast a discrim- 
 inating glance over the whole surface 
 of the world, and compared the condi- 
 tion of mankind in all ages and coun- 
 tries, with a view to deduce the general 
 laws of their social condition. His 
 principles of population were a vast 
 step in political science, and even 
 greater in the method of investigation 
 pursued than in the deductions drawn. 
 He first applied on a great scale the 
 method of induction to political science, 
 and made the " Past, the Distant, and 
 the Future " predominate over the Pre- 
 sent. Hume had obtained a glimpse 
 of the system, but he had not sufficient 
 industry to carry it through. ]\Ialthus 
 did not, like Adam Smith, dream, in 
 the solitiide of Kirkcaldy, of the doc- 
 trines of the Economists, and imagine 
 a scheme of universal freedom from 
 restraint, at variance alike \\ith the 
 
 * The copulation of Ireland had declined, 
 between 1845 and 1S51, above 2,000,000, three- 
 fourths of Avhich Avas from emigration ; that 
 of the British Islands, taken together, about 
 600,000 iu tbe same period.— GcnsKS o/lS51. 
 
 wants, the necessities, and the selfish- 
 ness of men. He was, in eveiy sense, 
 the man of the age— impressed with its 
 wants — aware of its necessities — taught 
 by its lessons. But it is not equally 
 certain that he was the man of the 
 next age. He first opened the eyes of 
 men to the important truth, that the 
 mere multiplication of their numbers^ 
 though an important, is not the sola 
 element in national prosperity ; and 
 that, though generally a source of 
 strength, it may, under adverse cir- 
 cumstances, become a cause of weak- 
 ness. He is a bold man who, \\T.th the 
 example of Ireland before his eyes, 
 attempts to gainsay that proposition. 
 The result at which philosophy will 
 probably ultimately arrive is, that the 
 true test of social felicity is to be 
 found in the increase of mankind com- 
 bined v-ith their general felicity; that 
 the means of attaining this combina- 
 tion have been afforded by the bounty 
 of Providence in every age to all ; that 
 the requisite limitations to population, 
 provided for in the changing desires 
 of men and the varying circumstances 
 of society, are as much a part of the 
 human constitution as the principle of 
 increase itself, and destined by nature 
 for its regulation ; and that nothing 
 mars the harmony of their co-operation 
 but the disturbing forces arising fronx 
 the selfishness, the follies, and the 
 vices of men.* 
 
 38. Adam Smith and Malthus were 
 the two original men whose idees meres 
 gave an entire new turn and direction, 
 on these subjects, to human thought. 
 But they were followed by other pliilo- 
 soi)hers of great talent and industry, 
 who pushed their doctrines to their 
 remotest consequences, and perhaps- 
 impaired their practical usefulness — 
 certainly diminished then- popularity 
 — by laying down their results as ab- 
 stract propositions of undoubted truth, 
 to be carried into execution without 
 
 "^ The Author is profoundly impressed witli 
 the truth of the propositions contained iu 
 this paragraph, which he has endeavoured to 
 illustrate'iu his Principles of Population ; but 
 they are too much at variance with present 
 opinions to render it possible for him to look 
 for a general concurrence in them during his- 
 own lifetime. 
 
CHAP, v.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 any regard to the modifying circum- 
 stances of society. Immense is the 
 influence Avhicli their principles have 
 had, not so much, in the first instance 
 at least, with the majority of men in 
 England, as with the thinking few, 
 who in every age regulate the opinions 
 and determine the destiny of their 
 countrymen. If the Economists, of 
 wliom Turgot was the incarnation, had 
 a great share in producing the French 
 Revolution, the political economists 
 liave had a still greater, in inducing 
 the alteration of opinion on commercial 
 and monetary subjects, and with it the 
 organic changes which have altered 
 the constitution, and the commercial 
 policy which will, in its ultimate ef- 
 fects, determine the destinies of Eng- 
 land. They have collected a great 
 variety of statistical facts, relating to 
 the present time, to support their 
 opinions ; but unfortunately have not, 
 like Sismondi in France, been equally 
 attentive to those on the other side, 
 which the historical records of other 
 States present. Mr Ricaedo, Mr 
 M'CuLLOCH, Mr Senior, ancL Mr 
 jMill, are the most eminent of this 
 school of political philosophy in recent 
 times ; and they have brought to bear 
 upon that important and interesting 
 science intellectual powers and indus- 
 try of the very highest kind. Even 
 those who differ most — and they are 
 many — from their abstract conclu- 
 sions, or the expedience of applying 
 them practically in these times, and 
 our present complicated state of so- 
 ciety, must be the first to admit their 
 great ability, and the vast addition 
 which the facts they have collected, 
 and the ideas they have thrown out, 
 have made to the sum of human know- 
 ledge, and eventually, by their estab- 
 lishment or overthrow, to the cause 
 of truth. 
 
 39. If IVIalthus cast a broad and 
 lasting light on political affairs, Davy, 
 in the same age, gave an impulse almost 
 as great to physical science. Endowed 
 by nature with the intrepid and in- 
 quisitive spirit which is the very soul 
 of discovery, he carried the torch of 
 sagacious inquiry into the recesses of 
 nature, and for the first time detected, 
 
 in the physical world, mineral siib- 
 stances, the existence of Avhich had 
 never before been even suspected by 
 the most inquisitive observers. His 
 powers of conversation were gi'cat, his 
 temper mild, his disposition unruffled. 
 He e\dnced the spirit of "the last 
 days of a philosopher" through tho 
 whole of life, Nor were his researches 
 confined to abstract subjects. He ap- 
 plied science mth success to its noblest 
 purpose — human improvement; and 
 had the happiness, which to a man of 
 his benevolent mind was great, of re- 
 flecting, on his deathbed, that he had 
 chained even the frightful violence of 
 the fire-damp, and given the miner 
 the means of securely pursuing his 
 darksome toil, while the joerilous blast, 
 pregnant with death, played innocuous 
 round the lambent ilame that rested 
 on his forehead.* The application of 
 science on a still gi-eater scale to art 
 and mechanical power, was at the 
 same period carried to the very highest 
 point. Brunel gave the most strik- 
 ing example of it in the block machin- 
 ery at Portsmouth, and the construc- 
 tions of the tunnel at Rotherhithe 
 under the Thames; Rennie besti'ode 
 the same river with noble arches ; 
 Telford intersected Great Britain in 
 every direction with canals, and orna- 
 mented it with aqueducts ; while, at 
 a later period, Stephenson astonished 
 the world Avith the noble bridges over 
 the Tyne at Newcastle, the Tweed at 
 
 * Sir Humphry DaA'y's powers of conver- 
 sation were great, and the more charming, 
 from the entire freedom from vanitj' or osten- 
 tation, and almost boyish simplicity, by which 
 they were distinguished. The author once 
 supped with him at Rome, when the whole 
 party consisted of Sir Humi^hry, Lady Davy 
 — who was also brilliant in conversation — 
 Canova, and his late lamented friend, Captain 
 Basil Hall. The conversation turned on the 
 deficiency, at that period, of the fine arts in 
 England, and the author observed that it was 
 very surprising, because in other countries, 
 as Greece and modem Italy, the fine arts had 
 advanced abreast of literature, philosophy, 
 and the drama. Canova replied : " Su-, it is 
 entirely owing to your free constitution ; it 
 drains away talent of every sort to the Bar 
 and the House of Commons. If England had 
 been Italy, Mr Pitt and Mr Fox would have 
 been your artists ; and then you would have 
 had no reason to lament your inferiority ia 
 the fine arts." 
 
234 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. V 
 
 Berwick, and tlie tu"bular one over the 
 Menai at Bangor. 
 
 40. Though not on a level with these 
 illustrious philosophers, there were 
 several other men in Great Britain 
 who signalised themselves in different 
 branches of science and literature at 
 this period. Herschel, by multiplying 
 with incredible labour and skill the 
 powers of the telescope, was enabled 
 to look farther into space than man 
 had ever done before, discover a world 
 hitherto unseen in the firmament, and, 
 in the Georgium Sidus, add a "new 
 string to the lyre of heaven ; " Lord 
 Rosse, following in tlie same fascinat- 
 ing path, looked yet farther into the 
 immensity of space, and discovered, 
 not new worlds alone, but embryo 
 worlds, careering through the regions 
 of infinity ; Playfair, illustrating witli 
 philosophic msdom and chastened elo- 
 quence the thoughts of Button, de- 
 veloped the trne theory of the earth, 
 now universally admitted, and traced 
 in the revolutions of our globe, pro- 
 duced by the alternate or counteract- 
 ing influence of fire and water, that 
 mysterious system of action and re- 
 action Avhich pervades alike the moral 
 and tlie material world; D'Israeli (the 
 father), casting the glance of genius 
 over its acliievements in former days, 
 illustrated the curiosities of literature, 
 the literary character, the animosities 
 and suffering of authors, with the 
 knowledge of a scholar, the zeal of an 
 antiquary, and the powers of an orator, 
 at the same time that, in history, he 
 threw a new and important light on 
 the eventful reign of Charles 1. ; while 
 Alison, inspired by a genuine taste for 
 tlie sublime and the beautiful, moulded 
 but not darkened by the feelings of 
 devotion, resolved the beauty of the 
 material world into the expression of 
 mind, traced the influence of associa- 
 tion in multiplying the links of the 
 unseen chain which unites man to the 
 Creator, and sought to represent "tlie 
 world we inhabit, not as the abode 
 merely of human passions or human 
 joys, but as the temple of the living 
 God, in which praise is due, and where 
 ser-sdce is to be performed." 
 
 41. One branch of knowledcce mav 
 
 in a manner be said to have been 
 created, and almost brought to per- 
 fection, during this period. This was 
 the science of Geology, as based on 
 the study of organic remains in the 
 various strata of which the crust of the 
 earth is formed. Werner in Germany, 
 and Hutton in Scotland, had pre- 
 viously presented complete theories of 
 geology, which still remain monu- 
 ments of their genius and reach of 
 thought, and from a combination of 
 which the true theory of the earth has 
 since been extracted ; and Playfair 
 had illustrated the subject with the 
 spirit of philosophy and the graces of 
 eloquence. But little was thought, or 
 indeed known, by any of these great 
 men, of the organic remains whicli 
 were imbedded in the strata, the for- 
 mation of whicli they considered, and. 
 which yet, like the relics of language 
 in the strata of the human species, 
 bespoke the successive revolutions of 
 the globe. The study of these remains 
 opened a new field of profound and 
 interesting inquiry — so much the more 
 valuable, that it was entirely based on. 
 facts and actual discovery — so muck 
 the more interesting, that it carried us 
 back, by a certain clue, into the laby- 
 rintli of forgotten time, and ages long 
 prior to the creation of the human 
 race. Dr Buckland, PEOFESSOii 
 Sedgewick, Sir Charles Lyell, 
 and Sir Roderick Murchisox, are 
 the most eminent of the new school of 
 geology which has sprung up simul- 
 taneously in France and England, and 
 which, by a strict application of the 
 Baconian method of philosophising, 
 has made earth reveal the secret of its 
 formation anterior to the race of man, 
 by the remains imbedded in its bosom. 
 A more fascinating inquiry never was 
 presented to the investigation of the 
 philosopher, and none has been prose- 
 cuted with more zeal and success. In- 
 deed, the labours and genius of these 
 ver}'' eminent men have in a manner 
 created this branch of science, and 
 brought it almost to perfection during 
 the lifetime of a single generation. 
 It derives additional interest to the 
 Christian believer, from the confirma- 
 tion which it affords, at every step, of 
 
CHAP, v.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 235 
 
 the Mosaic account of creation, and 
 the truth of Holy Writ,* Optics had 
 made so great a stride under the genius 
 of iSTcwton that little remained to be 
 gleaned by future observers ; but yet 
 Brewster has added much to the 
 circle of our knowledge in the polari- 
 sation of light, and added a new ele- 
 ment in the production of harmonious 
 "beauty in the changes of the kaleido- 
 scope. 
 
 42, In one particular a fresh walk 
 in literature was opened uj) at this 
 period, and cultivated with the most 
 brilliant success. This was the new 
 style of review and lengthened essay. 
 Reviews indeed had long been estab- 
 lished in Great Britain ; and Addison, 
 Steele, and Mackenzie, had brought 
 the sliort essay to as great perfection 
 as was practicable in that limited 
 species of composition. But the 
 Monthly Preview and Gentleman^s Ma- 
 gazine were poor periodicals, distin- 
 guished by little talent, illuminated 
 hy no genius, containing scarcely more 
 than meagre abstracts of, or interested 
 eulogiunis on books, and jejune re- 
 cords of transactions. Even the mighty 
 genius of Burke, then unconscious of 
 its own strength, had been unable to 
 burst the fetters with which political 
 narrative at that period was restrained ; 
 and his historical compositions in the 
 Annucd Register contain few symptoms 
 of the vast conceptions which after- 
 wards shone forth and illuminated the 
 "world m his writings. No one need 
 he told that the essays of Addison, 
 Steele, and Johnson, are charming 
 compositions, distinguished by taste, 
 embellished by fancy, adorned ^ by 
 imagination, in which the stores of 
 learning are set off with all the deco- 
 rations of modern genius. But their 
 clay has passed away ; they are well- 
 nigh forgotten. They are to be seen 
 in every library, but are seldom taken 
 
 * Of course this proceeds on the assump- 
 tion that the days mentioned in the Mosaic 
 account of creation are periods of indifferent 
 endurance, which Hebrew scholars affirm tlie 
 ■word employed means, equally as a day. 
 If this be conceded, the difficulty entirely 
 vanishes, for the organic remains of different 
 kinds of animals lie above one another, ira- 
 ■bedded in the strata in exactly the order 
 fipecified in Genesis as that of creation. 
 
 down from its shelves. This oblivion 
 is no doubt in part to be ascribed to 
 the prodigious multiplication of works 
 of imagination which has since taken 
 place, and which renders it next to 
 impossible for works of a former period 
 to mamtain their ground against the 
 constantly increasing tide. Yet this 
 is not the sole cause of their neglect ; 
 works of superlative merit have no 
 difficulty in maintaining their place. 
 Poems innumerable have since ap- 
 peared, but Virgil and Tasso are in no 
 danger of being forgotten ; our walls 
 are every day decorated with new 
 paintings, but we gaze with undimin- 
 ished admiration on the works of 
 Raphael and Claude. The true reason, 
 of the decline in the estimation in 
 which our old essayists are held, is to 
 be found in their own defects. With 
 a few brilliant exceptions they are 
 commonplace in thought, and feeble 
 in expression ; full of truisms, but 
 wanting in originality ; often distin- 
 guished by conceit, seldom by simpli- 
 city ; remarkable more for taste than 
 genius ; and rather fitted for the 
 thoitghtless amusement of a vacant 
 half-hour than to be the charming 
 companion of an evening fireside. 
 
 43. It was in this state of the peri- 
 odical literature of the country that 
 the Edinburgh Review arose, and 
 communicated a new character to its 
 pages, a fresh impulse to its exertions. 
 Discarding the feeble and irresolute 
 criticisms of the British Critic and 
 Monthly Rcvieio, its authors boldly 
 dashed forward into the unoccupied 
 arena of severe and caustic animad- 
 version, and quickly secured general 
 favour by indulging in general abuse. 
 This is the most certain passport to 
 extensive popularity ; all, except the 
 objects of attack, like to see others 
 abused. Above all, it was refreshing 
 to the great body of readers to see the 
 oligarchy of authorship broken down, 
 and the lash of criticism applied to 
 the class who, even when in fault, 
 had hitherto escaped without any ade- 
 quate animadversion. The practical 
 application of their motto, "Judex 
 damnatur cum nocens absolvitur," 
 gave universal satisfaction ; for every 
 
236 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. V- 
 
 one hoped liis neiglibour would fall 
 under, and himself escape chastise- 
 ment. The vigorous talent and varied 
 acquirements of its early contributors 
 sustained and increased the reputation 
 at first acquired by more questionable 
 means ; it was impossible that a jour- 
 nal where the talents of Jefirey, 
 Brougham, Sydney Smith, Mackin- 
 tosh, Playfair, and JMalthus, were al- 
 ternately exerted, could fail in attract- 
 ing general notice and acquiring ex- 
 tensive popularit3^ Its reputation, 
 accordingly, soon became very great, 
 its circulation immense, its influence 
 formidable even to the Government in 
 power. To counteract it, a new jour- 
 nal was set up in London, which, 
 imder the title of the Quaeterly 
 Review, under the direction first of 
 Gifford and then of Lockhart, with 
 the aid of Sir Walter Scott, Southey, 
 Canning, Ellis, Erere, and Rose, soon 
 came to rival its northern competitor, 
 and has ever since maintained its ele- 
 vated position. In Edinburgh itself a 
 rude assault was made on the "Whig 
 oligarchy of the north by a still more 
 sturdy iDody of antagonists ; and the 
 genius of "Wilson, Lockhart, and their 
 coadjutors, soon elevated Black"\vood's 
 Magazine to the lead in patriotic 
 effort, independent thought, and varied 
 criticism. Other Reviews and IMaga- 
 zines rapidly succeeded, distinguished 
 alike by talent and learning, of which 
 the Westminster Review on the 
 Popular, and Eraser's Magazine, at 
 first on the Tory, afterwards on the 
 Liberal side, were the most remarkable. 
 The North British Review, set on 
 foot within these few years, has already 
 attained most deserved celebrity, and 
 by the varied talent of its contributors, 
 promises soon to eclipse the Edin- 
 hurgh, in the very line which originally 
 In-ought the latter into fame. These 
 journals, each admirable in its way, 
 but yet entirely difterent from each 
 other, have given an entirely new tone 
 to our periodical literature, and been 
 the vehicles by which the most impor- 
 tant thoughts on philosophical, po- 
 litical, and literary subjects, have, 
 durhig the last half-century, been sent 
 forth to the world. 
 
 44. Jeffrey, who took the lead in 
 this great revolution in literature, was 
 a verj' remarkable man, but more so 
 from the light airy turn of his mind, 
 and the felicity of illustration which 
 he possessed, than from either origin- 
 ality of thought or nervous force of 
 expression. His information was far 
 from extensive : he shared in the defi- 
 ciency of his country at that period in 
 classical knowledge ; he was ignorant 
 of Italian and German ; and his ac- 
 quaintance with Erench literature was 
 chiefly confined to the literary memoirs 
 of the day, that of his o^vn country, to 
 the Avritings of the Scotch metaphysi- 
 cians or the old English dramatists, 
 and the poetry of the country from the 
 earliest times. But these subjects he 
 knew thoroughly ; -within these limits 
 he was a perfect master. He Avas fitted 
 by nature to be a great critic. A pas- 
 sionate admirer of poetiy, alive to all 
 the beauties and influences of nature, 
 with a feeling mind and a sensitive 
 heart, he possessed at the same time 
 the cabn judgment which enabled him 
 to form an impartial opinion on the 
 Avorks submitted to his examination, 
 and the correct taste which, in general, 
 discovered genius and detected imper- 
 fections in them. Kindly and affec- 
 tionate in private life, he was equally 
 indulgent and considerate in his public 
 disquisitions ; his long career as a critic 
 foreshadowed on a great scale the up- 
 rightness and temperance of opinion, 
 Avhich rendered him in the highest de- 
 gree popular and useful as a judge. 
 His style of speaking in public was 
 rather fascinating from quickness of 
 fancy, or felicity of illustration, than 
 impressive from force of expression or 
 elevation of thought. In conversation 
 his mind was rapid, discursive, and 
 often very brilliant ; but there was a 
 general straining after display, and a 
 total want of that simplicity which 
 always characterises great minds, and 
 constitutes their chief charm. His poli- 
 tical essays contamed nothing original 
 or striking, and were so deeply imbued 
 with the party views of the day, that 
 they have long since been forgotten, 
 and have not, in one single instance, 
 been reproduced in his collected works* 
 
CDAr. v.] 
 
 The reason was, that lie took his opin- 
 ions from the ideas of liis party at the 
 time, instead of the deductions of ex- 
 perience : he followed opinion instead 
 of directing it ; the most certain pass- 
 port to present popularity and future 
 oblivion that can by possibility be de- 
 vised. 
 
 45. A more striking contrast to Jef- 
 frey, as an essayist, can hardly be ima- 
 gined than BiiouGHAM ; for he pos- 
 sessed all that the former wanted, and 
 'wanted everything which he possessed. 
 His writings, like his speeches, are 
 varied, vigorous, and discursive, full of 
 talent, replete with information, and 
 often adorned by a manly eloquence. 
 But they have none of the cool thought 
 and temperate judgment which is es- 
 sential for lasting influence in pob'tical 
 science ; they j^artake rather of the ex- 
 citement of the bar, or the fervour of 
 the senate, than the sober judgment of 
 the academy. Many of them were 
 much admired and talked of when they 
 first appeared ; none are now recollect- 
 ed, or have taken a lasting place in our 
 literature. Yet is their ability often 
 very great, the information they con- 
 tain immense, the views frequently 
 just, striking, and prophetic. Their 
 not having attained a liigher place in 
 the permanent literature of the coun- 
 try is mainly to be ascribed to the 
 peculiarity of their style. It, both in 
 speaking and Aviiting, is precisely the 
 reverse of what his taste approves, and 
 what his judgment has selected as 
 particularly worthy of admiration in 
 others. He is a passionate admirer of 
 the Greek authors, and peculiarly em- 
 phatic in his eulogies on the terseness 
 of their expression, and the admirable 
 brevity of their diction ; and yet he 
 himself, in his style of composition, is 
 the most signal example of the danger 
 of deviating from these precepts, and 
 of the way in which the greatest talent 
 may be in a manner buried under the 
 redundance of its own expression. He 
 illustrates an idea, and puts it in new 
 forms, till the original impression is 
 well-nigh obliterated. His knowledge 
 is great, his acquirements vast, his 
 mind capacious ; but his knowledge is 
 extensive rather than accurate, his 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 237 
 
 fame varied rather than great. He has 
 marred his reputation by aiming at 
 eminence in too many things ; and he 
 will be considered by posterity rather 
 as a powerful debater, a vigorous ora- 
 tor, and a skilful dialectician, tlian 
 either a profound philosopher or con- 
 sistent statesman. 
 
 46. MACKi>y-TOSH has been already 
 discussed in these pages as a senator ; 
 but his merits as an essayist, and as 
 one of the orighial contributors to the 
 Edinhurcjh Rcvinv, are too considerable 
 to render any apology necessary for 
 again making him the subject of dis- 
 cussion. His mind was essentially 
 philosophical ; his soul was imbued 
 with principle, his memory stored with 
 knowledge. Ho was fitted to have 
 been a great teacher of men, rather 
 than their powerful ruler. These char- 
 acteristics are strongly apparent in his 
 ^vl"itings ; and the English language 
 cannot present a more perfect example 
 of philosophical disquisition than some 
 of his political essays, particularly that 
 on Parliamentary Reform, exhibit. Ho 
 had candour enough, in his later years, 
 to abandon many of the opinions which, 
 with the hasty ardour of genius, he had 
 at first embraced ; the antagonist of 
 Burke, and the apologist of the Revo- 
 lution in the Vindicice Gallica:- in early 
 life, he became the most ardent admir- 
 er of the former, and enemy of the 
 latter, in his maturer years. He had 
 great powers both of generalisation and 
 condensation — two qualities apparent- 
 ly dissimilar, but which, in reality, 
 are counterparts of each other ; for the 
 former distils tliought, the latter ab- 
 breviates expression. He was greatly 
 improved as a philosopher, though per- 
 haps injured as a debater, by his long 
 residence in the solitude of the East : 
 it is not in the arena of politics, or the 
 busy whirl of party contention, that 
 the fountains of wisdom are unlocked 
 to mankind. His compositions on the 
 voyage home are a proof of this ; there 
 is nowhere to be found a more brilliant 
 series of characters of literary and po- 
 litical men, than those in the composi- 
 tion of which he relieved the solitude 
 of the Atlantic wave, and Avliich ap- 
 peared in his admii'able biography by 
 
238 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. v. 
 
 his sons. But his mind was philoso- 
 phic, not dramatic — his style didactic 
 rather than gra2:)hic. He had no picto- 
 rial powers, and little jioetic thought ; 
 like Guizot, he was a great discourser 
 on history, hut not a historian. He 
 never could have carried on, in a style 
 of equal popularity, the immortal work 
 of Hume ; and the absorption of his 
 mind, and waste of his time in the 
 attractions of London society, so much 
 a subject of regret at the time to his 
 friends, perhaps saved his reputation 
 from the injury it must have sustained 
 had he aimed at a higher flight, and 
 foiled in the attempt. 
 
 47. Sydney Smith, so well known 
 in his day as one of the most popular 
 essayists in the Edinburgh Review, and 
 of tile most brilliant wits about Lon- 
 don, had powei's of an entirely different 
 order, but more fitted for immediate 
 popularity than Mackintosh. He had 
 no turn for abstract philosophy, little 
 poetic fancy, and scarce any eloquence, 
 but a prodigious fund of innate saga- 
 city, vast powers of humorous illus- 
 tration, and a clear perception of the 
 practical bearing of every question. 
 Though bred to the Church, and hold- 
 ing considerable preferment, the Canon 
 of St Paul's had very little of the cleri- 
 cal in his disposition ; his turn was 
 rather for the humorous in thought, 
 the brilliant in society, the felicitous 
 in expression. He would have made 
 a gi'eat nisi jn'iics lawyer ; his influence 
 with jm-ies, from the coinbined eftect 
 of brilliant wit and sterling good sense, 
 would have been irresistible. In so- 
 ciety he was very much sought after, 
 from the fame of his convivial talents, 
 and the real force of his colloquial ex- 
 pressions ; but there was a constant 
 straining after ettect, and too little in- 
 terchange of thought to raise his dis- 
 course to a very high charm. It is 
 very seldom that tlie conversation of 
 professed wits possesses that attrac- 
 tion ; it sometimes amuses, seldom in- 
 terests, often wearies. It is in states- 
 men, diplomatic characters, and men 
 of the world, where they are also well 
 informed, that we must look for the true 
 conversational talent, which consists 
 in the rapid interchange of thoughts 
 
 on interesting subjects, without either 
 party engrossing too large a share of 
 it, and which, when it occurs between 
 persons of equal abilities, sjTiipathetic 
 minds, but opposite sexes, is perhaps 
 the greatest enjoyment which life can 
 off"er. It is neither to be found in the 
 prelections of professors, the vanity of 
 artists, nor the sallies of wits. Goethe 
 says, that ' ' any man Avho speaks long 
 without flattering his auditors is sure 
 of exciting a spirit of resistance :" and, 
 as professed talkers think rather of 
 being flattered themselves than flatter- 
 ing others, this is generally then- fate. 
 Sydney Smith's talents as an essayist 
 were great — the success of his collect- 
 ed works, both in Great Britain and. 
 America, is a decisive proof of it. But 
 their popularity was o^\-ing to force 
 and felicity of expression, rather than 
 depth of thought or power of eloquence ; 
 his name is linked with no great ques- 
 tion, either in morals or politics, which. 
 is permanently interesting to man- 
 kind ; and he will probably, in the end, 
 aftbrd another illustration of the truth 
 of Sir Joshua Reynolds' observation — 
 ' ' Posterity and present times are ri- 
 vals ; he who pays court to the one 
 must reckon upon being discounte- 
 nanced by the other." 
 
 48. jMacaulay", as a historian, be- 
 longs to a later period of this history ; 
 but, as an essayist, he early began to 
 give tokens of the vast and deserved 
 reputation which he afterwards acquir- 
 ed. Nature had singled him out for 
 a great man : she had impressed the 
 signet -mark of genius on his mind. 
 Endowed with vast powers of applica- 
 tion and an astonishing memorj'-, an 
 accomplished scholar and erudite an- 
 tiquarian, he has, at the same time, 
 the brilliant genius which can apply 
 the stores of leai-ning to useful pur- 
 poses, and the moving eloquence which, 
 can render them permanently attrac- 
 tive to mankind. It is not easy to say 
 whether his poetry, his speeches hi Par- 
 liament, or his more brilliant essays, 
 are the most charming ; each has rais- 
 ed him to very great eminence, and 
 would be sufficient to constitute the 
 reputation of any ordinary man. That 
 he was qualified to have taken a very 
 
CHAP, v.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 2Z9 
 
 higli place in oratory, is proved by 
 many of his speeches iu the House of 
 Commons, particularly those on the 
 Reform Bill; that he is a brilliant 
 essayist will be doubted by none who 
 have read his reviews of Lord Clive 
 and Warren Hastings, perhaps the most 
 2:>erfect compositions of the kind in the 
 English language ; that he is imbued 
 ivith the very soul of poetry is suffici- 
 ently evinced by his "Battle of tlie 
 Lake Regillus," and his moving " Lays 
 of Ancient Eome." Karel}', indeed, 
 does a single mind exhibit a combina- 
 tion of such remarkable and opposite 
 qualities. But perfection was never 
 yet given to a child of Adam, and the 
 traces of the Aveakness common to all 
 may be discerned in him iu the very 
 brilliancy of the qualities Avhich render 
 him so atti'active. His imagination 
 often snatches the reins from his rea- 
 son ; his ardour dims his equanimity ; 
 his learning overpowers his taste. He 
 ■vvas so enamoured of strong expressions 
 and extreme views, that, even when he 
 tiied to be impartial, it was only by 
 setting off one exaggeration against an- 
 other that he attempted to effect liis 
 object. His views, always ingeni- 
 ous, generally eloquently supported, 
 are not uniformly just ; his powers as 
 a rhetorician sometimes make him for- 
 get his duties as a judge ; he is too 
 often splendid rather than impartial, 
 one - sided than just. Tlie reader will 
 never fad to be interested by his narra- 
 tive ; but he is not equally certain to 
 be instructed : the impression left, 
 however brilliant, is often fallacious ; 
 and the fascinating volume is often 
 closed with regi'et that the first plead- 
 er at the bar of posterity has not yet 
 been raised to the bench. 
 
 49. If the Quarterly Rcviciv cannot 
 exhibit such a splendid series of essays 
 from one individual, as those of Mac- 
 aulay in the Edinburgh, it has not the 
 less taken a memorable part in English 
 literatm-e, and acquired no inconsidera- 
 ble weight in the formation of English 
 opinion. Supporting the principles of 
 Conservatism in politics, of orthodox}^ 
 in religion, it has brought to the sup- 
 j)ort of the altar and the throne a 
 powerful phalanx of talent, and an im- 
 
 mense array of learning. Its late ac- 
 complished editor, Lockhart, who at 
 a short interval succeeded Gifford in 
 its direction, brought to his arduous 
 task qualities which eminently fitted 
 him for its duties. He is not political 
 in his disposition, at least so far as 
 engaging in the great strife of public 
 questions is concerned ; he is one of 
 the light, not the heaAy armed infan- 
 tr}^, and prefers exchanging thrasts 
 with a court rapier to wielding the 
 massy club of Hercules.* But in the 
 lighter branches of literature he has 
 deservedly attained the very highest 
 eminence. As a novelist, a critic, and 
 a biographer, he has taken a lasting 
 place in English literature. His Val- 
 erius is the most successful attempt 
 which has ever yet been made to en- 
 graft the interest of modern romanco 
 on ancient story ; its extreme difficul- 
 ty may be judged of by the brilliant 
 genius of Bulwer having alone rivalled 
 him in the undertaking. But his fame 
 with posterity will mainly rest on his 
 Life of Sir Walter Scott, for which, as 
 his near relation, he had no doubt great 
 advantages, but which he has executed 
 with so much skill, and in so admira- 
 ble a manner, that, next to Boswell's 
 Life of Johnson, it will probably always 
 be considered as the most interesting 
 work of biography in the English lan- 
 guage. 
 
 50. WiLSOX, as the leading contri- 
 butor for a long series of years to Blaek- 
 
 * The expression was sngrgested by the dis- 
 tinction drawn by a lady of taste and genius, 
 who was well acquainted with the talents of 
 either, and at her hospitable mansion, in 
 Roxburghshire, had often received both Sir 
 Walter Scott and Mr Lockhart. " Sir Walter," 
 
 said Lady W , "always puts me in 
 
 mind, in conversation, of his own description 
 of Richard Coiur-de-Lion ; he lets fall a massy- 
 club : Lockhart is Saladin, who flies round 
 liini with a Damascus scimitar." It is impos- 
 sible to characterise more happily the conver- 
 sational character of these two near relatives 
 and very eminent men; and the author trusts 
 an early and highly- valued friend, now the 
 ornament of a brilliant society in England, 
 whose great talents and charin in conversa- 
 tion — equal to that of either— so eminently 
 qualify her to appreciate similar excellencies 
 iu others, will forgive him for recording an 
 expression which depicts, more truly and 
 faithfully than he could have done, tlie con- 
 versational talents of two men in whom pos- 
 terity will always feel so warm an interest. 
 
£40 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [CHAr. V. 
 
 li'oocVs Magazioie, has brought more 
 A'igour and genius into the field of peri- 
 odical literature than any of his con- 
 temporaries. His mind is essentially 
 poetical. The inspiration of genius is 
 apparent in all his ^Yritings. Ardent 
 in feeling, warm in temperament, ini- 
 jiassioned in thought, he wants the 
 calm judgment, patient research, and 
 laborious industry requisite for success 
 in political or historical literature ; his 
 liincy wheels in aerial flights through 
 the heavens, without alighting or car- 
 ing for the concerns of a lower world. 
 He dwells in the regions of imagina- 
 tion, and there he soars on the eagle's 
 "wing. The images, scenery, joj's, and 
 sorrows of his native land were reflect- 
 ed in the faithful mirror of his mind ; 
 the " Lights and Shadows " of Scottish 
 life never had a more brilliant or fas- 
 cinating painter. Nor is he less emi- 
 nent in criticism. The Avhole litera- 
 ture of England does not contain a 
 more brilliant series of critical essays 
 than those with which he has enriched 
 the pages of BlackicoocVs Magazine ; 
 ■and what is rarer still, the generosity 
 of feeling b}'- which they are distin- 
 guished equals their critical acuteness 
 and delicacy of taste. Hhnself a poet, 
 and endowed \vith the very highest 
 gifts of the muses, he is entirely desti- 
 tute of that wretched jealousy which 
 so often, in persons of a sinalar tem- 
 perament, mars the greatest endow- 
 inents, and disfigures the brightest 
 genius. If his criticisms have any 
 imperfections, it is that they are too 
 indulgent. He is justly alive to faults, 
 and, Avhen obliged to notice, signal- 
 ises them ^^'ith critical justice ; but the 
 generosity of his nature leads him ra- 
 ther to seek for excellencies, and, when 
 he finds them, none bestows the meed 
 of praise with more heartfelt fervoiir. 
 He is one of the most striking exam- 
 ples that ever existed of the important 
 ti'uths, that simplicity of thought and 
 generosity of feeling are the surest cha- 
 racteristics of the highest class of in- 
 tellect; that ti'ue taste istobe evinced in 
 the appreciation of beauties, rather than 
 the detection of blemishes; and that 
 none are fitted really to criticise merit 
 but those who could have rivalled it. 
 
 51. Historical literature, next to 
 poetry, reflects most strongly the im- 
 ages of the time ; the moving phantas- 
 magoria of real events ere long kindles 
 the imagination, and tinges the pic- 
 tures of the narrative. The cold aca- 
 demic style of Robertson may suit the 
 comparative calmness of the eight- 
 eenth century, but the fervour and ani- 
 mation of its close communicated itself 
 to the historical works of the next. 
 Halla:m Avas the first historian whose 
 style gave token of the coming change ; 
 his works mark the transition from one 
 age and style of literature to another. 
 In extent and variety of learning, and 
 a deep acquaintance with antiquarian 
 lore, the historian of the Middle Ages 
 may deservedly take a place A\ith the 
 most eminent writers in that style that 
 Eurojje has produced ; but his mind 
 is more imaginative than those of his 
 laborious predecessors, and a fervent 
 eloquence, or poetic expression, occa- 
 sionally reveals the ardour which the 
 heart-stirring events of his time had 
 communicated to his disposition. His 
 extensive and varied learning, alike 
 in parliamentary transactions and gen- 
 eral literature, has enabled him to 
 throw an important light on our con- 
 stitutional history, and illustrate, -with 
 happy discrimination, the literature 
 of modern Europe. It is only to be 
 regretted that he sometunes has not, 
 in artistic stjde, sufficiently massed 
 his lights and shadows. There is 
 often a want of breadth in his pieces — 
 the light is thrown too equally on all ; 
 and the mind of the reader, oppressed 
 with an infinity of unimportant de- 
 tails, or imknown names, sometunes 
 loses the general thread of the compo- 
 sition, or misses the impression which 
 the author himself desired to produce 
 by his work, and which his talents 
 and learning so well qualified him to 
 efl'ect. 
 
 52. Sharon Turner, like Hallam, 
 belongs to the antiquarian school, and 
 like him, he has enlivened the indus- 
 try of unwearied compilation b}^ gleams 
 of fervent imagination. His History 
 of the Anglo-Saxons, by far his best 
 work, has tlu'own a new and import- 
 ant light on that interesting portion 
 
CHAP, v.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 241 
 
 of English history, and ilkistrated, 
 with equal truth and accuracy, the in- 
 stitutions, manners, and habits of the 
 people who form so large a part of the 
 stock of English ancestry. When we 
 compare the meagre and often inaccu- 
 rate accounts of our Saxon forefathers 
 which preceded the labours of this in- 
 defatigable antiquarian, with the broad 
 light Avhich has now been shed upon 
 them, the step appears great indeed, 
 and evinces how many treasures ardent 
 zeal and indefatigable industry may 
 often extract from mines which ap- 
 peared well-nigh exhausted. His His- 
 tory of England, though distinguished 
 hy the same research and acuteness, 
 is not of equal merit ; and unfortu- 
 nately the peculiarities and uncouth- 
 Jiess of its style, as well as a strange at- 
 tempt to inti'oduce novelty in spelling, 
 has hindered the work from acquiring 
 the popularity which it really deserves. 
 No account of the historians of early 
 England could be regarded as com- 
 plete, if honourable mention is not 
 made of Sir Feancis Palgrave, 
 whose antiquarian lore is so great, and 
 withal so accurate, that we not only 
 liave obtained the same light from his 
 labours on the past which we enjoy 
 on the present, but feel equal confi- 
 dence in threading our way through 
 the one which we do in treading tlie 
 other. 
 
 53. LiNGARD is a historian of great 
 merit, whose labours have filled up an 
 important blank in English literature. 
 However much we may pride ourselves 
 on the liberty of our constitution, and 
 the manner in which, under the influ- 
 ence of unbounded freedom of discus- 
 sion, truth is in the end elicited from 
 the collision of opposite opinions, there 
 is nothing more certain than not only 
 that it is not immediately that this 
 effect takes place, but that centuries 
 may often elapse before the most im- 
 portant transactions are represented 
 in their real colours. Violent convul- 
 sions, whether in religion or politics, 
 so strongly move the passions, that 
 the strongest partialities or prejudices 
 ■are often perpetuated for a very long 
 period ; chains may be tlirowu over 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 the human mind, as well by the tyrant 
 majority as by the imperious despot. 
 Emancipation is as slow, and often 
 more difficult, from the prepossessions 
 of the multitude, as from the dogmas of 
 priests or the mandates of sovereigns. 
 No one can now read the History of 
 the Reformation without seeing that, 
 for nearly three centuries, it had been 
 represented in a great measure under 
 false colours by Protestant historians. 
 They did not, they could not, exagger- 
 ate the blessings of the liberation, but 
 they represented in an entirely falla- 
 cious light the merit of many of the 
 liberators. The emancipation from 
 superstition was the work of Heaven ; 
 but the actors in the deliverance were 
 not all imbued with heavenly virtues. 
 Here, as elsewhere, human passions 
 and iniqiiity mingled with the current ; 
 rapacity largely influenced the actors ; 
 ambition disgraced the leaders in the 
 movement ; and an extrication of the 
 human mind, which was destined to 
 spread in the end the seeds of freedom 
 throughout the world, was impelled 
 in the outset by the profligacy of pas- 
 sion or the cupidity of selfishness. It 
 is the clearest proof of the salutary 
 tendency of the Reformation, and the 
 Divine influence which has protected 
 it, that from such beginnings ultimate 
 blessings have sprung. 
 
 54. Dr Lingard has taken the lead 
 in the attempt to exhibit the other 
 side of the question from that pre- 
 sented by the Protestant historians, 
 and no man could have been found 
 more fitted for the task. Acute, 
 learned, and indefatigable, he pos- 
 sesses, at the same time, the caution 
 and self-control which, in contests 
 with the pen not less than the sword, 
 are essential to lasting success. Ars 
 est celare artcm is his maxim ; he is a 
 partisan writer, but no one conceals 
 his partialities more cautiously, or ex- 
 hibits a greater appearance of candour 
 in treating of the most delicate ques- 
 tions. He has done more than any 
 other writer to damage the character 
 of Queen Elizabeth, the great cham- 
 pion of the Reformation ; but it is not 
 by declamation in the text, but sting- 
 
242 
 
 HISTOBY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. v. 
 
 ing notes, extracted from others, that | 
 this is effected. He had too much 
 tact not to be aware that violence in 
 language and intemperance in thought 
 generally defeat their own object ; and 
 that, as future times always come to be 
 divested of the passions of the present, 
 no opinions can by possibility be dura- 
 ble but those which, founded in rea- 
 son and supported by experience, are 
 likely to command the assent of dis- 
 tant and miimpassioned generations. 
 His prepossessions — and, like all sin- 
 cere Eoman Catholic -wiiters, tliey are 
 many — are all in favour of his own 
 religion, and the sovereigns or states- 
 men who have supported it in the 
 great contest with the Lutheran 
 heresy ; but his narrative wears no 
 aspect of partisanship, and he trusts 
 for impressions rather to the views 
 ■which, from the facts presented, will 
 naturally occur to the reader's mind, 
 than to any attempt vividly to force 
 his own opinions upon him. His secret 
 bias appears, not from what he tells, 
 but fz'om what he conceals ; the best 
 informed critic will not easily detect 
 him in a false allegation, but the most 
 superficial will have no difficulty in 
 discovering much that is known and 
 true, but adverse to his side, that is 
 kept out of view. He has not moral 
 courage, or confidence in his opinions, 
 sufficient to state them boldly and 
 manfully ; or perhaps he has yielded 
 to the maxims of his persuasion, and 
 never attempts openly what can be 
 accomplished covertly. He is not 
 eloquent, has no poetic imagination, 
 and but slight dramatic or pictorial 
 powers, and therefore his History, in 
 general estimation, will never rival 
 the immortal narrative of Hume ; but 
 he is skilful, ingenious, sagacious, and 
 indefatigable, and therefore it will 
 ever be the text-book of English story 
 with all of his own persuasion : and 
 even with the candid of the other it 
 will always be esteemed, as containing 
 the opposite side of the question, and 
 disentangling historical truth from 
 many errors with which the counter 
 partialities of preceding historians had 
 clogged it. 
 55. The influence of the increasing 
 
 lights and infonnationof the age, which 
 absolutely required an enlarged impar- 
 tiality in historians, is clearly evinced 
 in the next historical ^vriter of this 
 period, Tytler, whose labours have 
 thrown a clear light on Scottish his- 
 tory. Unlike his predecessors, who 
 were contented with the meagre details 
 of monkish annalists, or the fabulous 
 compilations of imaginative historians, 
 he went at once to the fountainhead, 
 and founded his narrative mainly oit 
 the authentic correspondence preserved 
 in the State- Paper Office. He was in- 
 defatigable in his endeavours to deduce 
 from thence both an impartial estimate 
 of character and a truthful narrative of 
 events. As the success with which he 
 has prosecuted this praiseworthy plan, 
 has been the principal cause of the 
 durable and general reputation, with all 
 men of sense and infoi'mation, which 
 his great work, the Hist or ij of Scotland, 
 has acquired, so it is the one which has, 
 perhaps, most impeded its immediate 
 popularity. When he went to the au- 
 thentic records of private and confiden- 
 tial letters, he found much that had 
 been either imknown to or concealed 
 by preceding historians. Many a great 
 reputation is lessened when the secret 
 thoughts come to be revealed; not a 
 few who were thought to have been 
 saints, prove to have been sinners. 
 Tytler, in bringing forward the truth 
 founded on authentic documents, has 
 undergone the fiite invariably reserved 
 for those who make such an attempt : 
 he has incurred the rancorous hostility 
 of those whose minds, steeped in error, 
 or inflamed by party, whether in reli- 
 gion or politics, feel the utmost anti- 
 pathy for all Avho attempt to unhinge 
 their settled opinions. He -will onljr 
 on that account, however, be the more 
 esteemed by posterity; and his fame 
 with future times will be founded on 
 the very circumstances which have im- 
 peded his popularity with the present. 
 56. He possesses in a very high de- 
 gree many of the qualities of a tnist- 
 worthy historian. Indefatigable in in- 
 dustry, accurate in detail, impartial in 
 spirit, he unites with these qualities — 
 which are the foundation of history — 
 the poetic temperament and fervent 
 
CHAP, v.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 2iZ 
 
 mind which are essential to the super- 
 structure. His mind was not philoso- 
 phical ; ho had few general views, and 
 little turn for the widespread glance 
 with which Robertson and Guizot have 
 surveyed the maze of hiiman affairs. 
 His disposition was rather for biogra- 
 phy than general history ; he interested 
 himself, like a novelist, more in indi- 
 vidual event or character, than in the 
 progress or transactions of nations. On 
 that very account, however, he was 
 peculiarly fitted for the history of Scot- 
 land, which is little more, in all its 
 phases, than a narrative of the deeds 
 of the kings, queens, and nobles by 
 whom its destinies have been ruled. 
 His powers of narrative and description 
 are great ; he had both the eye of a 
 painter, the soul of a poet, and the re- 
 finement of a scholar in his composi- 
 tion. His Scottish Worthies is perhaps 
 the most interesting series of short bio- 
 gi'aphies in the English language ; his 
 death of Queen Mary, in his larger 
 history, one of the most moving histo- 
 rical pictures that ever was presented 
 to the world. The defect of his work, 
 and it is one into which antiquaries, 
 and those who found their narrative on 
 accurate research are jjeculiarly liable 
 to fall, is, that it contains too many 
 quotations from original documents or 
 letters, in. the text — a practice Avhich, 
 however clearly it may evince the in- 
 dustry and accuracy of the writer, is 
 injurious to the continued interest, and 
 consequent popularity, of the work. 
 The information founded on original 
 letters or documents is of inestimable 
 importance, and the light they throw 
 on character often of the very highest 
 value. But it is rarely that they con- 
 tain expressions so important or char- 
 acteristic as to call for a place in the 
 text ; and the author who transfers 
 them, as is too much the practice now, 
 to the body of his work in great num- 
 bers, inevitably destroys the symmetiy 
 of its composition, and mars the unity 
 of effect which in history, not less than 
 any other of the fine arts, is indispen- 
 sable to the highest success. 
 
 57. The next great historian who 
 appeared in England at this period, 
 GENEEALlSrAPiEK,possessesmerits,aud 
 
 is marked by defects, of a different de- 
 scription. ■ As a describer of noble deeds 
 and heart-stirring events, he is without 
 a parallel in the English, or perhaps 
 any other language. Himself a soldier, 
 who had actecl bravely and bled freely 
 in the field, he possesses in a very high 
 degree both the military ardour Avhich 
 prompts to glorious actions, and the 
 scientific mind which qualifies him to 
 judge of, and criticise, the conduct of 
 others in military affairs. His great 
 rej)utation has arisen chiefly from the 
 fire and moving eloc[uence of his de- 
 scriptions of battles, which are at once 
 so true, so graphic, and so animated, 
 that European literature, perhaps, can- 
 not present their equal. But to profes- 
 sional men his History of the Peninsular 
 War possesses a still higher merit, and 
 both the young and the experienced 
 soldier will study with equal profit and 
 delight the just and scientific observa- 
 tions with which he has enriched his 
 work, on the military conduct both of 
 his own countrymen and of their ene- 
 mies. His candour as a military critic 
 appears in the generous praise he has 
 so often bestowed on Napoleon and his 
 generals; although, perhaps, the na- 
 tural indignation he felt at the exag- 
 gerated pretensions and vain-glorious 
 boasts of the Spaniards has led him 
 sometimes not sufficiently to estimate 
 the influence of theii* indomitable per- 
 severance on the final issue of the con- 
 test. His great defect as an artist is, 
 that he has not sufficiently studied the 
 management of light and shade, and 
 has brought a multitude of inconsider- 
 able combats so prominently forward 
 as to confuse the reader's recollection, 
 and impair the unity of his composi- 
 tion. As a historian, the candid reader 
 • — amidst all his admiration for the ge- 
 nius of the WTiter — Avill have frequent 
 cause to regret the unfounded severity 
 of his judgments, especially in civil 
 transactions, and the occasional vehe- 
 mence of his language. He would have 
 been a perfect annalist if he had wielded 
 the pen with the same calmness that he 
 did the sword, and recollected that in 
 civil, not less than in military conflicts, 
 the observation of General Foy is ap- 
 plicable — "Le soldat Anglais possede 
 
244 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. r. 
 
 la qualite la plus precieuse dans la 
 guerre — le calnie dans la colere." 
 
 58. Lord Mahon has brought to 
 the arduous task of continuing Hume's 
 History through the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, the taste of a scholar, the liber- 
 ality of a gentleman, and the industry 
 of an antiquarian. As he begins his 
 narrative only with the Peace of 
 Utrecht, the greater part of the period 
 which he had to go over was pacific ; 
 and therefore his History of necessity 
 became, in a great degi'ee, in many 
 places a Parliamentary one. But he 
 has great powers of description ; and, 
 where an opportunity occurred for their 
 display, he has made use of them with 
 very gTeat effect. His account of the 
 Rebellion in 1745, the death of Wolfe, 
 and of the principal events of the 
 American War, is by far the best that 
 has yet appeared of those interesting 
 episodes ; and he has interspersed his 
 narrative with agreeable and instruc- 
 tive disquisitions on letters, manners, 
 and scientific progress, which add so 
 much to the value of history, and are 
 so necessary, especially in pacific 
 periods, to enhance its interest. His 
 position as a nobleman, and the heir 
 of an ancient house, rendered illustri- 
 ous in one of the brightest periods of 
 English story, has given him great 
 advantages in the account of the for- 
 mation of cabinets, the contests for 
 power, and the secret causes of the 
 rise and fall of Administrations ; and 
 his characters both of statesmen and 
 heroes are able, just, and discriminat- 
 ing. If these are not the most mo- 
 mentous or interesting topics for his- 
 torj'-, they are the most suitable for 
 the period which his work embraced ; 
 for the eighteenth century was one of 
 mental repose and social rest, midway 
 between the religious contests of the 
 seventeenth, and the political j^assions 
 of the nineteenth centuries ; — and Lord 
 Mahon's disposition and acquirements 
 peculiarly qualified him for the eluci- 
 dation of its secret springs of action. 
 
 59. If Lord Mahon has left a chasm 
 between the termination of Hume's 
 and the commencement of his own 
 narrative, that important period of 
 English history was not long of being 
 
 adequately illustrated. MrMacaulay 
 has brought to the task of developing 
 that momentous epoch the same talents 
 and acquirements which have rendered 
 his essays so great an acquisition to 
 English literature. Genius the most 
 transcendent, eloquence the most cap- 
 tivating, graphic power the most bril- 
 liant, shine forth in all his pages, 
 united to learning the most extensive, 
 and research the most unwearied. It 
 is this combination of the imaginative 
 with the laborious qualities, of the 
 flights of fancy with the solidity of in- 
 formation, which renders his works 
 so remarkable, and in that respect un- 
 rivalled. If their calmness of judg- 
 ment and impartiality of statement 
 had been equal to their profusion of 
 learning and brilliancy of style, they 
 would have been without a jparallel 
 in modern historical literature. His 
 mind is not merely poetical but sys- 
 tematic ; and where not influenced by 
 the zeal of a partisan, no one can ex- 
 hibit more of the A\-isdom of a states- 
 man, or the far-seeing glance of a 
 philosopher. Unfortunately, however, 
 the ardour of his disposition has some- 
 times disturbed its equanimity ; his 
 learning is greater than his impar- 
 tiality, his power of description than 
 his equity of judgment. He has given, 
 so far as he has yet gone, the most 
 brilliant and fascinating, but not the 
 most trustworthy or impartial, history 
 in the English language. It is not by 
 the allegations of anything which is 
 erroneous or can be disproved by au- 
 thentic evidence, so much as by keep- 
 ing out of view what is equally true 
 but adverse to the side which he has 
 espoused, that this is done. He is 
 more a brilliant barrister than an up- 
 right judge. Instances of this dispo- 
 sition appear in many parts of his 
 Avritings. His style, always condensed 
 and pregnant, is sometimes laboured ; 
 his ideas often succeed each other too 
 rapidly ; the mind of the reader can 
 scarcely keep pace with the rapidity 
 of thought in the writer. Filled to 
 repletion with a succession of striking 
 ideas and brilliant images, the student 
 of his History sometimes sighs for the 
 repose, even the tedium, of ordinary 
 
CHAP, v.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 245 
 
 narrative. The immortal episodes of 
 Livy owe much of their charm to the 
 simplicity of the narrative with which 
 they are environed ; the fascination of 
 Scottish scenery is heightened by the 
 long tracts of dusky moor which sepa- 
 rates its seq^uestered glens and glassy 
 lakes. 
 
 60. If the reader of the splendid 
 history of !Macaulay sometimes regrets 
 the want of tlie impartial charge of 
 the judge in the hrilliant oratory of 
 tlie barrister, the student of Miss 
 Strickland meets with excellencies 
 and deficiencies of a somewhat similar 
 description. The mind of this highly- 
 gifted lady fitted her in a peculiar 
 manner to write the History of the 
 Queens of England; and probably no 
 man, be his abilities what they may, 
 could have executed a work on that 
 subject equally suitable and entertain- 
 ing. She possesses all the zealous in- 
 dustry and indefatigable research which 
 characterise Macaulay, and like him, 
 .she has her pi'epossessions and dislikes. 
 A veil is sometimes drawn over the 
 weak points of the favourite Princesses 
 or Houses who form the subject of her 
 narrative. But it is all done in a 
 ■worthy, thougli sometimes mistaken 
 spirit: the foundation of her judg- 
 ment is always admiration of the gal- 
 lant in conduct, the chivalrous in dis- 
 position ; and thougli the intensity of 
 this feeling has often biassed her judg- 
 ment, it does not diminish the respect 
 due to her motives. The reader may 
 sometimes be misled in the estimate 
 of individual character by her capti- 
 vating pen, but he is sure never to be 
 so on the side, whether of virtue or 
 vice, which is the fit subject of praise 
 or condemnation. Her work is con- 
 ceived in the true spirit of chivalry, 
 and a brighter record does not exist 
 of its elevating tendency than in her 
 varied and animated pages. Add to 
 this, her habits and objects of interest 
 as a woman have led her to enrich it 
 with a variety of incidents and details 
 in regard to manners, customs, hospi- 
 talities, feasts, coronations, and dresses, 
 wdiich perhaps no man would have col- 
 lected, but which nevertheless are val- 
 uable as a record of the olden time, 
 
 and as illustrating the moving diorama 
 of her long and interesting narrative- 
 What is principally to be regretted, in 
 so very accomplished and fearless a 
 writer, is that, with true womanly 
 sympathy with misfortune, she es- 
 pouses, in her history of Mary of Mo- 
 dena, and Queen Anne, the cause of the 
 Stuarts so strongly, and evinces such, 
 intense indignation against AVilliam 
 111. and Marlborough, as not only 
 renders her impartiality suspected, 
 but weakens, with every unbiassed 
 mind, the etiect of the original and 
 important disclosures she has made 
 in regard to that important period. 
 The style of her work is easy and flow- 
 ing, often graphic and pictorial, at 
 times rising into moving and dignified 
 strains of eloquence. Its chief defect 
 consists, not in what she has -WTitten, 
 but in what she has inserted of the 
 writings of others; but the undue 
 loading of historical works with long 
 quotations in the text, of original do- 
 cuments and letters, is the fault of the 
 age in which she lives, and should not 
 be visited on the head of any single 
 writer, and least of all on that of a 
 lady who stands at the head of her 
 whole sex, in all ages, in historical 
 literature. 
 
 61. If Miss Strickland, notwith- 
 standing her great and acknowledged 
 abilities, is open to the observation 
 that women exhibit the distinctive 
 character of their sex even in histori- 
 cal literature, it is fortunate for the 
 cause of truth that another lady in. 
 the same age has pleaded the opposite 
 side of the question, in another age, 
 with very great ability. Miss Mar- 
 ti neau is an authoress who must 
 always be mentioned with respect in 
 any treatise on the literature of Great 
 Britain during the nineteenth century. 
 Vigorous in intellect, philanthropic 
 in feeling, indefatigable in industry, 
 she has approached the most difficult 
 questions which have agitated the 
 public mind, during the periods em- 
 braced in her History, with masculine 
 courage and feminine humanity. In 
 addition to this, her greatest work, 
 the History of England during Thirty 
 Years of Peace, possesses a very great 
 
246 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. V, 
 
 merit, to wliich no one -who has fol- 
 lowed in her footsteps can be insen- 
 sible. She gives all her authorities on 
 the margin, and the references are in- 
 variably correct, demonstrating at once 
 the faithful consultation of the original 
 authorities by the authoress, and sav- 
 ing an immense deal of trouble to 
 those who are travelling in the same 
 direction. A liberal in politics, an 
 economist in social philosophy, a dis- 
 senter — or, without any marked re- 
 cognition of religious inliuence, rather 
 an advocate of dissenters in ecclesias- 
 tical matters — she exliibits a valuable 
 picture of the opinions entertained by 
 a large and powerful class of the com- 
 munity during the period in which she 
 lived. But her work is not on that ac- 
 count the less valuable ; for the cause of 
 truth can never be advanced but by a 
 full statement of the considerations on 
 each side of every important public 
 question. 
 
 62. If Miss ]\Iartineau is abreast of 
 the age, and exhibits a faithful mirror 
 of the thoughts and principles of a 
 large and important section of society, 
 Lord Campbell has merits of a dif- 
 ferent but a not less important kind. 
 Obliged to go back in his very inter- 
 esting biographies to the earliest peri- 
 ods of English histor}'', he has brought 
 to the task the knowledge of an anti- 
 quarian, the diligence of an annalist, 
 and the talents of a first-rate forensic 
 pleader. His Biography of the Chan- 
 cellors and Lords Justices of England 
 is a most valuable contribution to our 
 historical literature, and indisj^ensable 
 to all who would form a correct idea of 
 the progress of the constitution, or the 
 character of the princes and leading 
 statesmen who have ruled the country. 
 "When he comes downi to later times 
 he is very impartial— remarkably so for 
 a gentleman who has himself borne an 
 important part in the contests of party. 
 So great is his biographical poAver, so 
 interesting his narrative, that his im- 
 portant and voluminous work has found 
 its way into all libraries, and attracted 
 a numerous body of readers even in the 
 sex which might be supposed to feel the 
 least interest in judicial eminence or 
 success. The chief blemish in the 
 
 work is a tendency to egotism, espe- 
 cially in the notes. The noble author 
 would do well to expunge several of 
 these in the next edition of his elabor- 
 ate work, and to follow Homer's rule, 
 who makes others speak, but never 
 appears in his own person. 
 
 63. Any account of the literature of 
 the British empire, in the first half of 
 the nineteenth centur}-, would be im- 
 perfect, if the merits of the rival his- 
 torians of Greece are not displayed. 
 ]\Ir ]\Iitfoed is the first who brought 
 to the arduous task of Grecian history 
 the extensive research, accurate in- 
 quiry, and profound reflection which 
 characterise the scholars of recent 
 times. Instead of compiling, as for- 
 mer historians had done, a pleasing 
 narrative from the romances of Xeno- 
 phon, or the credulity of Herodotus, 
 he, like Niebuhr in the elucidation of 
 Roman story, sought every contempo- 
 rary authority, every authentic docu- 
 ment, every line of poetry, which could 
 elucidate, correct, or confirm their 
 charming episodes, and extracted from 
 the whole an elaborate and consistent, 
 account of the complicated transactions 
 of the Greek republics. It is, perhaps, 
 the most difiicult task in the Avorld to 
 make such an account interesting ; 
 for, with the exception of the magnifi- 
 cent periods of the Persian invasion, 
 the Syracusan expedition, and Alexan- 
 der's conquests, it is nothing but the 
 annals of the internal divisions and 
 wars of a cluster of republics, the trans- 
 actions of which are at once so insig- 
 nificant and complicated, that if there 
 is anything more diflScult than to make 
 them intelligible, it is to render them, 
 interesting to the reader. The marvels 
 of genius which were displayed in these 
 diminutive states have done little to 
 relieve the historian of this difiiculty ; 
 for, unhappily, human annals are chief- 
 ly composed of the public ti-ansactions 
 of nations, not the triumphs, however 
 great, of philosophy or art. ISTeverthe- 
 less, Mitford has done much in this 
 way ; and his two volumes on the con- 
 quests of Alexander the Great combine 
 the interest of the romance of Quintus 
 Curtius ■with the authenticity and ac- 
 curacy of Arrian. His great work was 
 
CHAP, v.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 247 
 
 chiefly composed during, or shortly 
 after, the French Revohition ; and it 
 was mainly intended to counteract the 
 visionary ideas, in regard to the bless- 
 ings of Grecian democracy, which had 
 spread so far in the world from the 
 magic of Athenian genius. With this 
 view he has hrought out a great many 
 most important facts, concealed before 
 amidst the splendours of Grecian elo- 
 quence, which the republican party 
 would willingly have buried in obliv- 
 ion, and Avhicli, as they tended to un- 
 hinge many settled opinions, excited 
 the most violent indignation amongst 
 them. Perhaps he Avould have done 
 more wisely if, like Lingard, he had 
 concealed his object, and left facts to 
 speak for themselves, without disclos- 
 ing too openly the end in view in their 
 compilation. But the cause of truth 
 has been essentially aided by his ex- 
 ertions ; and the experience of the 
 working of democracy in our own times 
 has been such as to forbid a doubt 
 as to the accuracy of the facts he has 
 stated, whatever hesitation may be felt 
 as to the wisdom of the expressions in 
 which they are sometimes conveyed. 
 
 64. If Mitford, notwithstanding his 
 industry and abilities, is sometimes 
 open to the reproach of havingtoo keen- 
 ly asserted the conservative, it is fortu- 
 nate for the cause of historic truth 
 that another distinguished writer of 
 equal talent has recently illustrated 
 Grecian history on the opposite side. 
 A decided liberal, perhaps even a re- 
 publican in politics, Mr Grote has 
 laboured to counteract the influence of 
 Jklitford in Grecian history, and to con- 
 struct a history of Greece from authen- 
 tic materials, which should illustrate 
 the animating influence of democratic 
 freedom upon the exertions of the hu- 
 man mind. In the prosecution of this 
 attempt he has displayed an extent of 
 learning, a variety of research, a power 
 of combination, which are worthy of 
 the very highest praise, and have se- 
 cured for him a lasting place among 
 the historians of modern Europe. If 
 his voluminous work, like that of Mit- 
 ford, is often uninteresting, and it is 
 felt to be a heavy task to get through 
 it, that must be ascribed rather to the 
 
 nature and complication of the subject 
 than to any defect in the historian ; 
 and those only who have attempted 
 any similar undertaking, can conceive 
 the extraordinary difficulty of throw- 
 ing a broad and steady light on such a 
 multitude of minute transactions as 
 Grecian story presents. A more seri- 
 ous, because better founded, charge 
 arises against him from his adopting 
 the Greek mode of spelling in the 
 names of places . and of the heathen 
 deities, instead of the Roman, hereto- 
 fore in use in modern Europe. The 
 attempt is hopeless, and tends only to 
 confuse the unlearned reader. Jupiter 
 and Neptune, Venus and Mars, Yulcan 
 and Diana, are too much naturalised 
 amongst us to admit of their names 
 being ever changed ; they may be so 
 when the works of Virgil and Ovid, of 
 Horace and Cicero, of Milton and 
 Racine, are forgotten, but not till then. 
 It may appear strange to say that there 
 is equal truth in the monarchical his- 
 tory of Greece by Mitford, and the re- 
 publican by Grote ; but, nevertheless, 
 it is so. Both tell the truth, and no- 
 thing but the truth — but neither the 
 whole truth. They each illustrate, 
 truly and justly, the opposite working 
 of the democratic principle on the 
 greatness and sufierings of nations ; 
 but neither presents a picture of their 
 united operations, which, nevertheless, 
 was what really occurred, and occa- 
 sioned the brilliant meteor of Grecian 
 genius, with its simultaneous suffering 
 and rapid fall. 
 
 65. Any age might be proud of hav- 
 ing given birth to histories of such 
 sterling merit as those of Mitford and 
 Grote ; but it is remarkable that a 
 third on the same subject, of equal 
 merit, appeared at the same time in 
 England. Thirlwall is an author 
 who possesses the greatest and most 
 valuable, though not the most popular, 
 qualities of a historian. More calm 
 and unimpassioned than either of those 
 writers, and yet possessing equal learn- 
 ing, he is more to be relied on in mat- 
 ters verging on political opinion than 
 either. His industry is immense, and 
 the calm judgment disi^layed through- 
 out his elaborate work entitled it to 
 
248 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. y. 
 
 the highest commendation. Some 
 parts of it are extremely interesting. 
 It is commonly complained of as be- 
 ing dull ; and there is no doubt the 
 Bishop of St David's has not the pic- 
 torial power of Gibbon or Lamartine. 
 It was scarcely possible, however, 
 to make the transactions of such a 
 multitude of small republics attrac- 
 tive ; and, if Thirlwall has failed in 
 doing so, it is chiefly because he has 
 thrown the light too equally on every 
 figure in his pieces — a fault as great 
 in historical painting with the pen as 
 the pencil. 
 
 66. If the political events and an- 
 xieties of the time have caused the 
 history of Greece to be learned in a 
 very diff'erent spirit, and with much 
 greater intelligence, than in any former 
 period of modern times, a similar effect 
 has appeared in regard to the history 
 of Rome ; and the world has too much 
 cause to lament the premature death 
 Tvhich interrupted the work which was 
 in progress, illustrative of this influ- 
 ence. Arnold possessed the chief 
 qualities required to form a great his- 
 torian. To profound scholarship, vast 
 industr)% and unwearied application, 
 he united the rarer gifts of original 
 genius, independent thought, an ar- 
 dent disposition. Adopting from Nie- 
 Ijuhr and the German scholars all that 
 their prodigious labours had accumu- 
 lated in regard to the early history of 
 Rome and the adjoining states of the 
 Italian peninsula, he arranged their 
 discoveries in a more lucid order, and 
 adorned them with the charms of a 
 captivating eloquence. His mind was 
 ardent in all things ; patient, but yet 
 imaginative — bold, but methodical — 
 brilliant in conception, but laborious 
 in execution. What genius had struck 
 out, learning supported, industry filled 
 up, and eloquence embellished. He 
 had a strong bias on political subjects, 
 and, like most men of an independent 
 turn, inclined at first to the popular 
 side; but he was essentially candid 
 and trustAvorthy, and the philosophic 
 student wall nowhere find more im- 
 portant facts on the practical working 
 of democracy than in his luminous 
 pages. He had great gi'aphic powers, 
 
 a strong turn alike for geographical 
 description, strategical operations, and 
 tacticial evolutions. His account of 
 the campaigns of Hannibal — the best 
 that exists in any language — proves 
 that, like Livy, he was adequate to the 
 history of the majestic series of Roman 
 victories. A critical taste will pro- 
 bably condemn the strange style in 
 which he has narrated the early and 
 immortal legends of Rome, and regret 
 that the charming simplicity of Livy 
 was not imitated in translating his 
 pages ; but a generous mind will hesi- 
 tate to condemn wdiere there is so 
 much to admire, and join in the gene- 
 ral regret that the only man who lias 
 yet appeared in Britain capable of 
 throwing over the rise and progi'ess of 
 the Roman Republic the same light 
 which Gibbon has cast over the decline 
 and fall of the Empire, should have 
 been cut short in the very threshold 
 of his career. 
 
 67. British India presents, perhaps, 
 the most fascinating and extraordinary 
 subject for history which modern times, 
 have presented; but it has not yet 
 been treated in a style adequate ta 
 its vast importance and transcendent 
 splendour. It never will be so till a 
 writer arise who shall unite the ardent 
 imagination and pictorial power to the 
 unwearied industry and vast learning 
 of Gibbon. Mr Mill, however, has 
 made great advance towards the com- 
 pletion of such an undertaking, and 
 every future historian will be largely 
 indebted to his important labours. 
 His talent is unquestioned ; his intel- 
 lect clear and powerful ; his views in 
 the main founded in reason and justice- 
 Political bias, however, is obvious in 
 his elaborate work; hostility to the 
 East India Company is transparent in 
 its most important passages. Perhaps 
 it is as well that it is so : for as nearly 
 all the documents on Avliich such a his- 
 tory must be based come from the ar- 
 chives of the Company, it is well for 
 the cause of historic truth that the first 
 great work on the subject should be ani- 
 mated with a spirit which presents to 
 us the opposite side of the picture from 
 what their advocates would exhibit. 
 
 68. If the historians of England, 
 
CHAP, v.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 24?' 
 
 during tlie last half-centuiy, exhibit 
 ill a clear light the important influ- 
 ence of political convulsions or na- 
 tional literature, the working of tlie 
 same causes is still more strikingly 
 evinced in our writers of romance. 
 Indeed, there the change is so great, 
 and so striking, that there is nothing 
 in the whole annals of English litera- 
 ture to compare to it. If we consider 
 the novelists who had attained gi'eat, 
 and, in some respects, deserved repu- 
 tation, before the time of Sir Walter 
 Scott — Richardson, Mackenzie, I\Irs 
 Opie, Miss Edgeworth, Miss Burney, 
 Mrs Radclifle, Mrs Charlotte Smith — 
 the magnitude of the step made by 
 that great writer appears prodigious. 
 It Avas not merely the length of the 
 stride which he made that constituted 
 its importance; the great thing was, 
 that it was made in the right direction. 
 Preceding ^Titers of novels had con- 
 siderable talents, great command of 
 the pathetic, brilliant powers of de- 
 scription. Fielding and Smollett had 
 delighted the world with their Avit, 
 liumour, and graphic powers, and ^Mrs 
 Radcliffe had written many works 
 combining richness to profusion in 
 description, with singular powers for 
 romantic efi'ect. But the sentimental 
 school was entirely deficient in the 
 most essential of all requisites for 
 works of imagination — a thorough ac- 
 quaintance with human nature in all 
 its grades ; and the humorous was de- 
 voted almost exclusively to middle or 
 low life, often disfigured by coarseness, 
 and destitute of those elevated and 
 chivalrous feelings which constitute at 
 once the greatest charm and chief iitil- 
 ity of works of imagination. Even 
 Miss Burney, with all her merits — and 
 they were great — had failed in making 
 romance the picture of real life, either 
 dn its higher or inferior grades. It 
 ■was reserved for Scott to combine 
 "both, and exhibit, m his varied and 
 fascinating pages, alternately the noble 
 spirit of chivalry, the dignified feelings 
 of heroism, the charms of beauty, and 
 the simplicity and virtues, without the 
 i-ulgarity, of humble life. 
 
 69. Ere the wand of this mighty en- 
 chanter, however, had WTOught an en- 
 
 tire change in the lighter literature of 
 the age, the reaction against the senti- 
 mental school had become very con- 
 spicuous; and what is remarkable, a 
 female writer had led the way in the 
 alteration. Miss Edgeworth pos- 
 sesses merits of a very high order ; but 
 they are of the solid and substantial, 
 rather than the light and airy kind. 
 Strongly impressed with the visionary 
 and dreamy tendency of the romance- 
 writers who had immediately preceded 
 her, she boldly struck out in the op- 
 posite direction, and delineated life, 
 not in its romantic and poetical, but 
 in its actual and practical form. She 
 aimed at portraying, not the sorrows 
 of the heart, but the sad realities of 
 life: "Out of Debt, out of Danger," 
 was much more in her thoughts than- 
 ' ' All for Love, or the World well 
 Lost." She had a keen eye for the- 
 humorous, and has delineated Irish, 
 character with a skill which never was 
 surpassed ; but the chief merit of her 
 compositions is the sterling good sense, 
 sound judgment, and practical ac- 
 quaintance with middle life which, 
 they exhibit. Her defects — since all 
 have some, and the fair sex are not 
 exempted from them — are the want of 
 the noble and chivalrous sentiments 
 which constitute the great character- 
 istic of modern Europe, as contradis- 
 tinguished from all the rest of the 
 world, and the almost entire absence 
 of any appeal to the feelings and influ- 
 ences of religion. There is no reason, 
 to suppose that she was sceptical or 
 indifterent on this .subject; indeed, 
 those who enjoyed her friendship know 
 it was very much the reverse ; but still 
 there is no allusion to it in her novels, 
 and that has seriously impaired the 
 value of her WTitings, and has already 
 caused their popularity to decline. 
 Neither the sensible, the iiractical, 
 nor the humorous, ever can suffice 
 alone for the gratification of the 
 human mind ; other feelings must be 
 roused, other aspirations satisfied ; and. 
 the author who discards the influences, 
 of love and devotion has voluntarily 
 cast away the chief means by which 
 the human heart, in every age, is to- 
 be affected, or lasting fame attained. 
 
250 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. v. 
 
 70. Another writer, still more toI- 
 Timinous than Miss Edgeworth, soon 
 after began to pour forth a periodical 
 stream of novels with a j»i'odigality 
 which has not yet ceased to astonish 
 the world. If Mk James's works have 
 not all equal merit, and frequent repe- 
 tition of images and scenes is to be 
 found in them, they are entirely ex- 
 empt from many of the blemishes 
 which disfigure some of those of his 
 contemporaries which, in the outset, 
 have acquired greater popularity. 
 There is a constant appeal in his bril- 
 liant pages, not only to the pure and 
 generous, but to the elevated and 
 noble sentiments. He is iuibued with 
 the very soul of chivalr}^ ; and all his 
 stories turn on the final triumph of 
 those who are influenced by such feel- 
 ings over such as are swayed by selfish 
 or base desires. He possesses great 
 pictorial powers, and a remarkable fa- 
 cility of turning his graphic pen at 
 will to the delineation of the most dis- 
 tant and opposite scenes, manners, and 
 social customs. His best novels — At- 
 tila, Philip Augustus, Mary of Bur- 
 gundij, and the Robbers — must ever 
 hold a very high place in English liter- 
 ature. In his Avorks may be discerned 
 the varied capabilities of the Histori- 
 cal Romance of which Sir Walter Scott 
 was the great founder, and which has 
 so immensely augmented both the in- 
 terest and utility of Avorks of imagina- 
 tion, by at once extending the sphere 
 of their scenes, and rendering them 
 the vehicles of information as well as 
 amusement. Not a w^ord or a thought 
 which can give pain to the pm-est 
 heart ever escapes from his pen ; and 
 the mind, wearied with the cares, and 
 grieved at the selfishness, of the world, 
 reverts with pleasure to his varied 
 compositions, which carry it back, as 
 it were, to former days, and portray, 
 perhaps in too brilliant colours, the 
 ideas and manners of the olden time. 
 But, with these great and varied merits, 
 he cannot be placed in the first rank of 
 romance -writers ; he wants the chief 
 qualities requisite for its attainment. 
 He has no dramatic powers : his dia- 
 logue is seldom brilliant, often tedious, 
 and totally deficient in the brevity and 
 
 antithesis which constitute the very soul 
 of conversational success. His mind 
 is pictorial more than reflecting, his 
 descriptions rather of external objects 
 than internal feelings. It is in the 
 last, however, that the greatest charm 
 of romance is to be found : it is not so 
 much by describing physical nature as 
 by reopening the fountains of tender- 
 ness, which once have gushed forth in 
 every bosom, that the wand of the in- 
 tellectual magician, like that of Moses, 
 refreshes the soul, wearied amidst the 
 wilderness of life, and carries it back 
 perhaps only for a few minutes to the 
 brightest moments on which memory- 
 can dwell. 
 
 71. If the romances of Mr James 
 are deficient in the delineation of the 
 secret feelings that dwell in the recess- 
 es of the heart, the same cannot be 
 said of the next gTeat novelist whose 
 genius has adorned English literature. 
 In the highest qualities required in 
 this brancli of composition. Sir Ed- 
 ward BuLAVER Lyttox staiids pre- 
 eminent, and entitled to a place beside 
 Scott himself, at the very head of the 
 prose WTiters of works of imagination 
 in our country. Born of a noble family, 
 the inheritor of ancestral halls of un- 
 common splendour and interest,* he 
 has received from his Norman fore- 
 fathers the qualities which rendered 
 them noble. No man was ever more 
 thoroughly imbued with the elevated 
 thoughts, the chivalrous feelings, which 
 are the true mark of patiician blood ; 
 and which, however they may be ad- 
 
 * The dining-room at Knebworth in Hert- 
 fordshire, Sir E. BulwerLytton's noWe family 
 mansion, originally built by a Komian fol- 
 lower of the Conqueror, is fifty-six feet long 
 and thirty high, hung round with the armour 
 which tlie family and theii- retainers wore at 
 the battle of Bosworth, and ended by the 
 gallery in which the minstrels pom-ed forth 
 their heart-stirring strains : in the state-room 
 is the bed, hung roimd with velvet curtains, 
 in which Queen Elizabeth slept in the year of 
 the Armada : in the librarv, the oak table at 
 which Cromwell. Pvm, and Vane, concerted 
 the Great Rebellion. The author had once 
 the happiness of spending two days under 
 Sir Edwarrl's hospitable roof, mth himself 
 and his highly-valued friend Professor Aytoun, 
 and the late lamented Mr Robert Blackwood: 
 he must be forgiven if he adds that it is sel- 
 dom indeed in hfe that such society is enjoyed 
 amidst such recollections. 
 
CHAP, v.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 251. 
 
 mired by others, never perhaps exist 
 in such purity as in those who, like 
 the Arab steeds of high descent, can 
 trace their pedigree back through a 
 long series of ancestors. In delineat- 
 ing the passion of love, and unfolding 
 its secret feelings, as -well in his own 
 as the opposite sex, he is unrivalled 
 in English literature; JSIadame de 
 Stael herself has not portrayed it with 
 greater truth or beauty. In that re- 
 spect he is greatly superior to Scott, 
 who cared little for sentiment, and 
 •when he did paint the tender feelings, 
 did so from their external symptoms, 
 and from the observation of others 
 chiefly. Bulwer would seem to have 
 drawn his j)ictures from a much truer 
 and wider source — his own experi- 
 ence. He describes so powerfully and 
 so well because he has felt so deeply. 
 There is no portrait so faithful as that 
 •which is drawn by a great master of 
 himself. Ricnzi is perhaps the most per- 
 fect historical romance— GodoljyJiin and 
 Urnest Maltravers among the most in- 
 teresting and charming novels in the 
 English language. His later •v\'Titings 
 — The Caxtons, My Novel, and Wiat 
 will he do with it ? — exhibit excellen- 
 cies of a different but not less remark- 
 able kind. They are not so romantic, 
 but more suggestive ; they fascinate 
 less by the interest of the story, and 
 more by the reflections to which they 
 give rise. At every page you lay down 
 the book to think of the ideas it con- 
 tains—the sure sign of the highest 
 Tvork of thought. Nor is he only re- 
 markable as a novel-'WTiter — he is at 
 the same time a most successful poet 
 and dramatist. He has inhaled the 
 tindred spirit of Schiller in the trans- 
 lation of his ballads. His Timon is 
 by far the most brilliant satire, his 
 plays the most popular dramatic 
 compositions, of the age in which he 
 lives. 
 
 72. If some of his other works are 
 not of equal merit, it is only the usual 
 fate of genius to be more happy in 
 some conceptions than in others. In 
 all, the marks of deep reflection and 
 profound thought are to be seen, as 
 well as great observation of, and power 
 in delineating, character. A more seri- 
 
 ous defect is to be found in the occasional 
 choice of his subject, and the charms 
 with which his magic pencil has some- 
 times environed vice. The greatest 
 admirer of his genius cannot but feel 
 surjn-ised that he should have chosen 
 as the heroine of one of his novels a 
 woman who commits three murders, 
 including that of her own husband and 
 son ; or regret that one so capable of 
 chaz'ming the world by pictures of ro- 
 mance in its most elevated form, should 
 ever have exerted his powers on the 
 description of low life, or characters 
 and scenes of the most shocking de- 
 pravity. It is true, he never makes 
 liceutiousness in the end successful, 
 and the last impression in his works, 
 as well as innumerable exquisite re- 
 flections, are all on the side of virtue, 
 and, on that account, the charge often, 
 brought against his works of being 
 too lax in principle, is unfounded. 
 Still, it must be admitted that, under 
 his magic hand, in intermediate stages, 
 vice appears often so attractive that no 
 final catastrophe can entirely counter- 
 act the previous impression. Every 
 one knows that this is no more than 
 Avhat occurs in real life ; but that is 
 just the reason why additional force 
 should not be given to it by the charms 
 of imagination. It is true, painting 
 requires contrast, and the mixture of 
 light and shade is requisite to bring out 
 the forms and illustrate the beauty of 
 nature ; but the painter of the mind, 
 not less than material objects, would 
 do well to recollect the rule of Titian, 
 that the greater part of every picture 
 should be in mezzotinto, and a small 
 portion only in deep shade. 
 
 73. Disraeli, long kno^\^l as a bril- 
 liant satirist and romance-Arater be- 
 fore he was elevated to the lead of the 
 Opposition in the House of Commons, 
 is an author diflerent from either Mr 
 James or Sir E. Bulwer Lytton, but 
 with merits of a very high description. 
 He is not feudal and pictorial, like the 
 first — nor profound and tender, like 
 the last ; he is more political and dis- 
 cursive than either. He has gi"eat 
 powers of description, an admirable 
 talent for dialogue, and remarkable 
 force, as well as truth, in the delinea. 
 
252 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. V, 
 
 tion of character. His novels are con- 
 stiaicted, so far as the story goes, on 
 the true dramatic principles, and the 
 interest sustained with dramatic effect. 
 His mind is essentially of a reflecting 
 character ; his novels are, in a great 
 degree, pictures of public men or par- 
 ties in political life. He has many 
 strong opinions — perhaps some singu- 
 lar prepossessions— and his imagina- 
 tive works are, in a great degree, the 
 vehicle for their transmission. To any 
 one who studies them with attention, 
 it will not appear surprising that he 
 should he even more eminent in |)ublic 
 life than in the realms of imagination ; 
 that the brilliant author of Coningshy 
 should be the dreaded debater in the 
 House of Commons — of Vivian Grey, 
 the able and lucid Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer. He has very great powers 
 of satire, and in exposing the contra- 
 dictions or lashing the follies of man, 
 his talents, both in the closet and on 
 the floor of the House of Commons, 
 shine forth with their highest lustre. 
 Great, however, as his command of 
 irony is, it is not greater than his ca- 
 pacity for condensed eloquence or mas- 
 terly exposition. It is remarkable 
 that, with this decided tarn for high- 
 est powers of satire, he is equally mas- 
 ter of the tender emotions : and per- 
 haps the only fault of Henrietta Tem- 
 ple is, that the passion of love and 
 the enthusiasm of sentiment are de- 
 lineated in too ardent language. His 
 career affords a striking example of 
 the truth of Dr Johnson's observation, 
 that what is usually called particular 
 genius, is nothing but strong natural 
 parts accidentally turned into one di- 
 rection ; and that when nature has 
 conferred powers of the highest de- 
 scription, chance or supreme direction 
 alone determines what course their 
 possessor is to follow. 
 
 74. The strong txirn which romance 
 and novel writing, in the first half of 
 the nineteenth century, took to the de- 
 lineation of high life, with its charms, 
 its vices, and its follies, naturally led 
 to a reaction ; and a school arose, the 
 leaders of which, discarding all at- 
 tempts at Patrician painting, aimed at 
 the representation of the manners, 
 
 customs, ideas, and habits of middle 
 and low life. The field thus opened 
 was immense, and great abilities were 
 early turned to its cultivation. At 
 the very head of this school, both in 
 point of time and talents, must be- 
 jjlaced Mr Dickens, Avhose works ear- 
 ly rose into great, it may be said, un- 
 exampled celebrity. That they possess 
 very high merits is obvious from this 
 circumstance : No one ever commands, 
 even for a time, the suffrages of the 
 multitude, without the possession, in 
 some respects at least, of remarkable 
 powers. Nor is it difficult to see what, 
 in Mr Dickens's case, these powers are. 
 To extraordinary talent for the delinea- 
 tion of the manners and ideas of mid- 
 dle life, and a thorough acquaintance 
 with them in all their stages below 
 the highest, he unites a feeling and 
 sensitive heart, a warm interest in so- 
 cial happiness and improvement, and 
 remarkable powers for the pathetic. 
 To this must be added, that he is free 
 from the principal defects of the writ- 
 ers Avho have preceded him in the same 
 line, and which have now banished 
 their works from our drawing-rooms. 
 Though treating of the same subjects 
 and grades in society, he has none of 
 the indelicacy of our older novelists. 
 We see in him the talent of Fielding, 
 without his indecency — the humour of 
 Smollett, without his grossness. These 
 brilliant qualities, joined to the novel- 
 ty and extent of the field on which he 
 entered, early secured for him a vast 
 circulation and widespread reputation. 
 It was founded on more than the merit, 
 great as it was, of the author — selfish 
 feelings in the readers combined with 
 genius in the writer in working out 
 liis success. The great and the afflu- 
 ent rejoiced in secret at beholding the 
 manners of the middle class so graphi- 
 cally ch-awn. To them it was a new 
 world ; it had the charm of foreign 
 travelling. They said in their inmost 
 hearts, * ' How different they are from 
 us!" The middle class were equally 
 charmed with the portrait ; every one 
 recognised in it the picture of his 
 neighbour — none of liimself. 
 
 75. A host of other writers have 
 followed in the same school, which has 
 
CHAr. v.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 25a 
 
 ■become so considerable as to have as- 
 sumed an important place in the litera- 
 ture of the nineteenth century. ]\Iany 
 of these writers are distinguished by 
 great talent and graphic powers, among 
 whom Mr Thackeray stands con- 
 spicuous. He is the Hogarth of ro- 
 mance ; his satires, like those of Ju- 
 venal, strike at weaknesses, or vices 
 which spring from the general selfish- 
 ness of humanity. He has not, how- 
 ever, the lofty spirit which is essential 
 to the highest iiights of genius. His 
 works are numerous ; and the author 
 of Vanitij Fair need not shrink from 
 a comparison with any novel in that 
 style of the age, while Esmond exhibits 
 his great talent in the historical ro- 
 mance. The taste for compositions of 
 the pictorial and satirical kind has 
 become so decided, that it has extend- 
 ed to our highest imaginative "wi-iters. 
 It is not difficult to foresee, however, 
 that it is not destined to be durable ; 
 and that, from the general reaction 
 which will ensue, compositions in that 
 -style are, perhaps, likely to be sooner 
 -forgotten than their real merits de- 
 serve. Graphic pictures of manners, 
 and humorous works founded on the 
 ridicule of passing manners, however 
 popular or diverting at the time, rare- 
 ly attain any lasting celebrity. The 
 3'eason is, that the follies which they 
 ridicule, the vices Avhicli they lash, are, 
 in general, only of ephemeral dura- 
 tion. Those only, as the works of 
 Juvenal, Cervantes, Le Sage, or Mol- 
 iere, which dive deep into the inmost 
 recesses of the soul, and reach failings 
 universal in mankind, command the 
 -admiration of all ages. Thackeray has 
 often reached this depth, but great 
 part of his works is the picture of pass- 
 ing manners only. Profound insight 
 into the human heart, condensed pow- 
 er of expression, are essential to suc- 
 cess in such compositions ; and they 
 are given only to the greatest of man- 
 kind. Imagination is a winged deity ; 
 its flight, to be commanding and en- 
 during, must ever be upward. The 
 eagle alone ascends on an untiring 
 wing, and his eye is ever on the sun. 
 Piidicule is valued only by those who 
 know the persons ridiculed, and they 
 
 arc soon thinned by the sweeping 
 scythe of Time : elevation of thought is 
 prized by all M'ho feel generous senti- 
 ments, and they are the noble-hearted 
 in all ages. 
 
 76. There are two writers of works 
 of imagination, however, who belong 
 to a different school, because their ge- 
 nius has led them to aim at different 
 objects. Miss Austen and Miss Sin- 
 clair both possess merits of a very 
 high order, and yet entirely different 
 from the authors of the Dickens school. 
 Miss Austen, whose career ended in 
 1817, aims chiefly at the delineation of 
 the domestic life of England, which, 
 her sex, her turn of mind, and her op- 
 portunities of observation, enabled her 
 to do with peculiar fidelity. There is 
 nowhere to be seen in our literature so 
 correct and faithful a delineation of the 
 manners, motives, and ideas of the 
 middle classes of English society, that 
 great class which is every day rising 
 into greater importance, and is equally 
 removed from lords and ladies on the 
 one hand, and assassins or desperadoes 
 on the other. She does not aim at re- 
 presenting either the lofty in character, 
 the heroic in action, or the pathetic in 
 feeling; it is the average events and 
 emotions of everyday life which she 
 portrays ; and that she has done with 
 a tact, delicacy, and truth, which never 
 were surpassed. Marivaux himself has 
 not exceeded her in the delineation of 
 the working of vanity in the female 
 heart — Beaumarchais, in the truth with 
 which she has portrayed the selfish im- 
 pulses which, in general, actuate people 
 of ordinary characters in this world. 
 She is the Wilkie of novel -Avriting. 
 And if Miss Austen has faithfully de- 
 lineated the nicer shades of domestic 
 life in England, the same has been done 
 with equal success by Miss Catherine 
 Sinclair in Scotland. Inheriting the 
 talents of her father. Sir John Sinclair, 
 but applying them to different objects, 
 this highly-gifted lady has presented a 
 picture of Scotch manners and ideas, 
 in all the grades of its society, which 
 is perfectly accurate, and is rendered 
 the more valuable from the pure and 
 elevated moral feeling by which it is 
 everywhere distinguished, and the ster- 
 
25f 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. v. 
 
 ling sense and vein of humour with ! 
 which it is accompanied, 
 
 77. Mr.s Norton aims at a much 
 higher object, and has attained a dis- 
 tinguished place in romantic literature. 
 Gifted with the true poetic genius, and 
 imbuedAvith that vein of romance which 
 is the secret spring of everything that 
 is noble and elevated in this world, she 
 has, at the same time, advantages which 
 have fallen to the lot of few of her 
 sex, for the faithful picture of the very 
 highest English society. Descended 
 from the great ]\Ir Sheridan, she has 
 inherited not only his talents, but his 
 comic vein, while she has blended with 
 it the romantic feelings which give a 
 higher tone to their direction, and the 
 delicacy which her sex seldom fails to 
 show in the delineation of the softer 
 feelings. Thrown from her earliest years 
 into the most elevated circles, and hav- 
 ing enjoyed the friendship of nearly all 
 the eminent men of the age, she is better 
 qualified than perhaps any other living 
 person could be, to exhibit, as in a mir- 
 ror, at once their excellencies, their 
 ideas, and their follies. But her Act- 
 ings prove that the enjoyments of this 
 elevated society, and the unbounded 
 admiration which her personal charms 
 and great powers of conversation have 
 long secured for her, have not been suffi- 
 cient to fill up the void of a refined and 
 ardent disposition ; and that her life has 
 been a long aspiration after an ima- 
 gined felicity, which she has never yet 
 attained, ilelancholy is the prevailing 
 tendency of her mind ; and though we 
 cannot but regret that one whose so- 
 ciety never fails to confer pleasure, 
 should Imve so often been disappointed 
 in its search herself, we cannot but re- 
 joice that circumstances should have 
 thrown her genius into that which was 
 perhaps its natural channel, and en- 
 riched our literature both in poetry 
 and prose with so many gems of the 
 pathetic, which are indelibly engraven 
 on the memory of all who are acquaint- 
 ed Avith them. 
 
 78. Yery diff"erent in style from this 
 accomplished authoress, Mr Warrex 
 has taken a respectable place among 
 the imaginative writers of this period 
 of English history. He possesses, in a 
 
 remarkable mariner, the tenderness of 
 heart andviWdness of feeling, as well as 
 powers of description, which are essen- 
 tial to the delineation of the pathetic, 
 and which, when existing in the degree 
 in which he enjoys them, fill his pages 
 with scenes which can never be forgot- 
 ten. His Diary of a Late Physician, 
 and Ten Tlwusand a- Year, are a proof 
 of this ; they are, and chiefly for this 
 reason, among the most popular works 
 of imagination that this age has pro- 
 duced. Mr Warren, like so many other 
 romance-MTiters of the age, has often 
 filled his canvass with pictures of mid- 
 dle and humble life to an extent which 
 those whose taste is fixed on the ele- 
 vating and the lofty will not altogether 
 approve. But that is the fault of the 
 age rather than the man. It is amply 
 redeemed, even in the eyes of those who 
 regard it as a blemish, by the gleams of 
 genius which shine through the dark 
 clouds of melancholy A\-ith which his 
 conceptions are so often invested — by 
 the exquisite pathetic scenes with which 
 they abound — and the jnire and en- 
 nobling objects to which his composi- 
 tions, even Avhen painting ordinary life, 
 are uniformly directed. 
 
 79. Carlyle is the object of impas- 
 sioned admiration, not only to a large 
 class of readei's, but to many whose 
 taste and acquirements entitle their 
 opinions to the very highest respect. 
 Nature has impressed upon his mind 
 the signet-mark of genius. A svire test 
 of it is that there is perhaps no An'iter 
 of the age who has made so many ori- 
 ginal and profound remarks, or ones 
 which strike j'ou so much when trans- 
 planted into the comparatively com- 
 monplace pages of ordinary writers. 
 But it is to his detached and isolated 
 thoughts that this high praise chiefly 
 applies ; as a whole, his ideas are not 
 calculated to command equal respect, 
 at least with the generality of men.- 
 He is essentially a "Hero-worshipper," 
 and the defects as well as the merits of 
 that disposition are strongly marked in 
 his writings. He has made strenuous 
 efforts to glorify several doubtful, and 
 ■\AT.*ite down several celebrated, charac- 
 ters recorded in history; and that is 
 always a perilous attempt ; — for the 
 
CHAP, v.] 
 
 HISTOEY OF EUROPE. 
 
 25? 
 
 voice of ages, arising from tlie general 
 opinion and experience of men, is, in 
 the ordinary case, founded in trutli ; 
 and the author who attempts to gainsay 
 it runs the risk, when "he meant to 
 commit murder, of only committing 
 suicide. " Mr Carlyle has great powers 
 in the delineation of the terrible and 
 the pathetic ; numerous instances of 
 Loth in his history of the French Ee- 
 Tolution will immediately recur to the 
 recollection of every reader. But his 
 style, founded upon an unbounded ad- 
 mu'ation and undue imitation of the 
 German idiom, appears often harsh and 
 discordant to the reader ; and this pe- 
 culiarity will probably prevent his^viit- 
 ings from ever acquiring the popularity 
 of standard works with the great body 
 of English readers. 
 
 80. No similar blemish is to be 
 found in De Ckoly, whose thoughts, 
 full of genius and lofty views, are con- 
 veyed in the purest and most classical 
 English idiom. The ardent admirer 
 of Burke, he has adopted his views, 
 shared his fervour, and, in a great 
 measure, imitated his style. But he 
 has largely inhaled also the spirit and 
 profited by the lessons of the age in 
 which he lived : the contemporary 
 and observer of the French Eevohttion 
 and its consequences, he has portrayed 
 both in a philosophic spirit, and with 
 a poet's fire ; and what Burke pre- 
 dicted from the contemplation of the 
 Future, he has painted from the ob- 
 servation of the Present. His Life of 
 that great man, written in a kindred 
 spirit, is the best account of his mind 
 and A\Titings in our language : in many 
 of his other writings there appear the 
 style and thoughts of a prophet, not 
 less than the pictures and colours of 
 a historian. The ardent champion of 
 Protestantism, ho has met the zeal of 
 the Eomish Church with equal fervour, 
 and been led sometimes, perhaps with 
 undue warmth, into the defence of his 
 own faith. It is only to be regretted that 
 an author capable of such things should 
 have devotee! his talents so much to il- 
 lustrating the ideas of others, and not in- 
 scribed his name on some great original 
 work, at once a monument of his own 
 genius and of the age iu which he lived. 
 
 81. Hazlitt was prior in point of 
 time to both these very eminent writers, 
 and he differs materially from either. 
 He was less political and historical in. 
 his disposition ; his ideas Avere riveted 
 on the realms of imagination, not on 
 the transactions of men ; it was on the 
 Avorld of thought, not the world of hu- 
 manity, that his mind was fixed. Cri- 
 ticism, the drama, the theatre, poetiy, 
 the arts, alternately engaged his jien, 
 and his ardent mind and deep reflec- 
 tion never failed to impress upon these 
 subjects the marks of original thought 
 and just observation. In critical dis- 
 quisitions on the leading characters 
 and works of the drama, he is not 
 surpassed in the whole range of Eng- 
 lish literature ; and what in an espe- 
 cial manner commands admiration in. 
 their perusal, is the indication of re- 
 fined taste and chastened reflection 
 which they contain, and which are 
 more conspicuous in detached passages 
 than in any entire work. He aj)pears 
 greater when quoted than when read. 
 Possibly, had his life been prolonged, 
 it might have been otherwise, and 
 some work have emanated from his 
 gifted pen which would have placed his 
 fame on a durable fomidation. 
 
 82. If a gi-eat work has been want- 
 ing to the fame of Hazlitt and Croly, 
 the same may with still more justice 
 be said of a veiy eminent man who 
 has illustrated the age by his profound 
 and original thoughts. Be ntham has 
 brought to the philosojihy of law the 
 vigour of an independent, and the 
 views of a creative, mind. He was not 
 a practical lawyer, and therefore his 
 views, how just and convincing soever, 
 must often be essentially modified and 
 most cautiously handled before they 
 are introduced into practice ; but there 
 can be no doubt that thej^ contain the 
 germ of much useful legislation on the 
 subjects they embrace. They are so 
 because they contain the deductions of 
 an acute and reflecting mind on the 
 application of the principles of human 
 nature, and especially the ruling prin- 
 ciple of selfishness, to the principal 
 situations and trials of character which 
 emerge in the course of legal conflict 
 or judicial decision. In this respect 
 
'256 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 "his writings contain more original, and 
 often just thought, than is to be found 
 in any other writer. He was very in- 
 dolent, and, notwithstanding the clear- 
 ness and force of his understanding, 
 had not the faculty of expressing his 
 ideas in equally distinct or lucid lan- 
 guage ; hence his thoughts were often 
 communicated to the world in a for- 
 eign language, to be collected by the 
 friendly industry of Dumont, and are 
 to be found rather scattered through a 
 variety of works than contained in any 
 one of superior condensation or excel- 
 lence. He was a utilitarian in prin- 
 ciple, an ultra-liberal in politics ; hence 
 lofty views and generous feelings are 
 not to be looked for in his writings, 
 except in so far as they are connected 
 with the doctrines of progress ; but 
 that only renders the suggestions they 
 contain the more worthy of consider- 
 ation in a practical point of view, in a 
 world where selfishness or ambition so 
 largely influence the actions of the great 
 majority of men. 
 
 83. Very diff"erent in his principles 
 and ideas from Bentham, but, like 
 him, endowed with great talents and 
 powers which were devoted to the 
 noblest objects, Sir Johx Sinx'lair 
 filled an important place in the jioliti- 
 cal and social literature of Great Bri- 
 tain in the first part of the nineteenth 
 century. Indefatigable in industiy, 
 ardent in disposition, unwearied in 
 research, he not only mastered the 
 greatest undertakings himself, but 
 possessed the rare faculty of inspiring 
 others with his own energy. The Sta- 
 tistical Account of Scotland, of which 
 he was the life and soul, is iijot only a 
 standard work of authority in all that 
 relates to that countiy, but the model 
 on which nearly all undertakings on 
 the same scale in Europe have been 
 framed. Discerning, in an age which 
 was strongly ruled by commercial in- 
 terests, the lasting and paramount 
 superiority of agriculture, he directed 
 his imwearied powers mainly to its 
 improvement, and to his labours the 
 vast and rapid improvement in the 
 Scottish fields is in a great measure to 
 be ascribed. jSTor is it less memorable 
 ihat, at a period when the strongest 
 
 heads in the nation were yielding to 
 the universal pressure of the moneyed 
 interest, he nearly alone discerned the 
 fallacy of their doctrines, and boldly 
 advanced those principles on the sub- 
 ject, which, little regarded by the pre- 
 sent, are certain of general reception 
 by future ages. 
 
 84. Chalmers, though his name is 
 attached to no work commensurate to 
 the great fame he enjoyed during his 
 life, has made a vast impression on the 
 minds of his countrymen, and deserv- 
 edly earned a high place in the bright 
 assembly of Scottish AVorthies. He 
 was gifted \n.th. very great natural 
 powers, which had been scattered 
 rather than condensed by the style of 
 education then generally given in his 
 country. He was not very learned ; 
 his information was various rather than 
 extensive on any one subject ; and we 
 shall look in vain in his writings for 
 those stores of erudition, which, when 
 brought forth by genius and arranged, 
 by philosophy, form the only true foun- 
 dation for lasting fame in the mental 
 or social concerns of men. But Chal- 
 mers, notwithstanding, was a great 
 man. "Within the limits which nature 
 or education had prescribed to him, 
 he did great things. The fervour of 
 his mind, the brilliancy of his genius, 
 overcame every obstacle, supplied every 
 deficiency, at least for the purposes of 
 present gratification to his audience 
 or his readers. His oratorical powers 
 were very considerable — more so, per- 
 haps, than any of his contemporaries. 
 Xo one so entirely thrilled the hearts 
 of his audience, or swept away every 
 mind in one irresistible burst of com- 
 mon emotion. His judgment, how- 
 ever, was not so strong as his fancy ; 
 his opinions are not to be so implicitly 
 relied on as his genius is to be ad- 
 mired. If his writings, however, often 
 do not materially inform the under- 
 standing, or safely regulate the judg- 
 ment, they never fail to charm the ima- 
 gination, and move the feelings by the 
 fervent piety, benevolent spirit, and 
 enlarged understanding whioh they 
 e%ance, and the brilliant eloquence in 
 which they are always couched. 
 
 85. There would be no end to the 
 
CHAP, v.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 257 
 
 present chapter, if every AVTiter of 
 eminence in the British empire in the 
 present or past age were to be sepa- 
 rately noticed. But there are two 
 who, albeit from youth not as yet at 
 the zenith of their fame, have given 
 such brilliant promise of future cele- 
 iDrity, that they cannot be passed over 
 in silence. Mr Monkton Milnes has 
 presented to the world several volumes 
 of poems abounding in such brilliant im- 
 agery, and containing such refined sen- 
 timents, that they have secured for him 
 a very high place in the estimation of 
 all to whom the beautiful or interesting 
 in art or nature possesses any charms. 
 And Mr William Aytoun, albeit 
 bred to different habits, and educated 
 in the thorny pursuits of the law, has 
 evinced early in life the very highest 
 talents for lyric poetry, and enriched 
 the literature of his country -with a 
 volume of ballads, which exceed the 
 strains of Tyrtseus in patriotic spirit, 
 while they rival the odes of Dryden in 
 iire and pathos. So great, indeed, is 
 their merit, and so varied the talents 
 and powers of their accomplished au- 
 thor, that no hesitation need be felt in 
 predicting for him, if his life is spared, 
 the highest destinies in the realms of 
 poetry, as Avell as the less inviting 
 iields of political discussion. 
 
 86. If the house of mourning, in 
 real life, ever adjoins the house of joy, 
 and the voice of gladness is ere long 
 dro^vned in the wail of sorrow, the 
 same vicissitude is not less conspicuous 
 in literature. The cypress is ever mixed 
 with the laurel in its verdant fields. 
 . If the brilliant author of EotJmi has 
 j)roduced one of the most striking pic- 
 tures of the East that ever was present- 
 ed to the nations of the West, another 
 author, whose pencil, like his, was 
 *' dipped in the orient hues of heaven," 
 lias been prematurely snatched from 
 his admiring coiintry. Mr Elliot 
 "Warburton, whose glowing descrip- 
 tions of the East, rivalling those of 
 Beckford himself, are so indelibly en- 
 graven on the national mind, has been 
 prematurely snatched by a mournful 
 catastrophe from the country whose 
 literature he was so well qualified to 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 adorn ; and not many years before, a 
 female authoress, whose lyre, as melan- 
 choly and not less melodious than that 
 of Sappho, had so deeply moved tho 
 British heart, breathed her last on the 
 sombre shores of Cape Coast Castle. 
 But the poems of L. E. L. , of surpass- 
 ing sweetness and pathos, rivalling 
 those of Mrs Norton herself in heart- 
 rending sentiment, will long survive 
 their unhappy author, and speak to 
 the heart of generations to which her 
 premature fate will be a lasting sub- 
 ject of commiseration. 
 
 87. The impulse given to the Fine 
 Arts in Great Britain, by the anima- 
 tion and excitement of the war, was 
 not so great as might perhaps have 
 been expected, and suggests a painful 
 doubt whether there is not something 
 in the climate of England, or the char- 
 acter and consequent institutions of 
 the Anglo-Saxon race, which is incon- 
 sistent with eminence in those noble 
 departments of genius. Arc h itecture 
 was the one in which our deficiency, 
 during the war, was most apparent — 
 and in which the greatest efforts were 
 made, on the return of peace, to repair 
 that deficiency. The numerous travel- 
 lers who crowded to the Continent for 
 several years after it had been opened, 
 all returned Avith the greatest admi- 
 ration of the noble edifices recently 
 ei'ected in Paris, or which attested the 
 magnificence of former ages in Rome, 
 Florence, and Venice, and with a pain- 
 ful sense of the inferiority of England 
 in that particular. Her cathedrals, 
 and many of her country churches, 
 were the finest in the world ; and St 
 Paul's is, in the interior, only second — 
 in the exterior, superior — to the fane 
 of the Vatican, the dome of St Peter's. 
 But if the streets of London were con- 
 sidered, being entirely built of brick, 
 and for the most part extremely nar- 
 row, they bore no proportion to the 
 wealth or importance of the British 
 metropolis. Vigorous efforts, how- 
 ever, were soon made to supply the 
 defects. Regent Street, opened up 
 through one of the densest parts of 
 London, soon exhibited a splendid and 
 varied scene of architectural decora- 
 
 R 
 
258 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. y. 
 
 tion and mercantile opulence ; Regent's 
 Park showed long lines of pillared 
 scenery sunnountiug its glassy lake and 
 nmbrageous foliage ; and Waterloo, 
 Soutliwark, and London Bridges be- 
 strode the floods of the Thames, with 
 arches second to none in the world in 
 magnificence and durability. Unhap- 
 pily, however, the buildings, both there 
 and in other parts of the metropolis, 
 with very few exceptions, were all con- 
 structed of brick, with plaster fronts ; 
 and the facility of adding decoration 
 with that plastic material has intro- 
 duced a taste for gorgeous display at 
 variance with every principle of good 
 taste, and wdiich painfully contrasts 
 ■with the perishable nature of the ma- 
 terials of which it is composed. The 
 noble freestone and commanding situa- 
 tion of Edinburgh have led to the pre- 
 Talence there of a chaster and severer 
 style of architecture, and rendered it by 
 far the finest city in the British domin- 
 ions, and one of the most striking in 
 Europe. But having ceased to be the 
 seat of government, and consequently 
 lost the concourse of the nobility, it has 
 sunk into a provincial town, and can 
 never again be adorned by those sump- 
 tuous edifices which are raised by the 
 national resources, and gathered round 
 the centre of the nation's power. 
 
 88. In one branch of architecture, 
 and that not the least imposing, a 
 very great and remarkable revival has 
 taken place of late years. If the Go- 
 thic is the native order of architecture 
 in Great Britain, and the one in which 
 the national genius has been most 
 strikingly developed, it' is in it also 
 that the restoration of that noble art 
 has been most prominently evinced. 
 Not only in sacred edifices, but in 
 ordinary dwellings constructed in that 
 st}de, the advance made from the ter- 
 mination of the war to the middle of 
 the century was most remarkable. 
 Playfair exhibited, in an edifice con- 
 secrated to charity in Edinburgh, in 
 the Elizabethan style, perhaps the 
 finest model of that description which 
 the island can exliibit — Burn, in many 
 sumptuous edifices both to the south 
 and north of the Tweed, how easily it 
 can be combined with the highest lux- 
 
 ury and convenience for private life. 
 The newHouses of Parliament, designed 
 by Barry, present a noble structure, 
 replete with gorgeous, perhaps redund- 
 ant, beauty of detail ; if the gene- 
 ral efl'ects had been bolder, and more 
 broken by light and shade, it would 
 be unique in that style of architecture 
 in the world. Various churches in. 
 diff"erent parts of England arose at this 
 period in the chastest and best style of 
 the Gothic, of which the Catholic ca- 
 thedral at Manchester may be cited as 
 one of the most remarkable ; and the 
 vast additions made to Windsor Castle 
 were worthy, both externally and in- 
 ternally, of its historic renown and 
 present splendour. 
 
 89. It cannot be said that the coun- 
 try of Sir Joshua Reynolds is destitute 
 of the genius for painting ; and yet 
 this noble art has not, in the period 
 when it might most confidently have 
 been expected, risen to any generally- 
 distinguished eminence. There have 
 been portrait-painters in abundance — 
 some of very considerable merit ; but 
 placed beside the works of the great 
 masters of the Flemish, Italian, and 
 Spanish schools, theirs sink into in- 
 significance. Valuable, often invalu- 
 able, to a single generation, from the 
 fidelity of the likeness they have pre- 
 served, or the endearing recollections 
 they have perpetuated, they cease to 
 be considered Avhen a new race suc- 
 ceeds to which that likeness was un- 
 known. None of them •will bear a, 
 comparison with the masterpieces of 
 A'^andyke or Rubens, of Titian or Velas- 
 quez. The details are unfinished, the 
 still life is neglected, the attitude often 
 stiff", the extremities ill drawn. It is 
 easy to see that the whole effort of the 
 painter has been thrown into the like- 
 ness of the countenance. The reason 
 is, that the countenance only Avas an 
 object of interest to the purchasers of 
 the pictures ; few of them had know- 
 ledge to understand, or taste to appre- 
 ciate, anything else. The best pic- 
 tures of Sir Thomas Lawrence are 
 no exceptions to these observations. 
 The likeness is generally good, the 
 countenance powerful, the light and 
 .shade weE disposed, the expression. 
 
cnAP. v.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 259 
 
 often angelic ; but the picture, on tlie 
 wliole, is generally unfinished — the 
 colouring, except on the face, raw and 
 inharmonious. Many of his most love- 
 ly female portraits often resemble an 
 angel peeping out of the clouds. His 
 best pieces, when put beside the mas- 
 terpieces of Vandyke or Titian, ajipear 
 so inferior that an Englishman turns 
 aside with mortification. His fiime 
 ■was great, the prices received for his 
 paintings immense, during his life ; 
 but both have sensibly declined since 
 3iis death, and his portraits have come 
 to stand on their own merits as pieces 
 of art, irrespective of the recognition of 
 the likeness by the spectators. 
 
 90. TuKNER, in landscape-painting, 
 has attained a reputation more likely 
 to be durable ; for in genius he is 
 equal, in variety of conception supe- 
 rior, to Claude himself. No one can 
 study the Liber Studiorum of the for- 
 mer master, and compare it with the 
 Lihcr Veritatis of the latter, without 
 perceiving that the palm of originality 
 and variety of imagination must be 
 awarded to the English artist. There 
 is none of his pictures as perfect as one 
 of Claude's ; none over which the glow 
 of an Italian sunset is thro•s^^^ ^^^.th 
 such magic over every object in the 
 piece — the sky, the sea, the trees. 
 But there is greater variety in his 
 effects ; his drawing from nature has 
 extended over a much wider surface ; 
 liis fancy is more discm-sive — his con- 
 ceptions wilder, and more dissimilar. 
 He has aimed at and succeeded in 
 awakening emotions of a far more 
 varied kind than his great predecessor, 
 "Within his own limits, Claude is per- 
 fection ; but those limits are narrow. 
 "Turner's embrace the whole earth, and 
 all ages of history — the plagues of 
 Egypt, the ruins of Rome, the glaciers 
 of Switzerland, the sun of Italy. It is 
 to the power of his conceptions, how- 
 ever, and the vigour of his imagination, 
 that this unqualified praise applies ; 
 in delicacy of finishing, harmony of 
 colouring, and minuteness of detail, 
 combined with generality of effect, he 
 is inferior to Claude, as indeed every 
 subsequent painter has been, and per- 
 haps ever will be. The later pictures 
 
 of Turner, when he indulged in a new 
 and more vivid style of colouring, 
 in which bright orange and saffron 
 predominate, can hardly be consid- 
 ered as his productions ; they would 
 be more aptly designated as the Avorks 
 of genius run mad. There is only 
 one consolation in reflecting on this 
 running riot of so much talent — and 
 that is, that it has elicited the genius 
 and displayed the taste and vivid 
 powers of description of his accom- 
 plished advocate, Mr Ruskin, who, in 
 attempting to defend his extravagan- 
 cies, has only caused his ingenuity to 
 be the more admired, that it has obvi- 
 ously been exerted in an indefensible 
 cause. His great and varied genius 
 and taste appear equally conspicuous 
 in his Seven Lamps of Architecture, one 
 of the most profound and original works 
 of the kind in the English language. 
 
 91. CopleyFielding cannot be said 
 to be the equal of Turner in vigour of 
 conception or variety of imagination ; 
 but in beauty of detail and polish of 
 finishing he is sometimes his superior. 
 Like Claude, his limits are narrow ; 
 but, like him, within them he is very 
 perfect. He has two sets of pieces, 
 and is essentially a mannerest in both ; 
 but in both a vivid eye for the beauti- 
 ful in nature, and great powers of exe- 
 cution, are conspicuous. No one ever 
 excelled him in the representation of 
 storms at sea, or of 
 
 -" Ocean's mighty swing. 
 
 When, heaving on the tempest's wing. 
 It breaks upon the shore. " 
 
 And in the delineation of sunsets at 
 land, of the misty heat of a forenoon 
 in the Highlands, or of the wdld sweep 
 of open downs in England, he is equal- 
 ly perfect. These are his limits, how- 
 ever — he never passes them ; if he 
 attempts to do so, he only repeats him- 
 self. Williams has thrown over the 
 exquisite remains of Grecian genius the 
 glow of a southern sun, enhanced by 
 the richness of northern fancy; and 
 permanently implanted into our collec- 
 tions the image of the most perfect 
 architectural ruins in the Avorld ; while 
 Thomson, endowed with greater pow- 
 ers, and a more masculine turn of 
 
260 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. v. 
 
 thought, has disdained to leave his oym. 
 country in the search of the sublime 
 or beautiful, and found, in its spread- 
 ing pines, and misty mountains, and 
 glassy lakes, the elements -which only 
 awaited the hand of genius to be 
 moulded into the expression of perfect 
 beauty. Like all the painters of the 
 day, however, he is deficient in finish- 
 ing ; his pictures appear rough sketches 
 when put beside those of i?'oussin or 
 Salvator, to whose conceptions his 
 bear a very close analogy. Xeither 
 portrait nor landscape painting will 
 ever approach iierfection in this coun- 
 try till our artists learn that minute- 
 ness of finishing is perfectly consistent 
 with generality of effect ; that the 
 great object of the artist should be to 
 make a great picture — not receive a 
 great price ; that accuracy of drawing 
 is essential to give reality to the con- 
 ceptions of imagination ; and that 
 unity of impression is not to be at- 
 tained without a copious sacrifice of 
 lesser details to the one prevailing 
 emotion intended to be awakened. 
 
 92. It was long before any por- 
 trait - painters appeared in London 
 upou whom the mantle of Sir Thomas 
 Lawrence appeared to have descended ; 
 but at length two artists arose, whose 
 talents seem to indicate that the Fine 
 Arts could take root in the mountains 
 of Caledonia as well as on the slopes of 
 the Apennines, llii Francis Grant, 
 albeit not originally bred to the art, 
 and habituated at first to other pur- 
 suits than those of his profession, ere 
 long showed that genius can overcome 
 the want of early study, and that a 
 thorough acquaintance with the most 
 polished society only makes an artist 
 better acquainted Avith the aerial 
 graces and nameless charms which 
 enter so largely into the composition 
 of the Cestus of Beauty. Ko British 
 artist ever excelled him in the delinea- 
 tion of female elegance ; it is easy to 
 see that he is a gentleman Avho has not 
 only felt its influence, but felt in what 
 it consists, and learned how it is to 
 be perpetuated to future times. His 
 early passion for the chase also has 
 stamped the character of his works in 
 another respect. His horses are ad- 
 
 mirable, and particularly remarkable 
 for the spirit and accuracy of drawing 
 they display. Sir Charles East- 
 lake has, in a higher walk of the pro- 
 fession, shown how much a thorough 
 study of Italian art in its greatest 
 specimens can inspire a northern artist 
 with its spirit, while it is not going 
 too far to say, that in the delicacy and 
 beauty of miniature-painting, as well 
 as the fidelity of the likeness, Thor- 
 BURN and Eoss cannot be excelled. 
 Pickersgill's portraits are often bril- 
 liant, from the fidelity of tbe likeness 
 and the richness of the colouring ; but 
 there is generally a deficiency of shade 
 in them, and, as in all modern pieces, 
 a want of finishing of details. SwiNTON 
 is the rival of Grant, and in the same 
 style ; he rej)resents female elegance 
 so well, because, by living with it, he 
 has learned in what it consists. Many 
 of his portraits of the most lovely 
 of our female nobility are beautiful 
 pictures, as well as striking likenesses ; 
 but they are very unequal, and a want 
 of drawing is sometimes conspicuous, 
 especially in the figure and extremi- 
 ties, even in his most careful produc- 
 tions. Nor is Scotland without her 
 own honours in the Fine Arts ; for 
 Raeburn was equal to any artist of 
 his time in portrait-painting, and only 
 required to have had his lot cast in 
 another country and a diff'erent age, 
 to have rivalled in that style the 
 greatest painters of modern times. 
 Allan has left many paintings, espe- 
 cially of Eastern and Circassian scenes, 
 of very great excellence; while in Sir 
 John Watson Gordon she may still 
 boast an artist perhaps superior to any 
 of his contemporaries in the delinea- 
 tion of masculine power of countenance ; 
 and Graham Gilbert has produced, 
 amidst the mercantile wealth of Glas- 
 gow, many portraits and fancy pieces 
 that rival the best works in the same 
 style of the Florentine and Venetian 
 schools. 
 
 93. There is one painter of the age, 
 however, who stands at the very head 
 of the department of the art to which 
 his genius has been directed, and has 
 elevated it to a height which never was 
 attained in any foreign State. It may 
 
CHAP. A'.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 261 
 
 safely be said, that in the representa- 
 tion of animals Landseer is unrivalled. 
 In truth, he has opened an entire new 
 mine of surpassing richness in this 
 branch of art. Schuuyder had repre- 
 sented, with the utmost skill, the pain- 
 ful scenes of boar-hunts, and, in vigour 
 of design and power of execution in the 
 delineations of such subjects, he never 
 was surpassed; and Reinagle and Du 
 Jardin had delineated the domestic life 
 of animals with equal taste and fidelity. 
 But Landseer has stnick out an entirely 
 new path ; he has represented the 'pa- 
 thetic in animals. He is not the painter 
 of them when hunted, and either the 
 enemies or the victims of man ; he is 
 one of themselves ; he sympathises with 
 their terrors, shares their griefs, is in- 
 spired by their affections. His repre- 
 sentations of the fawn seekiug to obtain 
 nourishment from its dead mother, of 
 the herd striking into the wilderness on 
 the approach of the hunters, of the de- 
 voted fidelity of dogs, of the monarch of 
 the glen starting up from his heathery 
 lair, and other similar subjects, are not 
 merely admirable as pieces of art, but 
 unrivalled in the expression of pathos 
 and sentiment. He is the painter of 
 !Nature, and has studied her not merely 
 in her wildest scenes, but her animated 
 offspring in their most hidden recesses 
 and secret habits. England may well 
 be proud of having given birth to such 
 a man ; and he affords evidence that, if 
 painting in its highest branches has not 
 hitherto flourished, as might have been 
 expected in so brilliant an era in this 
 countiy, the fault lies in the direction 
 of the national taste, more than in want 
 of genius in its artists. 
 
 94. "Wilkie's name will be always 
 associated with this period of English 
 history ; and, in many respects, he is 
 equal, in his own style, to the great 
 painters of former days. He did not 
 aim at the expression of the patlietic 
 in animals, like Landseer — nor the hu- 
 morous in man, like Teniers — nor the 
 vulgar in low life, like Ostade : he took 
 counsel from his own genius, and struck 
 out a new vein in the representation of 
 mankind. He portrayed the domestic 
 in humble life — its joys, its interests, 
 its amusements, its sorrows. He was 
 
 the Burns of painting — inspired with 
 his sentiment, penetrated Avith his ar- 
 dour, gifted with his powers. In mi- 
 nuteness and delicacy of finishing he 
 was quite equal to Teniers, and, at 
 the same time, -without his occasional 
 coarseness ; so that his paintings, even 
 of the humblest scenes, may be looked 
 on by the most delicate female without 
 pain. His drawing is admirable — ^his 
 colouring brilliant, and yet harmonious. 
 The great defect of his style — and it is 
 a very serious one— is, that he does not 
 sufficiently mass his lights and sha- 
 dows : admirable in detail, there is a 
 want of generality in effect. The light 
 on each figure is perfectly given ; but 
 the light on the whole is too indiscri- 
 minately thrown. He has shaded well, 
 according to Titian's simile, each indi- 
 vidual grape ; but he has forgot the 
 shading of the whole bunch. By far 
 too many of his figures are illuminated : 
 he would have done well to have re- 
 membered the observation of Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds, that, in Titian's painting, 
 two - thirds is in shade, and only one- 
 third in bright light. 
 
 95. In one most striking and impres- 
 sive style of painting, the genius of 
 England has skuck out an entirely new 
 path, and opened up fields hitherto 
 unti'odden since the infancy of the art. 
 Madame de Stael has said that Michael 
 Angelo was the painter of the Old and 
 Raphael of the New Testament ; but the 
 former remark is more strictly true of 
 Martin and Danby than the immortal 
 Italian artist. These bold and original 
 men have represented the dreadful ca- 
 tastrophes recorded in sacred Avrit, or 
 the contemporary profane annalists, 
 with a vigour and masculine turn of 
 thought which never was before equal- 
 led. Martin, in particular, has pro- 
 duced M^orks on those sublime subjects 
 of surpassing sublimity. His pictures 
 of the Deluge, of the Crossing of the 
 Red Sea by the Israelites, of the Hand- 
 writing on the "Wall in Belshazzar's 
 Feast, and other similar subjects, are 
 among the finest and most terrible con- 
 ceptions of the human mind. It is hard 
 to say whether they are most admirable 
 from their general effect, or the merit 
 of particular figures. . 
 
262 
 
 HISTOEY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. v. 
 
 96. Danby is an artist in the same 
 style as Martin, and of nearly equal 
 merit. He combines, in a most re- 
 markable manner, sublimity of general 
 effect with perfection of minute execu- 
 tion — the true secret of perfection in 
 painting. His noble pictures of the 
 Valley of the Upas Tree, of the Open- 
 ing of the Seventh Seal, and several 
 others of the same style, sufficiently 
 prove this. His fame, like that of 
 Martin, has been greatly extended by 
 the admirable engravings made from 
 them, which are so minute, and yet 
 powerful, that to many they almost 
 supersede the desire to possess the ori- 
 ginals. 
 
 97. If Landseer has struck out a new 
 vein — the pathetic in animals — CiiAX- 
 TREY has equally illustrated liimself by 
 opening a fresh mine — the pathetic in 
 sculpture. In this he is unrivalled — 
 " above all Greek, above all Eoman 
 fame." The group of the Niobe family 
 alone, in ancient sculpture, showed Avhat 
 powerful emotions might be awakened 
 in that way ; but Chantrey, in his monu- 
 mental pieces, worked it out with deep 
 feeling and admirable effect. Breaking 
 off at once from the strange mixture of 
 allegory and conceit with which the 
 barbarous taste of former ages in Eng- 
 land had deformed the glorious fane of 
 Westminster, he boldly struck into a 
 new line, and, with the materials of the 
 Simple, aimed at the expression of the 
 Pathetic. His success was prodigious 
 and decisive ; it raised him at once to the 
 very head of modern art in this depart- 
 ment. His Sleeping Children, in Lich- 
 field Cathedi'al, which first gave him his 
 colossal reputation, and several other 
 monumental pieces in the same style, 
 are unequalled in simplicity of thought 
 and beauty of expression. Many of his 
 busts — among which that of Sir Walter 
 Scott may be cited as the most admir- 
 able — are as perfect and characteristic 
 likenesses as evei* were made. If to 
 these powers and chaste designs this 
 great artist had united the knowledge 
 of drawing and command of the figure 
 which Phidias and the first masters of 
 antiquity possessed, he woiild perhaps 
 have made the greatest sculptor of mo- 
 dern times. But there he was obviously 
 
 deficient ; and perhaps no modern art- 
 ist, without the advantage of the Pa- 
 lestra, can ever hope to rival the artists 
 of antiquity in that resjoect. His entire 
 figures are generally stiff — sometimes 
 out of drawing ; the attitudes are often 
 constrained, the contour unpleasing, 
 the horses unnatural. His fame will 
 rest on his sepulchral pieces and por- 
 traits, not on his entire figures or public 
 monuments. 
 
 98. Flaxjian possessed a greater and 
 more varied imagination than Chantrey, 
 and more akin to the genius of ancient 
 sculpture. He did not aim so much at 
 the expression of one sentiment or feel- 
 ing, as at the delineation of incident or 
 event of a critical or interesting nature, 
 by means of the chisel ; and there his 
 powers were of a very high order. The 
 Metopes of the Parthenon, the contests 
 of the Athenians and Amazons, con- 
 stantly floated before his imagination ; 
 he was imbued with the very soul of 
 Homer. His designs in illustration of 
 the Iliad are the finest series of the 
 kind which modern Europe has pro- 
 duced. If English taste or spirit had 
 been adequate to the undertaking of a 
 national monument to commemorate 
 the deliverance of Great Britain from 
 Gallic invasion, he would have pro- 
 duced a frieee worthy of being placed 
 beside that of Phidias himself. His 
 conceptions were gi'and — his attitudes 
 varied and striking, his drawing truth- 
 ful and accurate. He was less per- 
 fect, however, \dt\\ the chisel than the 
 crayon ; his execution was not equal ta 
 his conception ; he could hardly work 
 out the beauty which he had imagined. 
 In single figures he often failed, and in 
 still life was sometimes inanimate ; it 
 was the vehemence and heat of battle 
 which kindled his imagination and in- 
 spired it with the heroic spirit. His 
 portraits of individuals, though often 
 striking likenesses, were not equal to 
 those of Chantrey ; his power consisted 
 in the representation of life |in action, 
 rather than character in repose. 
 
 99. Gibson is an English artist, long 
 settled in Italy, who has afforded de- 
 cisive evidence that the British soil is 
 capable of producing genius and taste, 
 when duly cultivated, equal to that of 
 
CHAP, v.] 
 
 HISTOEY OF EUROPE. 
 
 263 
 
 the most renowned modern nations. 
 He is imbued witli the soul of ancient 
 sculpture, and, especially in the repre- 
 sentation of the naked human form, 
 has approached nearer to its perfec- 
 tion than Canova, or perhajis any 
 modern artist. The ideal in its full 
 hcaiity shines forth in all his concep- 
 tions ; this in an especial manner 
 appeared in his tinted Venus in the 
 International Exhibition of 1862. In 
 large monuments in the open air, 
 ■where grandeur of conception is re- 
 quired, he is not equal to Marochetti ; 
 in the delineation of the human form 
 in violent action, inferior to Kist ; but 
 in the representation of the ideal, as 
 expressed in figures in a state of rc^wsc 
 — the very essence of Greek sculpture 
 • — he is superior to either, and, beyond 
 all doubt, at the head of all modern 
 art. The Council prize for sculpture 
 in the Great Exhibition of 1851 would 
 Iiave been given to this artist, had he 
 not been prevented from receiving it 
 "by being himself a juror in that class. 
 100. Albeit born in Italy, and bred 
 in France, Baeox Maiiochetti may 
 1)0 reckoned among British artists, and 
 is entitled to a very high place among 
 the highest of them. He has become 
 naturalised amongst us ; his genius has 
 adorned our chief cities ; and the stat- 
 ues of Eichard Coeur-de-Lion in Lon- 
 don, and the Duke of Wellington in 
 Glasgow, have given him an enduring 
 claim to the gi'atitiide of his acquired 
 countrjnnen. His genius is of the very 
 liighest order ; it is a combination of 
 that of Chantrey and Flaxman. In 
 the expression of character he is equal 
 to the former, in the delineation of in- 
 cident he rivals the latter. By com- 
 Lining a frieze in alto-relievo, in which 
 the figures are in action, round the 
 pedestal of his statues, with the figures 
 in an attitude of repose on its summit, 
 he has succeeded in exhibiting his 
 powers in both these lines in the same 
 monument. So European has his re- 
 putation become, that, shortly after 
 finishing his noble statue of Victor 
 Emmanuel at Turin, he was engaged, 
 at the same time^ in the monumental 
 figure of Napoleon for his tomb in the 
 luvalides at Paris, in the formation of 
 
 the equestrian statue of the Duke of 
 Wellington in Glasgow, and that of 
 the Duke of Orleans at Algiers. His 
 drawing is in general accurate ; he is 
 a perfect master of the anatomy of 
 horses, and his grouping is bold and 
 striking ; but in Avorking out the de- 
 tails of his figiu'es, especially such as 
 are naked, he is not equal to the recent 
 sculptors of the German school. The 
 Council prizes to foreign artists at tlie 
 Great Exhibition in London, in 1851, 
 were worthily awarded to him for his 
 noble statue of Richard Coeur-de-Lion, 
 along with Kist, for his inimitable 
 representation of the combat of the 
 Amazon and Tiger. 
 
 101. In one art, nearly akin to sculp- 
 ture, England at this period rose to the 
 very highest eminence. If the drama 
 is the efflorescence of epic pioetry, the 
 histrionic art is the efflorescence of 
 sculpture. 
 
 "But by the mighty actor brought, 
 Creation's brightest fancies come j 
 Verse ceases to be airy tliought, 
 And sculpture to be dumb." 
 
 In this noble and be\Aitching art, the 
 family of the Kembles stands pre- 
 eminent ; and Mks Siddoxs was the 
 founder of the honours of the house. 
 She was the Tragedy Queen person- 
 ified. Endowed by nature with a 
 commanding figure, a noble counte- 
 nance, and stately air, with jetty locks, 
 a majestic carriage, and sonorous voice, 
 she imited all that the poets had pre- 
 figured of the lofty in character — the 
 imposing in woman ; she was the Ju- 
 no of Homer personified. She had no- 
 thing tender in her disposition as she 
 came from the hand of Nature — little 
 of its expression in her countenance — 
 none of the elements which awaken it, 
 either in her character or person. She 
 was made, not to be loved, but wor- 
 shipped ; she stepped forth, not amidst 
 her adorers, but her subjects. She 
 could at times — in Juliet, Desdemona, 
 and Belvidera — awaken the very soul 
 of tenderness, and melt every specta- 
 tor by the most harrowing touches of 
 the pathetic ; but that only showed 
 the variety of her powers, and the 
 entire command she had acquired of 
 all branches of the histrionic art — it 
 
264 
 
 HISTOEY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. V, 
 
 did not Ijespeak the bent of her dispo- 
 sition. It was the majestic, the noble, 
 the devoted, the generous, Avhich suit- 
 ed her character ; and in the expres- 
 sion of such dispositions she was unri- 
 valled. In Queen Catherine, Constance, 
 Isabella, Mrs Haller, Lady Macbeth, 
 and similar characters, her powers 
 shone forth in their full lusti'e ; and 
 she produced an eifect upon every class 
 of spectators, which never has been, 
 and probably never Avill again be, 
 equalled on the English stage. 
 
 102. John Kemble, brother to Mrs 
 Siddons, aud the co-inheritor with her 
 of the genius of the family, was cast 
 in the same mould, and endowed with 
 the same spirit ; but he had not the 
 same marvellous combination of phy- 
 sical advantages. His countenance had 
 her Roman cast — his hair, in his best 
 days, was of the same hue as hers ; but 
 he had not the same stately air — the 
 same majestic figure. Seen off the 
 stage, his height seemed under the mid- 
 dle size ; and latterly he had a consider- 
 able stoop from the shoulders. His 
 voice, never j^owerful, was at times 
 husky, and plaintive rather than melo- 
 dious. But these disadvantages, which, 
 in a person less mentally gifted, Avould 
 have been serious, if not fatal, on the 
 stage, were overcome, and more than 
 overcome, by the ardour of his mind, 
 the energy of his dispositibn, the lofty 
 conceptions which filled his soul. In 
 these he w^as fully equal to his sister, 
 more highly gifted though she was, so 
 far as personal advantages are concern- 
 ed. His mind was filled Avith grand 
 ideas ; a Roman magnanimit}'' was the 
 characteristic of his disposition. He 
 had great powers for the pathetic ; but 
 it was not ordinary grief which he re- 
 presented ; — it was the Stranger mourn- 
 ing his faithless love — it was Cato pre- 
 ferring death to slavery — it was Bru- 
 tus learning, on the eve of Philippi, 
 the death of Porcia, which he repre- 
 sented with such admirable eflect. He 
 was learned, a great antiquarian, and 
 studied the dress, armour, and costume 
 of the olden time, with the most assidu- 
 ous care. His air was magnificent 
 when he walked the boards as Brutus 
 or Coriolanus, in the exact costume of 
 
 the conquering republic : the line of 
 the poet involuntaril}^ recurred to the 
 mind — 
 
 " Thou last of all the Romans, fare thee well! " 
 
 103. Miss F. Kemble belongs to ther 
 great histrionic house from which she 
 takes her name, and she has inherited 
 many of the great powers which nature- 
 had bestowed in such profusion on her 
 great relations. She had the same high 
 and aristocratic cast of features, the 
 same raven locks, the same versatile 
 powers, the same burning soul. These 
 are great gifts, and they secured to her 
 for a considerable period the lead on 
 the English stage, to which she seem- 
 ed to have a kind of hereditary right, 
 i^othing can be more surprising than- 
 the powers she displays in recitation. 
 It is not merely the reading of Shake- 
 speare, with all the emphasis which a. 
 kindred soul can displa}^, which charms 
 the audience, but the entire personi- 
 fication of the characters. An entire 
 play is not only recited but acted bv a 
 single performer. Great as her powers 
 are, however, in these particulars, she 
 has left a more durable monument of 
 her genius in her lyric pieces, some of 
 which, in the expression of deep feel- 
 ing, are equal to any similar odes in 
 the English language. 
 
 104. If Kemble overcame many per- 
 sonal disadvantages by the lofty tone of 
 his mind, an actress who rose in his 
 declining years, yet often appeared on 
 the boardswith him. Miss O'Neil, had 
 every gift of nature to aid a tender and 
 impassioned disposition in melting the 
 hearts of the spectators. A finely- 
 chiselled Grecian countenance, dark 
 glossy hair, a skin smooth as monu- 
 mental marble, and beautiful figure, 
 gave her every advantage which genius 
 could covet for awakening emotion ; 
 but to these were added the very men- 
 tal qualities which were fitted to bring 
 them forth in full lustre. She was not 
 majestic and queen-like, like ]\Irs Sid- 
 dons — nor stately and imposing, like 
 Kemble ; she was neither tlie tragedy 
 queen nor the impassioned sultana. 
 The tender woman was her real char- 
 acter, and there she never was sur- 
 passed. She had not the winning- 
 
CHAP, v.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 263^ 
 
 playfulness •which allures to love, nor 
 the fascinating coquetry which con- 
 firms it ; but none ever possessed in 
 a higher degree the bewitching ten- 
 derness which affection, when once 
 thoroughly awakened, evinces in its 
 moments of unreserve — or the heart- 
 rending pathos with which its crosses 
 and sutferings in this world are por- 
 trayed. In the last scenes of Juliet, 
 Belvidera, and Dcsdemona, nothing 
 could exceed the delicacy, power, and 
 pathos of her performance. She was 
 too young for Queen Catherine— too 
 innocent for Lady JMacbeth ; but in 
 Mrs Haller her powers, aided by her 
 Tjeauty, shone forth in the highest per- 
 fection ; and when she appeared on the 
 "boards of Covent Garden in that char- 
 acter with John Kemble, whose older 
 aspect and bent figure so Avell suited 
 her deserted husband as the Stranger, 
 a spectacle was exhibited such as no 
 one ever saw before, as no one will ever 
 see again, and which did not leave a 
 dry eye in the whole audience.* 
 
 105. Kean, although contemporary 
 with MissO Neil, was an artist of an en- 
 tirely different character. He had no 
 advantages of figure or air ; his stature 
 Avas short — his voice far from powerful 
 — his countenance, though very expres- 
 sive, not handsome. But all these defi- 
 ciencies were compensated, and more 
 than compensated, by the fire and en- 
 ergy of his mind. ** Sir, he is terribly in 
 earnest, " said John Kemble of him when 
 he first appeared ; and this was strictly 
 true, and Avas the secret of his success. 
 The vigour of his thoughts, the vehe- 
 mence of his delineation of passion, bore 
 down all opposition, and raised him to 
 the very highest eminence in the histri- 
 onic art. He Avas not so commanding 
 as Kemble in any one part, but he ex- 
 celled in a greater number of parts : 
 the former had more grandeur of con- 
 ception — the latter, more variety of 
 execution. He resembled rather Gar- 
 rick, who was equally admirable in 
 tragedy and comedy. He was pecu- 
 liarly happy in the delineation of vil- 
 
 * The author was fortunate enough to wit- 
 ness this admirable combination of artistic 
 power, and universal melting of the audience, 
 in Covent Garden in ISIS. 
 
 lany and dissimulation, or of the men- 
 tal conflicts of irresolute character. 
 None could excel him in the represen- 
 tation of lago or Richard III. ; few in 
 the conflicting passions of Jaffier or 
 Hamlet. He Avould have made a per- 
 fect Jaffier to Kemble's Pierre ; and if 
 Miss O'Neil had at the same timo 
 played Belvidera, future ages might 
 perhaps hope to rival, but assuredly 
 they never could excel, the spectacle. 
 Young in tragedy, ]\Iathcws and Listou 
 in comedy, Macready and JMadam ]\Iali- 
 bran in the legitimate drama and opera, 
 exerted their great talents to uphold 
 the stage, and for a time Avith consider- 
 able success. 
 
 106. If poAvers of the very highest 
 order united to fascinating beauty, and 
 the most lofty conceptions of the dig- 
 nity and moral objects of her art, 
 could have arrested the degradation of 
 the stage. Miss Helex Faucit Avould 
 have done so. But this highly-gifted 
 actress arose in the decline of the 
 drama, and even her genius was un- 
 equal to the task of supporting it in 
 the days of corrupted taste. She is a 
 combination of !Mrs Siddons and ]\liss 
 Neil ; AA'ith the majestic air and lofty 
 thoughts of the former, and as great 
 pathetic power, not less Avinning grace, 
 but far greater A^ariety than the latter. 
 Flexibility of power is her great char- 
 acteristic, A'Crsatility her distinguish- 
 ing feature. Like Garrick, she excels 
 equally in tragedy or elegant comedy : 
 it is hard to say Avhether her Rosalind 
 is the more charming, or her Lady 
 Teazle the more fascinating, her Belvi- 
 dera the more moving, or her Juliet 
 the more heart-rending. Dark raven 
 locks, a fine figure, and singularly ex- 
 pressiA-e countenance, bestoAV on her 
 all the advantages AA^hich, in addition 
 to the highest mental gifts, beauty 
 never ceases to confer on Avomaii ; and 
 a disposition marked by deep feeling, 
 alternately liA'ely and serious, sportive 
 and mournful, playful and contempla- 
 tiAT, giA'es her that command of the 
 expression of difterent emotions, and 
 that versatility of poAver, Avhich con- 
 stitute her great and unequalled charm. 
 She has the highest conception of the 
 dignity and moral capabilities of her 
 
266 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. v. 
 
 art, and by the uniform chasteness and 
 delicacy of her performances does the 
 utmost to iiphold it in its native 
 purity ; hut it is all in vain. Her lot 
 was cast in the days of the decline of 
 taste, and, notwithstanding her great 
 genius and celebrity, she is unable to 
 arrest it. She has risen to the very 
 highest rank in her profession, but that 
 profession in Great Britain is on the 
 verge of extinction. The drama here, 
 as elsewhere, has been in a certain 
 stage of society succeeded by the melo- 
 drama ; the theatre by the amphi- 
 theatre. Covent Garden has become 
 an Italian, Drury Lane an English, 
 opera-house. Singing and dancing, 
 stimulants to the senses, splendour for 
 the eye, have come to supplant the ex- 
 pression of passion, the display of ten- 
 derness, the grandeur of character. 
 
 107. Tliis progress has occurred so 
 uniformly in rich and luxurious na- 
 tions, tliat it may be considered as in- 
 evitable, and arising from some fixed 
 and universal principle in our nature. 
 Nor is it difficult to see what that prin- 
 ciple is. It arises from the gradual 
 rise, and ultimate ascendancy, of a 
 middle class in society, the minds in 
 which are not so cultivated as to 
 enable them to enjoy intellectual or 
 moral pleasures, while their senses are 
 sufficiently excited to render them fully 
 alive to the enjoyments of the physical. 
 Disguise it as you will, that is the real 
 principle. When that class, which is 
 ever a vast majority of mankind, be- 
 comes in the progress of opulence so 
 rich and powerful that its patronage 
 forms the main support of the theatre, 
 the ruin of the drama is inevitable and 
 at hand. This change was accelerated, 
 and perhaps prematurely brought on 
 in this country, hy the well-meant and 
 sincere, but unfortunate, prejudices of a 
 large and respectable portion of society, 
 which withdrew altogether from our 
 theati'es, from a natural feeling of in- 
 dignation at the immorality of some of 
 its dramas, and the licence of many of 
 its accessories. There can be no doubt 
 it would be well if these abuses could 
 be corrected ; and it would also be 
 well if corruption could be banished 
 from literature, vice from the world. 
 
 Unfortunately the one is not more 
 likely to happen than the other. Both 
 spring from the universal corruption 
 of our nature, and will cease when we 
 are no longer children of Adam, but 
 not till then. The only effect of this 
 portion of society withdrawing from 
 our theatres has been, that their direc- 
 tion has fallen into the hands of the 
 unscrupulous. Their support by the 
 profligate, and the licentious character 
 of their representations, have in conse- 
 quence been greatly increased. We 
 cannot destroy the "^ar.t of .^schylus, 
 Shakespeare, and Schiller, but we may 
 alter its character and degrade its di- 
 rection ; and the unhapx^y result of the 
 respectable classes withdrawing from 
 the theatre has been too often to con- 
 vert what might be at least occasion- 
 ally the school of virtue, into the aca- 
 demy of vice. -yf- 
 
 108. Society in the higher classes 
 underwent a great change in England 
 dming the year subsequent to the 
 peace, and from the same cause which 
 induced the decline of the drama. 
 During the twenty years that the war 
 had lasted, great fortunes had been, 
 made in agriculture, the law, trade, 
 and commerce ; and numbers of per- 
 sons had risen to affluence and dis- 
 tinction in society, many of whom had 
 been ennobled, who were not equal in 
 birth, manners, or refinement, to those 
 among whom they were now inti'o- 
 duced. The glorious victories and un- 
 paralleled successes of the army in the 
 latter years of the contest had led to 
 numerous chivalrous honours being be- 
 stowed on its veteran commanders, 
 some of Avhom, however gallant or able 
 in the field, were rather saddle than 
 carpet knights, and better fitted to 
 wrest standards from the enemy than 
 to van smiles from ladies fair in draw- 
 ing-rooms. From this intermixture of 
 society, and extensive introduction of 
 a new class into its highest circles, 
 arose another species of aristocracy — 
 that of fashion— self-elected, but uni- 
 versally bowed to, which deserves men- 
 tion even in a work of general history, 
 from the important political consequen- 
 ces by which it was followed. Beyond 
 all question, the Exclusive System was 
 
CHAP, v.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 26r 
 
 one of the remote causes of the Reform 
 Bill. 
 
 109. It was very natural, and not to 
 "be wondered at, that the ancient aris- 
 tocracy, who saw their hereditary and 
 long-acknowledged domain invaded by 
 a host of intruders, many of whom 
 were better provided with wealth or 
 achievements to dazzle than manners 
 or accomplishments to adorn it, should 
 endeavour to arrange themselves in an 
 interior and more limited circle, to 
 •which the only passport should be the 
 possession of some qualities which 
 added to the lustre or enhanced the 
 charms of society. It was like the 
 garrison of a fortified town, driven 
 from the external walls, taking refuge 
 Ijehind the ramparts of the citadel. 
 The beauty, charms, and accomplish- 
 anents of the ladies of high rank and 
 distinction, who were at the head of 
 this exclusive circle, soon rendered its 
 attraction universal, their own influ- 
 ence irresistible. Mere wealth was 
 wholly inadequate to procure admis- 
 sion to it ; rank even the highest, if 
 unaccompanied by other qualifications, 
 as little : the carriages of duchesses 
 were to be seen waiting at the doors of 
 the ladies patronesses of Almack's, 
 where marchionesses and countesses 
 presided over the distribution of the 
 tickets. The highest fame and con- 
 sideration in the other sex were equally 
 ■unable to resist the ascendant of 
 fashion — the Duke of "Wellington and 
 Lord Castlereagh bowed, perhaps not 
 ■unwdllingly, to its influence. Yet 
 even here the changes which recent 
 events had introduced into society 
 were conspicuous ; the ancient prero- 
 gatives of birth were often broken 
 through from the influence of modern 
 distinction, and genius often obtained 
 an entrance when hereditary rank was 
 excluded. Literature was speedily in- 
 fluenced by this new power which had 
 arisen in the metropolis, and a host of 
 novels appeared, professing to paint 
 the manners of the exclusives and the 
 penetralia of that inner shrine, of 
 w^hich so many were the devout wor- 
 shippers, but so few the initiated priest- 
 hood. j\leanwhile its attractions were 
 magnified, as is always the case, by the 
 
 imaginations of those who were shut out 
 from the envied circle ; and discontent 
 and jealousy spread widely through so- 
 ciety from the injustice thought to 
 have been committed upon many of its 
 members. The important political 
 effects of this feeling will abundantly 
 appear in the sequel of this history. 
 
 110. During the fifteen years which 
 immediately followed the peace, the 
 tendency became very apparent in 
 young men of rank to adopt Liberal 
 oj'jinions, and range themselves in po- 
 litics in opposition to the side which 
 their fathers had adopted. So far did 
 this tendency spread, that although 
 during the war fully two-thirds of tlie 
 House of Peers had been of the Con- 
 servative party, before the Reform Bill 
 was carried it had become doubtful 
 whether they had a majority. This 
 important change arose doubtless in 
 part from the natural tendency to re- 
 action in the human mind, against the 
 strong bias to monarchical opinions 
 which had been induced in Great Bri- 
 tain by the horrors of the Revolution 
 in the neighbouring kingdom. Oj)in- 
 ion had been bent so far one way, that 
 now, in the next generation, it in- 
 clined equally far the other. But it 
 was in a great degree also owing to the 
 influence of the foreign travelling 
 which at that period prevailed so 
 widely among the young men of this 
 country. Long shut out from it by 
 the Avar, the youth of Great Britain 
 rushed in crowds to the Continent on 
 the return of peace ; and, being in 
 great part recently escaped from col- 
 lege, or emancij)ated from parental 
 control, they were just at the age 
 when new ideas most easily find an 
 entrance into the mind, and foreign 
 influences are most powerful. "Where- 
 ever they went, except in Vienna, 
 they found Liberal opinions in a large 
 portion of the higher ranks in the as- 
 cendant, and the most agreeable houses 
 and charming society deeply imbued 
 with them. These influences, with 
 young men of ardent minds and gene- 
 rous dispositions, often proved irresist- 
 ible ; the new opinions only appeared 
 the more attractive because they were 
 new; and the sons of many sturdy 
 
268 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 jieers, whose fathers had spent their 
 lives in combating the democratic prin- 
 ciple, gave -way to its sway under the 
 influence of French liberalism or the 
 smiles of Italian beauty. 
 
 111. This tendency in so many of 
 the younger part of the English aris- 
 tocracy, at this period, was much 
 increased by the extraordinary attrac- 
 tions presented by the society in se- 
 veral of the leading Whig houses. 
 Holland House, Devonshire House, 
 Landsdowne House, Woburn Abbey, 
 and several other mansions of the 
 Whig nobility, both in the provinces 
 and the metropolis, collected a cu-cle, 
 and exhibited attractions, such as never 
 before had been seen in English so- 
 ciety. Intimate, from their rank and 
 their connections, with tlie highest 
 aristocratic families, they did not, like 
 the exclusives, confine their attentions 
 to their members alone. They sought 
 out and encouraged talent in every 
 department, whether at the bar, the 
 senate, in literature, science, or art. 
 They bestowed on the rising or emi- 
 nent in their department the liattery 
 which, of all others, is the most seduc- 
 tive to talent less favoured by birth or 
 fortune — a momentary equality with 
 those to whom, in both respects, she 
 had been most propitious. It was 
 very difficult for young men, whose 
 genius had raised them much above 
 the position in society in which they 
 had been born, to resist the attraction 
 of a society in which Lady Holland 
 and Sir James Mackintosh, IMacaulay 
 and Landseer, Jeffrey and Chantrey, 
 were to be met at dinner ; where 
 Moore sang his bewitching melodies 
 with still more bewitching right hon- 
 ourables in the evening, and the lustre 
 of the most splendid assemblies or balls 
 closed the scene of enchantment. In- 
 cessant Avere the efforts made by the 
 AVhig party, in the interval between 
 the close of the war and the passing of 
 the Reform Bill, to recruit their ranks 
 with the most rising young men, of 
 whatever side, by their attractions ; 
 and to the success Avith Avhich they 
 were attended, the progressive rise in 
 the strength of the Liberal party in 
 both Houses of Parliament, during 
 
 [chap. V, 
 
 that period, is in no slight degree to> 
 be ascribed. There are Helens and 
 Armidas in the political as well as the 
 military world ; and the charms of 
 genius, the smiles of beauty, hy with- 
 drawing the most stalwart knights 
 from their own side in the conflict, 
 have prolonged or decided many other 
 contests besides those around the walls 
 of Troy or the ramparts of Jerusalem. 
 
 112. The Tories at that period had 
 no corresponding attraction on the 
 other side to present ; and to the want 
 of this the decline in their numbers, 
 and desertion of m.any of their adlier- 
 ents in Parliament, is in some degree 
 to be ascribed. The same has long, 
 been observed in English societ)'" ; for 
 nearly a century, the principal houses 
 Avhere the aristocracy of rank and 
 talent Avere united liave been those of 
 the great Whig nobility. The reverse 
 has only begun to take place since the 
 Tories Avere excluded from poAver by 
 the effects of the Reform Bill, and they 
 have been driven by necessity to the 
 alliance AA'ith talent, from A\-hich their 
 opponents had derived so much bene- 
 ftt. The reason, being founded in the 
 nature of things, and the relative posi- 
 tion of the tAvo parties, Avill be found, 
 in similar circumstances, to be of per- 
 manent influence. The Tories being 
 the dominant part}', AA-hich had been 
 long in poAver, and rested on the sup- 
 port of the great bulk of the property 
 in the kingdom, AA-hich at that period 
 influenced the House of Commons 
 through the nomination boroughs, they 
 not only did not require the aid of 
 genius, but they Avere averse to it. 
 The great families wei'e apprehensive 
 of any unlicensed intruders on their 
 exclusive domain; the affluent despised 
 the pretensions of all but rank and 
 fortune. They dreaded the ascendant 
 of a riA^al power, AA-hich they feared 
 might one day Avrest from them their 
 preponderating influence. They de- 
 sired the aid of talent, but it AA'as of 
 talent entirely subserA'ient to their 
 vicAA's and devoted to their purposes — 
 that is, of talent emasculated and ren- 
 dered incapable of permanently direct- 
 ing or influencing mankind. 
 
 113. The Whigs had no such jeal- 
 
HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 260 
 
 oiisy or apprehensions. Out of power, 
 they had no fears of being compromis- 
 ed by the imprudence of their support- 
 ers ; in a minority in Parliament, they 
 "vvere fiiin to obtain the aid of any 
 power which could aid them in gain- 
 ing a majority. Thence a long-con- 
 tinued alliance between the powers of 
 intellect and the principles of liberal- 
 ism, of which the elfectswill amply be 
 unfolded in the sequel of this work. 
 Both parties felt the benefit of a union 
 into which both had been driven by 
 necessity, and each was likely to ex- 
 perience the advantage. But the alli- 
 ance was not destined to be perpetual ; 
 it ceased with the victory which their 
 united strength had achieved. The 
 revolution in France of 1830, in Eng- 
 land of 1832, dissolved it in both coun- 
 tries. The reaction of the strength of 
 mind against the despotism of numbers 
 then began on both sides of the Chan- 
 nel ; it Avas discovered that the tyran- 
 ny of numbers is even more oppressive 
 than that of a monarch or an aristocra- 
 cy. The cause of humanity and free- 
 dom was lost, if the powers of thought 
 liad followed the general bent, and 
 flattered the ruling multitude as much 
 as its sycophantish followers then did, 
 or courtiers had done kings in for- 
 mer days. But, in that crisis. Mind re- 
 mained true to itself, and reasserted 
 its original destiny as the leader of 
 mankind. Intellect ranged itself un- 
 der its real standard — that of the hu- 
 man race. Genius, long a stranger to 
 the cause of order, resumed her place 
 by its side ; she gave to a suffering 
 ^vhat she had refused to a ruling power. 
 It is this reaction of independence 
 against oppression — the power of mind 
 tigainst the tyranny of strength — the 
 force of intellect against the domina- 
 tion of numbers, which steadies the 
 march of human events, and renders 
 the misfortunes of one age the means 
 at once of instructing the wisdom, 
 correcting the errors, and mitigating 
 the sufferings,of those which succeed if. 
 114. But while this was undoubted- 
 ly true of the higher branches of litera- 
 ture, and the lofty intellects which 
 direct it, which are usually found in 
 direct opposition to the prevailing bent 
 
 of the age, it was very far from being 
 the case with the periodical press, 
 which, during the whole period of the 
 peace, Avas daily becoming more liberal 
 in its tendency, and requiring a more 
 entire direction of the public mind. 
 The interest of the war having ceased 
 — there being no longer battles or 
 sieges to recount, or alternate triumphs 
 and defeats to excite the public mind 
 — the intellectual craving of the nation 
 took a new direction ; and the void 
 was filled up by ceaseless discus- 
 sions on questions of domestic interest, 
 social progress, or organic change. 
 This change, which became conspicu- 
 ous at the same time, and from the 
 influence of the same causes both in 
 France and England, came ere long 
 to exercise a great, and, on some occa- 
 sions, decisive influence on the for- 
 tunes of the two countries. The talent 
 enlisted in the daily journals was very 
 great, on many occasions transcendent ; 
 and the influence of the ablest and 
 most popular of them soon became 
 such as to be well-nigh irresistible. 
 Scarcely any intellect, except those 
 strongly intrenched in the opposite 
 opinions, could withstand the argu- 
 ments which, day after day. the leading 
 popular journals were daily pouring 
 forth upon their yielding or assenting 
 readers. Several of the most import- 
 ant measures adopted during the pe- 
 riod embraced in this History, in par- 
 ticular the abandonment of the income- 
 tax, the mthdrawal of the Bill of Pains 
 and Penalties against Queen Caroline, 
 the Reform Bill, negro emancipation, 
 and the repeal of the Corn Laws, were 
 mainly brought about by the efforts 
 and ability of the daily press. Eight 
 or wrong, its influence, when united and 
 strongly exerted, proved irresistible. 
 
 115. It soon appeared, as it had done 
 in England during the fervour of the 
 Great Rebellion, and in France during 
 that of the Revolution, that nearly the 
 whole of this vast power came, during 
 periods of excitement, to be exerted 
 on the popular side. The reason is, 
 that the newspaper press is perhaps the 
 nearest approach that can be made to 
 the establishment of the sway of mere 
 numbers. The humblest shopkeeper 
 
270 
 
 HISTORY OF EUllOPE. 
 
 [chap. V. 
 
 or meclianic can take in, or at least 
 read, the public journals : the Duke 
 of AVellington, Sir AYalter Scott, llr 
 Canning, could do no more. Ever}^- 
 thing, therefore, in the patronage of 
 such literary effusions, came to depend 
 on mere numbers, irrespective alike of 
 station, fortune, wisdom, or talent ; 
 and it need not bo said, that in any 
 intelligent community, Avhen they are 
 allowed to choose for themselves, the 
 great majority of readers will incline 
 to those periodicals which advocate 
 their immediate interests, or are in ac- 
 cordance with their present wishes. 
 This, being founded on a lasting cause, 
 lias appeared in every age and country 
 where a free press has, even for a short 
 period, been established ; and so j)ow- 
 erful has its influence always been felt 
 to be, that the first step of every dicta- 
 torship, whether democratic or monar- 
 chical, has invariably been to close 
 its discussions by force, and put that 
 bridle in the mouths of their antagon- 
 ists which they had been so fain to 
 take out of their o\vn. 
 
 116. It is true, these newspaper ef- 
 fusions, however ably or powerfully 
 written, rarel)^, if ever, take a place in 
 2)ermanent literature : a remarkable 
 circumstance, when it is recollected 
 howmuch,after the lapse of twenty cen- 
 turies, the written speeches of Demos- 
 thenes and Cicero are still the subject 
 of admiration. The reason is, the 
 prevalence in them of the very quality 
 which renders them so powerful on 
 general opinion at the moment. They 
 are so deeply impregnated with its 
 passions, so exclusively directed to its 
 fleeting interests, that they become 
 distasteful to futm-e times. JNIany of 
 their predictions have been falsified by 
 the event ; many of their objects of 
 contention become valueless in the eyes 
 of posterity, from having ceased to be 
 the battle-ground of parties. Expe- 
 rience has chilled many anticipations 
 w'hich once were warm, dispelled many 
 illusions which once were general. 
 Even the essays in the quarterl)'- or 
 monthly periodicals, which treat, how- 
 ever ably, of the events of the moment, 
 are rarely, if ever, prized in future 
 times ; and the leading fame of their 
 
 authors rests almost entirely on their 
 literary and critical productions. Mr 
 Burke is perhaps the only example of 
 the contrary, and the reason is, that he 
 did precisely the reverse of what the 
 vast majority of the daily press always 
 do ; he dived into the depths of futuri- 
 ty, and contended, not along with, but 
 in direct opposition to, the general 
 opinions of the most numerous, if not 
 the most influential, party around him. 
 
 117. This circumstance of the ephe- 
 meral nature and vast present influ- 
 ence of the political discussions of 
 the daily or periodical press, and its 
 inability to contend with works of 
 thought and research in future times, 
 suggest an important, and, in some 
 respects, painful reflection. There can 
 be no doubt that the intellectual acti- 
 vity of every country is almost in the- 
 direct 2'>roportion of the multiplication 
 of its newspapers ; and as the great 
 majority of men in all ranks are occu- 
 pied, chiefly with objects of local or 
 passing interest, it probably never can 
 be otherwise. But is the intellectual 
 wisdom of a nation at any one time in 
 the same proportion as its intellectual 
 activity 1 and are the measures which 
 are forced upon government in freo 
 states during the fervour of the latter 
 such as the former would ultimately 
 approve ? This will hardly be affirmed 
 by the most zealous advocates for the 
 influence of public opinion. The rapid 
 decline in popularity of the essay's, in 
 which the most important political 
 changes have been canvassed or resist- 
 ed on either side, is a proof of the 
 reverse. AMiat, then, must be the 
 ultimate fate of a nation, in which im- 
 portant legislative or organic changes 
 are eftected during the influence of 
 such fleeting, but for the time irresist- 
 ible, excitement ; and lasting institu- 
 tions are founded on passions so evan- 
 escent, that no amount of talent can 
 render the works which produced them 
 palatable to the well-informed of fu- 
 ture times ? 
 
 118. There can be no doubt that 
 this is a most serious consideration ; 
 only rendered the more so, by the fact 
 which every day's experience proves, 
 that the object of journals generally is- 
 
CHAP. VI.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 271 
 
 to inflame, rather than calm, the pas- 
 sions of the moment ; and that the 
 side they adopt is always that which 
 falls in with the predisposition of the 
 majority of their readers. As these 
 predispositions are fully as often wrong 
 as right, but nevertheless the influence 
 of journals is generally adequate to 
 render them, wdien strongly excited, 
 altogether irresistible at the moment, 
 it is easy to see how unsteady and 
 dangerous the course of government, 
 under such ^ impulses, must become. 
 Like a ship tossed at sea, which, in 
 violent gusts, no longer obeys the helm, 
 the State is perpetually exposed to 
 the dangers of shipwTeck from causes 
 against which no human foresight can 
 provide. Nor are these dangers in the 
 least lessened, but rather the reverse, 
 
 by the obvious fact, that such periods 
 of fervour cannot be often repeated; 
 that the "steam," in common phrase, 
 "cannot always be got up," and that 
 the result of undue excitement at ono 
 period is often neglect and indiff"erence 
 at another. There can be no doubt 
 that this is true ; but it only alters 
 the danger, it does not remove it. 
 There is not less peril in the stagna- 
 tion wdiich precedes despotism than 
 in the storm which threatens ship- 
 wreck. Reason, indeed, will ever in 
 the end regain its sway, but it may bo 
 not before irreparable and fatal changes 
 have been made ; and possibly the only 
 bridle which can restrain mankind in 
 moments of fervour is cannon, the last 
 logic of Kings , 
 monitress of i^ature. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 IIISTOEY OP FEAXCE FROM THE COUP d'eTAT OF SEPTEMBER 5, 1816, TO 
 THE CREATION OF PEERS IX 1819. 
 
 1. The coup d'etat of 5th February 
 1816, which dissolved the Chamber of 
 Deputies, and changed the electoral 
 system, is generally considered as the 
 commencement of constitutional go- 
 vernment in France, because it altered 
 the franchise, and remodelled the po- 
 j)ular branch of the legislature, in con- 
 formity with the wish of the popular 
 party, and gave them the means, by 
 the annual retirement of a fifth of its 
 members, and election of others in 
 their stead, of permanently bringing 
 the legislature into harmony Avith the 
 majority of the electors. As such, it 
 has received the most unqualified eu- 
 logium from the whole Liberal party 
 of France. It is true, the number of 
 electors, compared with the popula- 
 tion, was small ; it did not amount to 
 100,000, out of 30,000,000. But this 
 was immaterial. It is the class from 
 
 which the electors who return an as- 
 sembly vested with supreme power are- 
 taken, which is the decisive circum- 
 stance. A democratic oligarchy of elec- 
 tors can return an assembly which will 
 work out the purposes of Republican- 
 ism as effectually as the most numer- 
 ous body of constituents : sixty thou- 
 sand Liberals, intrusted A\dth the elec- 
 tion of the majority of the legislature, 
 can mould the measures of its govern- 
 ment to their will just as efl^ectually 
 as six millions, Nay, they are likely 
 to do so more effectually, because, be- 
 ing a smaller body, they are more com- 
 pact, more docile to the directions of 
 their chiefs, and more likely to be 
 swayed by personal ambition or class 
 interests, than a larger and more he- 
 terogeneous multitude. 
 
 2. The suffrage in France being 
 founded on one basis only — viz., the 
 
£72 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. VI. 
 
 payment of 300 francs direct taxes to 
 Government — the direction of the le- 
 gislature fell necessarily into the hands 
 •of a majority of that single class of 
 society. This majority, it was known 
 from the tax-office returns, was to be 
 found in persons paying from 300 to 
 500 francs a-year of taxes (from £12 
 to £20), and they formed, perhaps, the 
 most dangerous class in the commun- 
 ity, if lasting measures were looked to. 
 They were not so likely to adopt vio- 
 lent measures, in the outset, as a body 
 of electors embracing the inferior 
 classes of society ; but they were more 
 likely to follow them out to the end : 
 they were less hasty, but more perse- 
 vering. So heavy was the weight of 
 direct taxes in France, that the income 
 of persons paying direct taxes to this 
 amount was from £100 to £150 a-year; 
 and this class was invested with the 
 entire direction of the State. They 
 formed sixty out of the eighty or 
 ninety thousand electors in France. 
 A legislature, the majority of which 
 was composed of persons elected by 
 such a body of small proprietors, was 
 not so likely to be threatening to pro- 
 perty as to power ; there was no dan- 
 ger of their not attending to their own 
 interests, but great risk that they 
 would be regardless of the interests of 
 others. The risk was not that they 
 would support measures subversive of 
 property, but that they would pursue 
 a system which would be dangerous to 
 the throne, and gratify their own am- 
 bition by establishmg a republican 
 form of government, in which they 
 might divide the offices and emolu- 
 ments among themselves. This ac- 
 cordingly was the result which actu- 
 ally took place ; and the history of 
 France during the next years is no- 
 thing but that of a continual struggle 
 «f the Crown with the Legislature 
 which, by a violent stretch of the 
 royal prerogative, itself had called into 
 existence. 
 
 3. Louis XVIII. had given a cordial 
 assent to the ordinances of September 
 b, 1816.* He was more apprehensive 
 
 * " Un cles momens les plus heureiix de 
 ma vie a ete celui qui a suive la visite de 
 I'Empereur de Eussie en 1S16. Non seule- 
 
 at that period of the Ultra-Royalists 
 than of the Democrats ; he dreaded the 
 Count d'Artois and the " Pavilion Mar- 
 san " more than either the Jacobins or 
 the Napoleonists. Everything, how- 
 ever, depended on the elections; for, 
 as the Government had now unre 
 servedly thrown itself upon the Liber- 
 al pai'ty, and entirely broken with the 
 Royalists, if a Jacobin Chamber was 
 returned it might at once lead to the 
 overthrow of the monarchy. Tho 
 greatest pains, accordingly, were taken 
 to secure returns which might meet 
 the views of the Government ; and the 
 King, botl,i'in circulars to the prefects, 
 and in verbal audiences given to the 
 heads of the electoral colleges, did 
 his utmost /to impress his views upon 
 them, and, by their means, upon the 
 electors. Concord and unanimity was 
 the prevailing idea in the royal mind ; 
 he thought that the passions of the 
 Revolution might be expected to sub- 
 side when its convulsions had ceased, 
 as the waves of the ocean subside 
 after the storm has ceased to blow. 
 " France," said he, to one of the elec- 
 toral presidents, M. Ravez, "has un- 
 happily undergone too many convul- 
 sions ; it has need of repose. To enjoy 
 it, what is required is a body of repre- 
 sentatives attached to my person, to 
 the cause of legitimacy, and to the 
 charter ; but, above all, moderate and 
 prudent. The department of the Gir- 
 onde, to which you belong, has already 
 given me many proofs of its attach- 
 ment and fidelity : I expect fresh ones 
 in the elections about to take place. 
 Tell them that it is a good old man 
 who only asks them to make his last 
 days happy for the felicity of his chil- 
 dren." 
 
 4. The Royalists, sensible of the dan- 
 gerwhichimpendedover the monarchy, 
 from the recent change in the Elec- 
 toral Law, and that everything de- 
 pended on the result of the elections, 
 
 ment 11 etait entre dans toutes mcs pensees, 
 mais il me les avait dites avant que j'eusse 
 eu le temps de les emettre. II avait haute- 
 inent approuve le systeme de gouvernement 
 et la ligne de conduite que je suis, depuis 
 que .I'e me suis determine a rendre I'ordon- 
 nance du 5 Septembre. " — MS. de Louis XVIII : 
 CAi':iFiGnjE, iv. S69. 
 
1816. 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 273 
 
 made the greatest efforts to secure a 
 majority iu their favour. They formed 
 at that period a very jiowerful body ; 
 and acting, as they did, under the 
 directions of a central committee of 
 direction in Paris, their exertions were 
 the more likely to be attended with suc- 
 cess. In the south and west of France 
 they were all-powerful, both from the 
 feeling of the ])eople, which was there 
 monarchical to excess, and from nearly 
 the whole official appointments having 
 fallen into their hands during the 
 period when the Count d'Artois, on 
 the suggestion of the local Royalist 
 committees, filled them up with the 
 most determined men of their party. 
 Secret societies were formed, which 
 powerfully contributed to aid the same 
 cause, and which Government in vain 
 endeavoured to suppress. So strongly 
 did general opinion, even in the towns, 
 at this period run in favour of the 
 Royalists, that the Democratic party 
 everywhere took refuge under the 
 wings of the ministerialists ; and the 
 strange spectacle was exhibited of the 
 Government functionaries generally 
 supporting candidates who were avow- 
 edly banded together to overturn the 
 throne ! So true it is that the great- 
 est and most durable popular revolu- 
 tions receive their first impulse, in 
 many cases, from the efforts of the 
 executive. The reason is not apparent 
 at first sight, but when once stated, 
 its force becomes very apparent. The 
 Government for a time allies itself with 
 the democrats, because, for a brief sea- 
 son, this relieves it of its opponents, 
 and adjourns the inevitable conflict to 
 future time. 
 
 5. The ordinance of 5th September, 
 ■which divided the electoral colleges 
 into tAvo parts — the colleges of arron- 
 dissement, and the colleges of depart- 
 ment — gave great advantages to the 
 ministerial party. It was difficult to 
 suppose that the Government would 
 not obtain one or two names in each 
 list of candidates, and that they should 
 not have sufficient influence to get their 
 candidates nominated for the colleges 
 of department ; and this accordingly, 
 in a great many instances, took place. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 Nevertheless, so strong was the Royalist 
 feeling in the majority of the rural dis- 
 tricts, and so well organised and ably 
 conducted their system of opposition, 
 that in a great many instances they 
 succeeded in throwing out the minis- 
 terial candidate. Nearly the whole 
 leaders of the Royalist party re-entered 
 the Chamber by the result of the elec- 
 tions, many of whom the ministers 
 would have gladly dispensed with ; and 
 even in Paris and the great towns, 
 where the ministerial action was the 
 most powerful and most strongly ex- 
 erted, several of the same extreme 
 party were returned. If the Chamber 
 had been retained at its former number 
 of 394, the majority would still have 
 been Royalist, and it was turned the 
 other way only by the great reduction 
 of its members to 260. So skilfully 
 had this reduction been effected, and 
 so well founded the local information 
 on which it was i-ested, that the dis- 
 franchised places and classes of electors 
 were for the most part those which were 
 likely to return the most determined 
 Royalists ; and those on the Liberal 
 side were, comparatively speaking, left 
 untouched. The result Avas, that the 
 ministerialists obtained a majority in 
 the new Chamber, though not so consi- 
 derable as they had expected. Those of 
 the old Chamber re-elected were 174 : 
 86 w'ere new members, and 115 of the 
 former legislature were thrown out, 
 either by being defeated at the poll, or 
 from having not attained the legal age 
 of forty years. Among the latter was 
 M. Decazes, whom the King in con- 
 sequence determined to raise to the 
 peerage. 
 
 6. Mtevthecoiip d'etatof 5th Septem- 
 ber, the cabinet was completely united. 
 The gi-eatest efforts were made to sus- 
 tain the revenue, and, by incredible 
 exertions, all the stipulated payments 
 to the Allied sovereigns and the public 
 creditors were made good ; but it was 
 done by such sacrifices as demonstrated 
 the extreme financial emban-assment 
 of the country. The Five per Cents 
 were at 57 and 58 ; the exchequer bills 
 were still negotiable, but at a very 
 heavy discount. It was by means of 
 
274 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 loans, however, that the Treasury obli- 
 gations could alone be made good, and 
 the capitalists of Paris declared them- 
 selves unequal to the relief of the ne- 
 cessities of Government. In this ex- 
 tremity, recourse was had to foreign 
 assistance ; and, after great difficulties, 
 a large loan was concluded with Messrs 
 Hope and Baring, by which the imme- 
 diate requirements of Government were 
 obtained, though at a heavy rate of 
 interest. The cabinet unanimously 
 agreed on the necessity of maintaining 
 the laws restraining the liberty of the 
 press, and continuing the Prevotal 
 Courts ; but instructions were sent to 
 the presidents and prefects to diminish 
 the prosecutions, and lessen the severity 
 of punishments. At the same time, 
 a more liberal system was established 
 in the army. The Duke de Feltre re- 
 ceived instructions to be more indul- 
 gent in the granting of commissions ; 
 several were bestowed on the relatives 
 of Liberal leaders ; and the half-pay 
 officers, recently the object of so much 
 jealousy, were cautiously readmitted to 
 the ranks. The princes of the blood 
 vied with each other in endeavours to 
 conciliate this important branch of the 
 public service ; and frequent reviews, 
 and periodical visits to the barracks 
 and hospitals of the ti'oops, revealed 
 their anxious desire to conciliate the 
 affections of the men. A general order 
 from the minister at war directed that 
 each legion in succession should be 
 called to the service of the capital ; 
 while the utmost pains were bestowed 
 on the composition, both in officers 
 and men, of the Guards. Everything 
 indicated that the Government was 
 preparing for the time when the allied 
 troops, which occupied the frontier for- 
 tresses, were to be ^^'ithdrawn, and the 
 Government was to be left to rest alone 
 on the loyalty of the people, and fidel- 
 ity of the army. 
 
 7. But in the midst of these useful 
 and honourable labours, a new diffi- 
 culty arose, which was the more hard 
 to guard against that it arose not from 
 the act of man, but the direct dispen- 
 sation of the Almighty. The summer 
 and autumn of 1816, beyond all prece- 
 dent cold and rainy in all the northern 
 
 parts of Europe, were in an especial 
 manner unpropitious in France. Near- 
 ly incessant rains during the whole of 
 July, August, and September, entirely 
 flooded the low grounds adjoining the 
 rivers, and almost destroyed the crops 
 on their l?anks : and, even in dry situa- 
 tions, the harvest was essentially in- 
 jured by the long-continued wet. But 
 for the potato crop, which fortunately 
 in that year was very abundant, famine 
 with all its horrors would have been 
 superadded to the other ills of France. 
 As it was, prices rose rapidly ; and the 
 holders of grain, anticipating a still 
 greater advance of prices, kept up their 
 stocks, and supplies in very insufficient 
 quantities were brought to market M. 
 Laine, upon whom, as minister of the 
 interior, the duty of facing this dread- 
 ful calamity principally fell, did his 
 utmost to assuage the public distress, 
 and granaries were established in the 
 most distressed parts of the kingdom, 
 where corn was sold by Government 
 to the most destitute of the people at a 
 reduced price. But, in spite of every- 
 thing that could be done, the suffering 
 was extreme : prices rose to more than 
 double their average level, and in many 
 parts of the kingdom numbers perished 
 of actual want. In these distressing 
 circumstances the beneficence of the 
 King and the royal family shone forth 
 with the brightest lustre : then- names 
 were to be seen at the head of all sub- 
 scriptions in every part of the country ; 
 and such was their unwearied bene- 
 volence that it might have softened 
 down many asperities, and extinguish- 
 ed many animosities, if, in a country 
 heated by the fervour of a revolution, 
 anything could have this effect but the 
 gratification of its passions. 
 
 8. The Chamber met on the 5th Oc- 
 tober, and the opening speech of the 
 King was deeply tinged by the dis- 
 astrous circumstances in which the 
 country was placed. ' ' Painfully affect- 
 ed," said he, *' by the privations which 
 the people are suffering in consequence 
 of the inclemency of the season, the 
 King experiences still gi-eater regret at 
 being unable to hold out any prospect 
 of an alle\dation of the public burdens. 
 He feels that the first necessity of the 
 
1816.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 275 
 
 people is economy, and he has endea- 
 voured to introduce it into every branch 
 of the public service. My family and 
 myself will make the same sacrifices as 
 last year ; and to enable me to conduct 
 the Government, I rely on your attach- 
 ment to my person and to our common 
 country. " He concluded by expressing 
 his firm determination to uphold the 
 Charter, and never permit the smallest 
 infringement of its fundamental pro- 
 visions. "My ordinance of 5th Sep- 
 tember 1816 says it sufficiently." 
 
 9. "WTien the Chamber was consti- 
 tuted and proceeded to business, the 
 vast change made in the representa- 
 tion, effected by the ordinance of 5th 
 September, was at once apparent. The 
 Royalists, who composed so large a 
 majority in the former Chamber, were 
 now reduced to a minority of eighty 
 members, who, however, were formid- 
 able, as all similarly constituted bodies 
 are in a deliberative assembly, from 
 their unanimity of opinion, their per- 
 fect discipline, and docile obedience to 
 the voice of their chief. Having lost 
 the command of the Chamber and the 
 direction of the Government, they had 
 recourse to the people, and on every 
 occasion advanced the opinions and 
 supported the measures which were 
 most likely to insure their popularity, 
 even \nth. the opponents of their ge- 
 neral system of government. Their 
 leaders in the Assembly were M. de 
 Villele and M. de Corbiere, and none 
 could be more skilful in the direction 
 of such an opposition ; but it was not 
 there that their real strength was to be 
 found. The chief resource of the party 
 was the press ; its effective chiefs the 
 great writers. M. de Chateaubriand 
 and M. de Frioce powerfully support- 
 ed their side by the united powers of 
 genius and eloquence ; and so powerful 
 are these weapons, and so overjoyed 
 the people to see them ever ranged on 
 their side against the Government, that 
 they very soon acquired great popular- 
 ity, and an influence in the Assembly 
 altogether disproportioned to their nu- 
 merical strength. 
 
 10, The Centre, as it is called in 
 French parliamentary language, was 
 the most numerous and important 
 
 body in the Assembly, because, by its 
 inclining to the side of Ministers or 
 the Opposition, it at once determined 
 the measures of Government and the 
 fate of administration. It was divided 
 into the Centre Droit and the Centre 
 Gauche, according as its members in- 
 clined to the extreme royalist or de- 
 mocratic opinions ; but, in general, it 
 supported the measures of Govern- 
 ment, partly from patriotic feelings, 
 partly from an instinctive dread of 
 any decisive measures which might be 
 attended with important changes. M. 
 Laine was the most distinguished man 
 of this party ; and to insure its sup- 
 port, the chief members of Adminis- 
 tration, among whom may be reckon- 
 ed MM. Pasquier and Bignon, besides 
 M. Laine himself, were taken from it. 
 The Centre Gauche was chiefly distin- 
 guished by M. Camille Jourdan and 
 M, de Courvoisier, whose abilities and 
 eloquence caused them always to be 
 listened to in the Assembly, though 
 their practical acqiiaintance withbusi- 
 ]iess was not such as to cause their 
 being taken into the Administration. 
 In the extreme Left, which mustered 
 about sixty votes, M. Lafitte, a gi-eat 
 banker in Paris, who afterwards be- 
 came celebrated, and M. Royer d'Ar- 
 genson, were the acknowledged lead- 
 ers ; but such was now the strange 
 confusion of parties in the Assembl}'-, 
 that they were much more frequently 
 acting in support of ^Ministers than in 
 alliance with the royalist Opposition. 
 The different parties came to a trial of 
 strength on the choice of a president. 
 MM. de Serres and Pasquier, who 
 were supported by the Ministers and 
 Centre, had respectively 112 and 102 
 votes ; while the Royalist candidate, 
 M. de Corbiere, had only 76. 
 
 11. The first important legislative 
 measure of the session was an act 
 brought forward by Ministers to legal- 
 ise the preceding election, and obtain 
 the sanction of all the branches of the 
 legislature to the royal ordinance of 
 5th September 1816. There was an 
 obvious absurdity in an assembly, 
 elected by a royal ordinance, proceed- 
 ing, as its first step, to pass an act 
 legalising its own apx>ointment, and 
 
276 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. vr. 
 
 declaring it to be the law in future ; 
 but so accustomed were the French to 
 coiqys d'etat that they saw nothing 
 incongruous in this proceeding — and 
 perhajis, in the circumstances, when a 
 stretch on the part of the CroA^Ti had 
 been committed, there was no other 
 way of getting back to legal measures. 
 To support the ministerial measures, 
 returns were obtained from the diffe- 
 rent departments of tlie number of 
 persons entitled to the franchise under 
 the ordinance of 5th September, and 
 they amounted to 90,878, paying 300 
 francs of direct taxes ; and 16,052, 
 paying 1000 francs yearly. It was 
 evident, therefore, that though the 
 suffrage was very limited in point of 
 numbers, yet the majority of that 
 number was decidedly democratic ; for 
 out of the whole 90,000, no less than 
 60,000 were persons paying from 300 
 to 500 francs of direct taxes yearly 
 (£12 to £20), which corresponds to 
 income of from 2500 to 4000 francs 
 (from £100 to £160); being, perhaps, 
 the most democratic portion of the 
 community. The ministerial project 
 was, that every Frenchman aged thirty 
 years, and paying 300 francs yearly of 
 direct taxes, should be entitled to the 
 suffrage ; that the prefect was to pre- 
 pare the electoral lists, and decide ap- 
 peals against his judgment in his coun- 
 cil, the courts of law determining such 
 as depended on legal questions. Every 
 
 spa 
 )lle 
 
 college, which was to meet in the 
 chief place of its bounds : it was to sit 
 ten days to receive the votes, and to 
 be presided over by a chairman ap- 
 pointed by the King ; and if more than 
 600 electors required to vote at any 
 college, it was to be divided into two 
 or more sections. The debates on this 
 project began on the 26th December, 
 and elicited arguments of the highest 
 historical importance. 
 
 12. On the part of the Government 
 it was urged by M. Royer-Collard, M. 
 de Serres, and ^M. Camille Jourdan : 
 *'The ruling principle of this project 
 is to bring the electoral law into har- 
 mony, as nearly as possible, with the 
 charter : unless we adhere to that 
 landmark, we have no chance of avoid- 
 
 ing being lost in a sea of speculation 
 and innovation. Now, the charter 
 leaves no doubt on the matter ; it ex- 
 pressly declares that the electoral right 
 shall be bestowed on every Frenchman 
 paying 300 francs of direct taxes ; that 
 the elections shall be direct, and by 
 one degree only. The double election 
 — first by anondissement, and then by 
 department— is infinitely more com- 
 plicated, and exposed to the action of 
 corruption and intrigue. It is prepos- 
 terous to suppose that a law which 
 confines the suffrage to 90,000 out of 
 30,000,000 of inhabitants, is too demo- 
 cratic. At the same time, the elec- 
 tors by department will be sufficiently 
 numerous to render bribery or undue 
 influence impossible. In every point 
 of view, therefore, the project is both 
 safe and expedient — protective to 
 liberty, and yet not endangering to 
 monarchy. 
 
 13. " Had the charter stopped short 
 with lajang down certain vague prin- 
 ciples for the elections, some difficulty 
 might have been experienced in the 
 details of any measure intended to 
 carry it into effect ; but the charter 
 has relieved us of this difficulty — for 
 it has pronounced on all questions 
 that can arise in their fullest extent. 
 It has declared that there shall be 
 deputies by department, and neither 
 more nor less ; that every Frenchman 
 paying 300 francs a-year, of direct 
 taxes, shall be admitted to the fran- 
 chise. These are precisely the bases 
 of the proposed law. The Elective 
 Chamber is intended to represent the 
 nation, its opinions, and its wants ; 
 and for that very reason, all those who 
 fulfil the prescribed conditions are ipso 
 facto electors. Nothing is said of pri- 
 mary elections, for this plain reason, 
 that they are not mentioned in the 
 charter. It has wisely closed that 
 field of discord, so fatally ensanguined 
 during so many years. The projected, 
 law, then, is the complement of the 
 charter : it carries into execution, and. 
 brings out in detail, the principles 
 which it has announced. It is its 
 principle, its life, its movement ; it 
 should influence all our destinies. If 
 a wider field were opened for our dis- 
 
1817.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 277 
 
 ciission — if we were not chained to the 
 charter— much might, perhaps, be ad- 
 vanced in favour of a double degree of 
 election, and the admission of an in- 
 ferior number. The only danger of 
 the proposed system is, that it reposes 
 on too limited a base — that it does not 
 sufficiently secure the interests of the 
 masses. But to object to it on the 
 ground of its not being sufficiently 
 protective of the monarchy is, of ail 
 unfounded objections, the most unten- 
 able." 
 
 14. To these arguments, which suf- 
 ficiently demonstrated that the Centre 
 was enlisted on the side of the minis- 
 terial measure, it was replied on the 
 part of the Royalists, by JI. Villele, 
 M. Decazes, and M. de Castelbajac : 
 "It is an entire mistake to suppose 
 that the circumstance of the electoral 
 suffrage being confined to persons pay- 
 ing 300 francs of direct taxes is a suf- 
 ficient security for the monarchy. The 
 elections will be determined by the 
 persons paying from 300 to 500 francs 
 of direct, taxes annually (£12 to £20), 
 and they are the most democratic por- 
 tion of the communit}^ The great 
 proprietors will have no influence ; the 
 immense liody of the peasant proprie- 
 tors and working classes as little. Is 
 this a proper representation of a coun- 
 try at once agi'icultural and commer- 
 cial ; rich in great names and historical 
 recollections — richer still in modern 
 energy and glorj' ? Such a law, in- 
 stead of being imposed upon us by the 
 charter, is only fit to destroy the in- 
 stitutions and the guarantees which it 
 has given us. The charter has not 
 intrusted the exclusive nomination of 
 the legislature to a majority of electors 
 paying from 300 to 500 francs of direct 
 taxes, and yet that is the effect of this 
 law. It virtually confines the suffrage 
 to one class of society ; and as it is 
 necessarily the most numerous, it be- 
 comes master of the State, and may 
 let in anarchy when it pleases. To 
 obviate such dangers, it is necessary 
 to establish an electoral system more 
 extensive than that W'hich is proposed. 
 The King might, w'ithout danger, and 
 in policy should, permit the citizens 
 to group themselves around such in- 
 
 terests as they have in common. Thus 
 there should be established under the 
 monarchy, councils of secondary ad- 
 ministration, corporations, chambers 
 of commerce, legal bodies, and frater- 
 nities of men of letters, and of all 
 sorts. All these bodies should have 
 representatives in the Chamber of De- 
 puties, and not merely a single class 
 of society. 
 
 15. " Five-and-twenty years of re- 
 volution have influenced our destinies 
 too powerfully not to render innova- 
 tion repugnant when it is not abso- 
 lutely necessary. We have gone on 
 very well hitherto with the elections 
 by double degrees ; we owe to it the 
 Chamber of 1814, Avhich, on the return 
 of our legitimate monarchs, showed it- 
 self so favourable to the sentiments of 
 France ; to it the Chamber of 1815, 
 now the object of such undeserved 
 calumny. The prefects, w^ho have suc- 
 ceeded by their influence in removing 
 as candidates the members of 1815, are 
 the Avorst enemies of the monarchy. 
 Party in a monarchy is necessarily ad- 
 verse to the King ; no absurdity can. 
 be so gi'eat as is implied in the words, 
 'the Royalist Part]).' What ! under 
 the government of a king, can there 
 be a royalist party ? It is by such de- 
 nominations that the Avay is prepared 
 for revolution. We are called * Ultra, 
 Royalists :' do the Liberals hope by 
 these words to efface the bloodshed, 
 the services rendered, the heroic devo- 
 tion ? The ideas of monarchy, and of 
 the influence of families, are insepar- 
 able : and every electoral law Avhich 
 does not rest upon their combined 
 action w^ll speedily become a weapon 
 in the hands of the factious for the 
 overthrow of the monarchy. All that 
 we contend for is, to avoid the opera- 
 tion of a law w^hich would deliver over 
 the Chamber of Deputies, and with it 
 the entire government of France, to a 
 class of Frenchmen from whom, we con- 
 tend, the electors should not be exclu- 
 sively chosen. 
 
 16. " The proposed law is, in truth, 
 more dangerous than the wildest con- 
 ceptions of the Constituent Assembly. 
 It receives no support from the char- 
 ter. The charter merely says that 
 
278 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. VI. 
 
 ' the French, aged thu-ty years, and 
 paying 300 francs of direct contribu- 
 tions, shall concur in the election of the 
 deputies ; ' the present law says that 
 they alone shall name them. The 
 whole question lies there : the charter 
 says these persons shall form one class 
 of the electors ; the law says they shall 
 constitute the sole class. The pretend- 
 ed worshippers of the charter, there- 
 fore, have reserved for themselves the 
 privilege of altering and modifying it 
 according to their interest or inclina- 
 tion, or their insatiable thirst for po- 
 pularity. The unity of the College of 
 Electors adds another scourge to that 
 of the unity of the direct representa- 
 tion. "We shall have armies of ten or 
 twelve thousand electors assemble in a 
 single great city for their votes — armies 
 only a little less numerous than those 
 with which Gustavus Adolphus shook 
 the Austrian throne. By removing 
 the higher college, and reducing eveiy- 
 thing to a single college, you will over- 
 throw the strongest barrier which 
 Napoleon had constructed against the 
 revolutionary spirit. Can the mon- 
 archy dispense with the support of the 
 great proprietors ? and how is it to be 
 exercised in the midst of a crowd of 
 uniform electors, paying 300 francs 
 each, and enjoying, at an average, not 
 4000 francs a-year each ? If the great 
 proprietors are not permitted to vote 
 in a college apart by themselves, they 
 will be vii'tually disfranchised, and 
 everything governed by a mob of small 
 proprietors. What can be the conse- 
 quence of this but new advances, fresh 
 spoliations, and the ultimate overthrow 
 of the monarchy? " 
 
 17. Various amendments were pro- 
 posed in the Chamber, and the law be- 
 came the subject of warm and able dis- 
 cussions in the public press, and in a 
 host of pam2)hlets on either side. M. de 
 Serres, one of the ablest men on the 
 Royalist side, proposed an amendment, 
 the object of which was, when there 
 was only one member for a department, 
 to establish a separate college for the 
 urban and the rural electors. The 
 discussion continued extremely ani- 
 mated, both in the Chamber of Depu- 
 ties and in the public journals, during 
 
 the whole of January ; and the King 
 every day became more infatuated in 
 favour of his system of a uniform fran- 
 cliise, founded on the payment of 300 
 francs. As the majority of the Chamber 
 of Deputies were known to be decisively 
 in favour of the ministerial measure, 
 without any amendment, M. Decazes 
 took advantage of this delay to secure 
 a majority in the Chamber of Peers. 
 The King warmly seconded him in 
 this attempt : he spoke constantly in 
 favour of the uniform suffrage ; and 
 when an opposition of opinion appear- 
 ed, he scrupled not to exert all his 
 private influence, and even to make 
 use of entreaties, to secure even a 
 single vote. At length, by these means, 
 and the most imscrupulous exertion of 
 the whole influence of the Crown, the 
 measure was adopted in both Houses, 
 but by a larger majority in the Com- 
 mons than the Peers. The majority 
 in the former was 32 — there being 132 
 votes for the measure, and 100 against 
 it ; in the latter it was only 18, the 
 numbers being 95 to 77. 
 
 18. On reviewing this debate and 
 decision of the legislature, which, like 
 all other decisions involving a great 
 change in the electoral system, mate- 
 rially influenced the fate of the mon- 
 archy, one thing must strike every one 
 as veiy remarkable : this is, the opin- 
 ion which was so generally expressed 
 by the ministerial party, that no pos- 
 sible danger could be apprehended 
 from the proposed change, because the 
 number of electors would, under it, be 
 so small in proportion to the whole 
 population — not more than 100,000 
 out of 30,000,000. They forgot that 
 it is not on the number of electors, but 
 on the disjiosition and feelings of their 
 majority, that everything depends. A 
 country may be as effectually revolu- 
 tionised by 100,000 electors as by 
 10,000,000, sometimes more effectual- 
 ly, pro\'ided only that the majority 
 of the 100,000 are of the democratic 
 party, and invested with sufficient 
 power to work out their designs. A 
 convention of 1200 men overturned 
 monarchy, extinguished the church, 
 and divided property in France. 
 3,000,000 of electors placed Napoleon, 
 
1817. 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 279 
 
 7,500,000 Louis ITapoleon, on the Im- 
 perial throne. The peril of the elec- 
 toral law, in a manner forced upon 
 France by the Crown, consisted in this, 
 that it invested with supreme power 
 a majority of electors di-awn from a 
 hody of all others the most democratic 
 —little proprietors — and virtually dis- 
 franchised alike the great proprietors, 
 the men of cultivated education, and 
 the labouring classes of the community. 
 It is remarkable that this decisive law, 
 fraught with the fate of the monarchy, 
 originated Avith the King's ministers, 
 was forced through the Commons by 
 their influence, and through the Peers 
 by the personal solicitation and efi"orts 
 of the King himself.* 
 
 19. The next important measures of 
 the session Avere those relating to indi- 
 vidual freedom and the liberty of the 
 l)ress. The violent restrictions on 
 these which had been obtained from 
 the Chamber of 1815, had been intro- 
 duced by M. Decazes, and carried 
 through by the royalist majority, then 
 in close alliance with him, and they 
 all expired at the end of the session, 
 being limited to that period. Now, 
 however, the royalists, being in oppo- 
 sition, felt these restrictions oppres- 
 sive, and by a natural consequence 
 became desirous of their abolition. 
 The press was the principal engine by 
 which they hoped to succeed in shak- 
 ing the Liberal party now in posses- 
 sion of power, and therefore they were 
 desirous of securing its freedom : it was 
 the chief enemy which the Liberals 
 had to dread, therefore they were de- 
 su'ous of continuing its restrictions. 
 Such a transposition of parties on a 
 particular question is well known in 
 
 * "Lavictoire paraissait incertaine, etles 
 Ministres etaient menaces d'une defaite ecla- 
 tante, si le Roi, qui entrait dans leurs voeiix 
 avec ardeur n'appuyait son influence person- 
 nelle de I'ascendant de son amitie sur de 
 nobles Pairs qui faisaient partie de sa cour. 
 Apres avoir forme son humble cour dc Mittau 
 et Hartwell, ce fut le 30 Janvier 1817 que la 
 Chambre des Pairs vota sur I'ensemblee de la 
 loi. II fut adopte a la majorite de 95 voir 
 contre 77. La soumission plutot que la con- 
 Aiction donnait une majorite qui devait ceder 
 au premier choc, des que deux epreuves pen 
 favorables a I'espoir des Ministres ramene- 
 raient cedebat."— Lacretelle, Histoire de la 
 liestauration, ii. 150. 
 
 the history of England, and, however 
 strange in appearance, it arises from a 
 very obvious cause, and is not likely 
 ever to cease. It springs from the de- 
 sire for power being stronger than the 
 influence of principle, and individual 
 ambition supplanting pubKc consist- 
 ency. 
 
 20. The ministerial project concern- 
 ing the liberty of the press was short 
 and simple. It Avas, " that the censoi'- 
 ship of the press was to be continued 
 till January 1, 1818." The proposal 
 was based on the alleged necessity of 
 the law, Avhich was curious, as it was 
 now to be applied against the very party 
 for whose support it had originally 
 been introduced. The jt^'oposed law 
 on the liberty of the person was not 
 so .stringent as that of 1815, but still 
 suflficiently dangerous to freedom. It 
 Avas to this eff"ect, that every person 
 charged AAdth a conspiracy or machina- 
 tion against the person of the King, 
 or the security of the State, might be 
 summarily arrested without the neces- 
 sity of being immediately brought to 
 trial. No extraordinaiy arrest could 
 be made but on a warrant signed by 
 the President of the Privy Council, and 
 by one of the Secretaries of State, The 
 jailor Avas to send an intimation of the 
 name of the person imprisoned, with 
 the charge against him, to the Procur- 
 eur du Roi, by Avhom he was to be in- 
 terrogated, and the charge and declar- 
 ation transmitted to the Minister of 
 Justice. It Avas almost identical AAdth 
 the suspension of the Habeas Corpus 
 Act in England, and AA^as to continue 
 only to the 1st January 1818. This 
 law underwent a most animated dis- 
 cussion in both Chambers, and Avas 
 not passed into a laAV AAithout the most 
 violent opposition. 
 
 21. On the part of the Opposition, 
 it AA'as contended by M. de Villele, M. 
 Castelbajac, and M. de la Bourdon- 
 naye : "We are told that the strin- 
 gent laAvs of 1815 have restored public 
 tranquillity : if so, where is the neces- 
 sity for still recumng to exceptional 
 laws? In 1815 the French army was 
 disbanded, the courts of justice dis- 
 organised, the heads of departments 
 changed, the most violent and terrible 
 
280 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap, vr. 
 
 political and external crisis just sur- 
 mounted. These were the reasons 
 assigned, and with justice, for the sus- 
 pension of individual liberty at that 
 time ; but now the same measures are 
 attempted to be justified by a state 
 of things exactly the reverse — by the 
 happy re-establishment of the influence 
 of the Government in all branches of 
 the administration. 'We have nothing 
 to add to the picture of general im- 
 provement drawn by the partisans of 
 Government except the corollary natur- 
 ally flowing from these — 'the excep- 
 tional laws should cease.' What is 
 our present position? The charter 
 guarantees to us individual freedom 
 ?.nd the libert}'' of the press, and we 
 have neither the one nor the other. 
 Has France any reason to apprehend 
 a fresh revolution ? — is royalty of new 
 in peril ? If it is so, let the King be 
 invested with unlimited power. But 
 if, thanks to Providence, France is 
 peaceful, why not terminate tlie ex- 
 ceptional laws justifiable only in pe- 
 riods of anarchy ? 
 
 22. "All is favourable — all is well, 
 exclaim the supporters of Government : 
 the elections are free — the cries, ' Down 
 with the nobles ! ' ' Down with the 
 priests ! ' are no longer heard under 
 the peaceful reign of the Bourbons; 
 the deputies of the departments mil, 
 under the new electoral law, be chosen 
 from the most estimable, the most 
 esteemed, the most independent of 
 their several districts ; the bases of 
 public instruction are to be love of 
 God and fidelity to the King. The 
 w^ord legitimacy may well be very dif- 
 ferently defined, if you adopt this pro- 
 ject, from Avhat it was lately by a 
 member of the Government, when he 
 said, 'Legitimacy is order — order is 
 moderation.' You cannot deny, in- 
 deed you yourselves boast, that the Ja- 
 cobins are reduced to a dozen or two of 
 individuals whom every one laughs at, 
 and five or six insane fanatics ; — where 
 then is the necessit}'-, where the ex- 
 pedience, of continuing, under these 
 favourable circumstances, which the 
 Government are themselves the first 
 to proclaim, those exceptional laws, 
 the fatal bequest of disastrous periods. 
 
 which are alike subversive of public 
 freedom and of all rational attachment 
 to the throne? " 
 
 23. On the other hand, it was con- 
 tended by M. Decazes, M. de Serres, 
 and M. de Courvoisier, on the part of 
 the Administration: "Anterior to 
 the return of Napoleon on the 20th 
 March, the respect for individual free- 
 dom was carried the length of absur- 
 dity. A law similar to that of 29tli 
 October 1815 would have disconcerted 
 the conspirators, and prevented all the 
 ruinous consequences which have re- 
 sulted from their success. This con- 
 sideration alone is sufficient to engage 
 us to support the project which has 
 been brought forward by the Ministry. 
 Laws of exception are made for extra- 
 ordinary circumstances ; and can it 
 vnih reason be maintained that there 
 are no extraordinary circumstances at 
 this time ? I see Frenchmen rejected 
 by their country, and have they no 
 interest to revive troubles and over- 
 turn the existing order of things? I 
 see 150,000 Allied soldiers in possession 
 of our fortresses — is that not an extra- 
 ordinary circumstance ? In the interior 
 there are a vast number of discontent- 
 ed persons, officers out of the service, 
 employes without occupation — is it 
 not for the public interest to deprive 
 them of the means of creating fresh 
 disturbances ? 
 
 24. "The King measured with a 
 judicious and discriminating eye the 
 state of France when he published the 
 ordinance of 5th September last. His 
 Avords and deeds on that occasion alike 
 aff"ord fresh guarantees for liberty, se- 
 curity, and property. If he dissolved 
 by a somewhat violent act the former 
 Chamber, it Avas because, it must be 
 said, the vehement exasperation of the 
 great majority in it threatened the 
 French with the destruction of their 
 property and liberties. The Ministry 
 are not to be deterred by declamations 
 about a dictatorship ; they know their 
 position as consuls of the State, and 
 they are not afraid of the Tarpeian 
 rock. The circumstances are critical : 
 distress generally prevails from the 
 badness of the last harvest ; the minds 
 of the ppople are soured by misfortune ; 
 
1817.] 
 
 HISTOEY OF EUROPE. 
 
 281 
 
 agitators are on tlie watch to convert 
 tiie general discontent into measures 
 of sedition and rebellion. Is this a 
 time to relax the precautions taken to 
 insure public tran(]uillity in circum- 
 stances, in truth, less alarming ? The 
 King relies on the love of his people ; 
 the people on the love of their King. " 
 The Chamber, by a large majority, 
 supported the two measures of Govern- 
 ment, suspending the liberty of indi- 
 viduals and that of the public press : 
 in the former case by a majority of 43, 
 the numbers being 130 to 87 ; in the 
 latter by one of 41, the numbers be- 
 ing 128 to 87. In the Peers, in like 
 manner, they passed by considerable 
 majorities. 
 
 25. A more difficult task, however, 
 remained behind, than that of con- 
 tending with a powerful minority in 
 parliament, and that was, making head 
 against the distress which, from the 
 extreme deficiency of the last harvest, 
 had now come to press upon ever}^ part 
 of France. Bread had risen in Paris 
 to twenty-four sous for a loaf of four 
 pounds, which was about 2M. a-pound 
 — a frightful state of things, as it was 
 nearly triple the usual price. Dis- 
 turbances in consequence were general, 
 both there and in every part of France ; 
 and although they did not, except at 
 Lj'ons, assume a political character, 
 yet they were very alarming, and call- 
 ed for the utmost vigilance on the part 
 of Government and those intrusted 
 Avith the administration. The carts of 
 farmers bringing grain to market were, 
 in many places, seized by the peasantry, 
 and their contents distributed among 
 famishing multitudes ; and many gran- 
 aries were broken open and openly pil- 
 laged. As a natural consequence, less 
 grain was brought to market, and less 
 imported and stored in the warehouses, 
 which augmented the general distress. 
 The riots were particularly formidable 
 at Chateau - Thieny, Chatillon - sur - 
 Seine, and in the department of Puys 
 de Dome. These excesses were vigor- 
 ously repressed by the Government, 
 but not without bloodshed in many 
 places— a distressing state of things, 
 and which more than anything else 
 justified the stringent laws mtroduced 
 
 by the Ministers, to prevent the dis- 
 affected from taking advantage of the 
 general distress to excite disturbances 
 against the Government. A large vote 
 of credit was passed by the Chambers 
 to give Government the means of re- 
 lieving the public distress ; large pur- 
 chases of grain were made in the Cri- 
 mea, both by the public officers and 
 private individuals ; and a bounty 
 was offered, on the importation of 
 grain, of five francs a quarter. By 
 these means, so plentiful a supply was 
 obtained from Odessa and the fertile 
 plains of Poland and the Ukraine, that 
 in the spring of 1817 the price rapidly 
 fell, and before summer was below its 
 ordinary level. 
 
 26. A more liberal, and withal judi- 
 cious, system was at the same time 
 adopted in the army. The public ne- 
 cessities, and the enormous weight of 
 the contributions made to the Allies, 
 rendered considerable reduction of ex- 
 pense necessary in that department ; 
 but so judicious were the measures of 
 the Duke de Feltre that, simultane- 
 ously with these reductions of expen- 
 diture, he was able to make a consider- 
 able increase in the eflective strength, 
 of the army. A fifth squadron was 
 added to each regiment of cavalry, and 
 the strength of the legions materially 
 augmented. The repugnance to the 
 old officers of the Imperial army, so 
 generally felt in the first years of the 
 Restoration, was rapidly giving way ; 
 and numerous officers on half-pay were 
 every day readmitted into the ranks 
 from the lists of half-pay, who at once 
 increased the strength of the- anny and 
 diminished the resources of the discon- 
 tented parties in the State. At length 
 the general loile was adopted, that all 
 the officers on half-pay who had not 
 been replaced in the ranks should be 
 enrolled in the last squadron and bat- 
 talion fonned. By this means the ex- 
 pense of the half-pay was diminished 
 at the veiy time that the ranks of the 
 army were recruited by experienced 
 officers ; and it was mainly by the 
 adoption of this judicious system that 
 the diminished expense of the army 
 was accompanied by an increase of its 
 numerical sti-ength. 
 
282 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 27. Difficulties had arisen l^etweeii 
 the court of France and the Papal 
 See, on the subject of eternal discord 
 between the Pope and the temporal 
 princes— the extent of the interference 
 of the former in ecclesiastical appoint- 
 ments. To obviate them, and nego- 
 tiate a concordat, M. de Blacas, who 
 liad negotiated the marriage of the 
 Duke de Berri with the Princess Caro- 
 line of ISTaples, was sent to Rome in the 
 beginning of 1817. But, though not 
 destitute of abilities, ]\I. de Blacas was 
 no match in negotiation for the Car- 
 dinal Gonzalvi, and the other skilful 
 diplomatists who at that period con- 
 ducted the foreign affairs of the court 
 of Rome. His i)ious zeal led Mm to 
 make concessions unauthorised by the 
 Chambers, nnsuitable to the age, and 
 for the support of which no possible 
 means remained of providing funds in 
 the revolutionised realm of France. 
 M. Gonzalvi skilfully represented to 
 M. de Blacas, that Napoleon's former 
 concordat in 1801, which had done so 
 much to establish the independence 
 of the Church of France, should be 
 annulled, as a concession on the part 
 of the Papal See to the revolutionary 
 spirit justified only by necessity. To 
 this ^I. de Blacas consented ; and the 
 effect of this was to revive, in full 
 force, the concordat of Francis I., and 
 annul all the concessions made by the 
 Romish See since 1789. Among the 
 rest, it revived a claim for the territory 
 of Avignon, one of the first conquests 
 of the Revolution from the Church ; 
 and this M. de Blacas agreed to take 
 into consideration, or pay an indem- 
 nity. But a much more serious in- 
 convenience resulted from this inju- 
 dicious abandonment of the concordat 
 of 1801, and that was the revival of 
 the numerous bishoprics and other 
 ecclesiastical benefices which at that 
 remote period covered the soil of 
 France, and were richly endowed from 
 its territorial possessions ; but for the 
 support of which no funds Avhatever 
 now existed but from a vote of the 
 Chambers, who it was easy to see would 
 not consent, in the present distressed 
 state of the finances, to any addition, 
 even for these pious purposes, to the 
 
 [chap. vr. 
 
 public burdens. To render the risks 
 of this concession still gi-eater, by the 
 concordat of Francis I., now revived, 
 the sanction of the Papal Court was 
 requisite for any appointment to a 
 monastery, prebendary, or bishopric, 
 and the right of excommunication of 
 whole districts for notable offences was 
 recognised. It was easy to see how 
 these powers would accord with the 
 feelings of revolutionised France in the 
 nineteenth century. 
 
 28. The main difficulty of the year, 
 however, in France at this period lay 
 in the finances, the embarrassments of 
 which were only equalled by the press- 
 ing necessity of effecting as speedily as 
 possible some adjustment of them. In 
 ti-uth, the difficulties in this depart- 
 ment were such that they might fairly 
 be considered as insurmountable ; and 
 they would have proved so, had not 
 the Allied sovereigns and their minis- 
 ters met them in a liberal spirit, and 
 abated in their demands founded on 
 the treaty of 20th November 1815, in 
 order to facilitate the re-establishment 
 of the King's government in France, 
 and relieve it of the most pressing 
 dangers with which it was surrounded. 
 On the one hand were the Allied sove- 
 reigns, armed with the severe clauses 
 of the treat}'- of 1815, in possession of 
 all the frontier fortresses, held by 
 150,000 of their troops, commanded 
 by the Duke of Wellington, all of 
 whom were paid, clothed, and fed at 
 the expense of France. On the other 
 hand was the realm of France, worn 
 out by a Avar of tAventy years' duration, 
 scarcely able to meet its own engage- 
 ments, and yet burdened -with the pay- 
 ment, in a few years, of £61,000,000 
 of indemnities to the Allied sovereigns 
 or their subjects ! The strongest head 
 reeled, the most intrepid spirit quailed, 
 under such a combination of difficul- 
 ties ; and yet, till they were overconie, 
 no stable government could be erected 
 in France, or the least prospect be 
 afforded of a dynasty being firmly 
 seated on the throne. The difficulties, 
 great as they were, with the sums due 
 to the governments under the treaty, 
 yet yielded to those arising from the 
 rapacity and exorbitant demands of 
 
1817.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 283 
 
 tlie persons and bodies entitled to 
 indemnity by its provisions, whicli 
 proved to be so prodigions that there 
 appeared no possibility of tlieir ever 
 being liquidated. 
 
 29. Fortunately for France and the 
 tranquillity of Europe, the mixed com- 
 mission, to whom the adjustment of 
 these clamis was referred, was presided 
 over by a man whose capacity, great 
 in military, was not less conspicuous 
 in civil affairs, and whose moderation 
 and sense of justice, as well as good 
 sense, were equal to bis genius. M. 
 Dudon was tlie nominal president of 
 the mixed commission ; but the Duke 
 of Wellington was the person to whom 
 all difficult points were referred, and 
 he was its real bead. The Duke de 
 Richelieu, finding the demands for in- 
 demnity, especially on tbe ^art of the 
 lesser German princes, so exorbitant, 
 addressed a long memorial to his old 
 patron and friend, the Emperor Alex- 
 ander, on the subject ; and he returned 
 a noble answer, in a letter addressed 
 to the Duke of Wellington, which de- 
 serves a place in history, as investing 
 with fresh laurels the brow of con- 
 quest.* Instructions in the same equi- 
 
 * " Place comme vons etes, M. le Mar^chal, 
 a la tete des forces militaires de I'Alliance 
 Europeenne, vous avez coiitribue plus d'une 
 fois, par la sagesse et la moderation qui vous 
 distinguent, a concilier les plus graves inte- 
 rets : Je me suis constamment adresse a 
 vous dans toutes les circonstances qui peu- 
 vent particulierement influer sur I'affermisse- 
 ment de I'etat heureusement retabli en France 
 par vos glorieux exploits : maintenant que la 
 question de creance particuli^re h, la charge 
 de la France prend un caractfere critique et 
 decisif, a raison des difRcultes que presente 
 I'execution litt^rale du traite du 8-20 Novem- 
 bre 1815, ,je n'ai pas cru devoir laisser ignorer 
 men opinion aux monarques mes allies, sur 
 le mode d'envisager cet engagement onereux, 
 de manifere a en prevenir I'infraction et a le 
 rendre executable. Les assertions du gouv- 
 ernement Francais vous sont connues, M. le 
 Marechal ; mon Ministre a Paris reooit I'ordre 
 de vous communiquer le memoire qui a ete 
 trace sous mes yeux relativement a cette 
 question importante. Je vous invite a porter 
 toute votre attention sur I'enchainenient des 
 motifs de droit et de convenance politiques 
 qui se trouvent consign^s, dans ce travail, a 
 I'appui du principe d'accommodement pre- 
 sent, pour resoudre les complications inher- 
 entes a I'acquittement des creances particu- 
 liferes, qui furent imposees a la France, alors 
 qu'il n'etait pas facile de prevoir leur enorme 
 
 table spirit were addressed by the Rus- 
 sian government to their ambassador 
 at Paris, which distinctly recognised 
 the truth of the statement of the Duke 
 de Richelieu, that such was the mag- 
 nitude of the private indemnities de- 
 manded of France under the treaty, 
 that it was wholly impossible for that 
 country to make them good, and point- 
 ed to some equitable adjustment wluch 
 might be within the bounds of possibil- 
 ity, and lead to an eventual shortening 
 of the period of the occupation of its 
 territory. + In consequence of this in- 
 terposition, the presidency of the com- 
 mission for li(i^uidating the demands of 
 private creditors was taken from M. 
 Dudon, and bestowed on M. Mounier, 
 who co-operated cordially with the 
 Duke of Wellington on the subject. 
 The latter general was appointed pre- 
 sident of tlie diplomatic and finance 
 committee charged with the same 
 
 developpement. Vous appuierez, M. le Mare- 
 chal, I'ensemble des considerations superieurs 
 qui plaident a I'appui d'un systeme de con- 
 ciliation equitable. Vous repandrez toute la 
 lumiere d'un esprit juste, la ehaleur d'une 
 ame elevee a, la hauteur des circonstances, 
 sur une question de laquelle dependent peut- 
 etre le repos de la France, et I'inviolabilite 
 des engagements les plus sacres. C'est la 
 moderation et la bonne foi qui ont ete de nos 
 jours le mobile d'une force bienfaisante et re- 
 paratrice, et c'est a celui qui en a propose et 
 second^ le triomphe a faire entendre dans 
 tous les momens critiques le langage de cette 
 meme moderation et de cette meme bonne 
 foi. Dans cette conviction s'il me restait en- 
 core un voeu a enoncer, ce serait de vous 
 deferer, par I'assentiment unanime de mes 
 allies, la direction principale des negociations 
 qui pourraient s'ouvrir a Paris, sur la ques- 
 tion des creances particuliferes, et sur le mode 
 le plus Equitable de la decider d'un commun 
 accord. Recevez, &c. Alexandre." 
 
 — Capefigue, Histoire de la Mestauration, 
 V. 207. 209. 
 
 t " Toutes les puissances sentent le besoin 
 d'arriver a un resultat sans detruire le texte 
 des conventions arretees. Le gouvernement 
 Franc^ais ne conteste pas la dette qu'il a con- 
 tractee en signant le traite du 20 Nov. II en 
 a deja acquitte jusqu' a concurrence de 200 
 millions ; le total des reclamations qui sub- 
 sistent encore s'elfeve a plus d'un milliard. 
 Quelque diminution que cette somme puisse 
 ^prouver, il est impossible au gouvernement 
 Francais de I'acquitter ; d'ou r^sulte la ques- 
 tion, ' Les principes du droit public, n'auto- 
 risent-ils pas le gouvernement de sa Majeste 
 trfes chretienne a proposer aux puissances 
 alliees demodifier essentiellement ce traite?'" 
 — Instructions au Ministre Eusse d Paris, 1812 ; 
 Capefigue, v. 209. 
 
2S4 
 
 HISTOEY OF EUROPE. 
 
 alTair ; and the result of their labours 
 was a convention concluded, in Feb- 
 ruary 1818, by which the burdens 
 undertaken by France, by the treaty of 
 November 1815, Avere sensibly abated, 
 and a prospect was opened of the ulti- 
 mate evacuation of its territory. 
 
 30. By this convention it was pro- 
 vided— 1. That the strength of the 
 army of occupation should be dimin- 
 ished by 30,000 men; that is, by a 
 fifth of each corps of that army. 
 2. That this reduction should be car- 
 ried into effect on the 1st April next 
 ensuing. 3. That from that date the 
 200,000 rations which the French gov- 
 ernment were bound to furnish daily 
 for the support of the troops should 
 be reduced to 160,000, without, how- 
 ever, any reduction being made in tlie 
 60,000 rations furnished daily for the 
 horses. In communicating this con- 
 vention, the ambassadors of the Allied 
 powers observed — "In transmitting so 
 signal a proof of the regard entertained 
 by their august masters towards his 
 most Christian ]\Iajesty, the ambas- 
 sadors are, at the same time, desirous 
 of declaring to his Excellency the Duke 
 de Richelieu the sense they entertain 
 of how much the principles of the 
 ministiy over Avhich he presides have 
 conti'ibuted to establish that mutual 
 confidence and good understanding 
 which, directed by justice, and a re- 
 gard to existing treaties, has yet suc- 
 ceeded in arranging such delicate in- 
 terests, and afl'ording the prospect of 
 a speedy and satisfactory definitive 
 arrangement." The ease afforded to 
 France by this arrangement was con- 
 siderable, but it was rendered doubly 
 valiiable by the prospect which it af- 
 forded of a final and entire deliverance 
 of the territory. Such as it was, it 
 was entirely to be ascribed to the mag- 
 nanimous disposition of the Emperor 
 Alexander, and the wisdom, modera- 
 tion, and generosity Avith which his 
 views were met and carried out by the 
 Duke of Wellington and Count Pozzo 
 di Boi-go, to whom the French histo- 
 rians themselves entirely ascribed the 
 relief thus obtained for their country.* 
 
 * " Je ne saurais trop rendre temoignage 4 
 la magnanime influence de I'Euapereur Alex- 
 
 [CHAP. VI. 
 
 31. All the moderation and gener- 
 osity of the Allied sovereigns and their 
 ministers, however, and all the wisdom 
 of the Duke of Wellington, would have 
 failed in obtaining the desired result, 
 had the efforts of the French financiers 
 not contributed, at the same time, to 
 such regularity in the discharge of 
 their engagements as enabled the Allies 
 to meet their wishes without injuring 
 the just claims of their own subjects. 
 Never was a more difficult task under- 
 taken by man, for, to meet the im- 
 mense engagements under which France 
 lay by the Treaty of 1815, there did not 
 appear to be any available resources 
 whatever. The utmost limits of taxa- 
 tion had been reached during the years 
 1815 and 1816; and experience had 
 jiroved that any attempt to increase 
 the amount IcAaed on the country 
 would fail by the imposts becoming 
 unproductive. The sum to be raised 
 in the year 1817 by loan, to meet the 
 unavoidable expenses, amounted to 
 250,000,000 francs, or £10,000,000 
 sterling; and when the capitalists of 
 Paris were applied to on the subject, 
 they unanimously declared the impos- 
 sibility, at any rate of interest, of their 
 advancing so large a sum. Diminu- 
 tion of expenditure seemed impossible, 
 for that had been carried to the utmost 
 practicable length in the two preceding 
 years, and any further reductions would 
 both increase the public discontent, and 
 render France altogether defenceless in 
 regard to foreign powers. In this ex- 
 tremity the Duke de Richelieu applied 
 to the capitalists of London and Am- . 
 sterdam, and he was fortunate enough 
 to obtain a loan from them of the re- 
 rpiired sum, though at a most exorbi- 
 tant rate of interest. Not less than 
 9,090,000 francs of rentes were im- 
 pledged for 100,000,000 of francs ad- 
 
 andre dans toute cette negociation. Le Czar 
 se montra genereux cuvers la France comnie 
 il avait ^te lors du traite du niois de Novem- 
 bre 1815. Je le dirai egalement de Taction 
 du Comte Pozzo di Borgo, sur les notes ad- 
 ressees a M. de Nesselrode, par un rapport 
 personellement soumis a I'Eniperenr de Rus- 
 sie sur la situation et des opinions en France ; 
 enfin les sentiments personnels du Due de 
 Wellington contribuerent au grand resultat 
 obtenu."— Capefigue, Histoirc de la Restaur- 
 aiion, v. 177. 
 
1317 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 28J 
 
 vanced, which was upwards of 9 per 
 cent, iu addition to which the credi- 
 tors were allowed 2.j per cent commis- 
 sion ; and the first term of payment 
 was postponed to 31st March 1817. 
 They contracted also for a second loan 
 of 100,000,000 francs, at 58 francNS ad- 
 vanced for 5 francs interest. These 
 terms were so high that they gave rise 
 to warm and able debates in both 
 Chambers, in the course of which the 
 financial and oratorical abilities of M. 
 de Villele shone forth with the highest 
 lustre. But the answer of ministers, 
 that the terms of the loan, however to 
 he regretted, were unavoidable, as the 
 requisite sum could not be got on any 
 other terms, was justly deemed deci- 
 sive ; and the budget containing these 
 loans passed both Chambers by very 
 large majorities.* 
 
 32. A measure fraught with very 
 important results, and w^hich in its 
 ultimate consequences was one of the 
 causes of the overthrow of the elder 
 branch of the house of Bourbon, was 
 brought forward in this session of par- 
 liament, relative to bequests to the 
 Church. Already, even before it had 
 risen from its ruins, the aspiring dis- 
 position of the Romish Church had 
 become apparent, and it was evident, 
 
 from the measures which its clergy 
 brought forward, that they aimed at 
 nothing less than the re-establishment 
 of its ancient hierarchy and splendour. 
 Louis was by no means inclined to 
 favour these pretensions. He felt 
 warmly towards the clergy, but still 
 more so towards the crown, and he 
 was by no means disposed to sacrifice 
 any of its rights to the ambition of a 
 rival establishment. The bill on the 
 subject, which was brought forward 
 by M. Laine, provided that "every ec- 
 clesiastical establishment legally au- 
 thorised might accept, but with tlie 
 sanction of the king, all the goods 
 movable and immovable which might 
 be conveyed to it by donation inter 
 vivos, or by bequest after death." The 
 great object of this enactment was to 
 reconstitute the clergy on the footing 
 of separate proprietors, and put an end 
 to the humiliating state of dependence 
 in which they were now placed, on an- 
 nual votes of the Chambers for a pre- 
 carious and miserable subsistence. Ve- 
 hement debates took place also on 
 what was substantially the same ques- 
 tion — a proposal by the Minister of 
 Finance to alienate a portion of the 
 woods yet belonging to the clergy to 
 meet the exigencies of the state. The 
 
 BCDGET OF THE YEAR 1S17. 
 
 Receipts. 
 
 Land tax, .... 
 
 Stamps, 
 
 Posts, 
 
 Lottery, 
 
 Salt tax, 
 
 Indirect taxes, 
 
 Salt mines of the state, . 
 
 Miscellaneous, 
 
 Woods 
 
 Arrears of do., 
 
 Surrendered by King and Royal 
 
 Family, .... 
 Deducted from Salaries, 
 Loans, 
 
 Do., 
 
 Francs. 
 
 858,141,667 
 
 1.54,170,000 
 
 12,475,000 
 
 6,230,800 
 
 86,37(5,000 
 
 101,575,000 
 
 2,574,000 
 
 741,000 
 
 16,819,200 
 
 8,843,800 
 
 5,000.000 
 
 12,399,000 
 
 345,065,000 
 
 7,024,033 
 
 To meet arrears of former 
 years, 
 
 1,118,532,502 
 84,997,796 
 
 Revenue of 1817, 
 
 . 1,033,535,706 
 (or £41,340,000) 
 
 —-Archives Biplomatiques, v. 301, 304. 
 
 Expenditure. 
 
 National Debt, 
 
 Sinking Fund, 
 
 Annuities, .... 
 
 Pensions — military, civil, and 
 
 ecclesiastical. 
 King, and Civil List, 
 Peers Deputies, 
 
 Justice, 
 
 Foreign Affairs, 
 Departmental expenses, 
 Bounties on grain imported, . 
 Purchases of grain, 
 English indemnities, 
 Cadastre, .... 
 Army, 
 
 Do. of occupation, 
 
 Navy, 
 
 Police, 
 
 Cautionary engagements. 
 
 Interest on do 
 
 Negotiating, .... 
 Fifth contribution to Allies, • 
 Arrears of former contributions, 
 Miscellaneous to Allies, . 
 
 Francs. 
 120,660,000 
 40,000,000 
 12,400,000 
 
 44,434,964 
 
 34,000,000 
 
 2,630,000 
 
 18,285,000 
 
 55,300,000 
 
 28,727,000 
 
 22,200,000 
 
 2,500,000 
 
 5,700,000 
 
 10,152,032 
 
 157,000,000 
 
 23,560,605 
 
 173,000,000 
 
 44,000,000 
 
 1,000,000 
 
 9,000,000 
 
 22,709,000 
 
 140,000,000 
 
 23,000,000 
 
 20,494,144 
 
 1,036,810,583 
 (or £41,470,000) 
 
286 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. VI. 
 
 debates on this subject were of the 
 highest importance, for the}'- relate to 
 one of the greatest wounds inflicted on 
 society by the Revolution, and are of 
 lasting interest to all future genera- 
 tions of man, 
 
 33. On the part of the clergy it was 
 contended by MM. Laine, Bonald, 
 and Villele : " There is no footing on 
 which the clergy can be established in 
 a respectable and useful manner but 
 that of being separate proprietors. The 
 proposal to alienate a portion of their 
 woods for the necessities of the State, 
 is brought forward by the same party 
 Vvho resist the re-acquisition of pro- 
 perty by the Church from th^ munifi- 
 cence or bequests of individuals. Both 
 are founded on the same basis — a dread 
 of a beneficed and independent clergy, 
 the greatest blessing which it is pos- 
 sible for society to receive, but on that 
 very account the object of a superstiti- 
 ous dread on the part of the philoso- 
 phers of the eighteenth centuiy. They 
 dreaded the independence of the clergy, 
 because it tended to establish in society 
 an interest and influence which might 
 rival their own. Yet how is it pos- 
 sible in any other way to render the 
 clergy either independent, useful, or 
 respectable? Since the woods of the 
 clergy have escaped the hammer of 
 atheism, the hatchet of cupiditj--, what 
 right have we now in these days to 
 wrest them from tlie clergy, or rather 
 from religion itself? It is a mere 
 mockery to say you propose to increase 
 the vote for the clergy by 4,000,000, 
 (£160,000)— a sum equal to the annual 
 value of the woods sold. What com- 
 parison is there between a revenue for 
 ever derived from independent funds 
 and a precarious annual vote from a 
 democratic Assembly? Deep indeed 
 have been the wounds religion has re- 
 ceived in recent times ; but was it ever 
 anticipated that the most cruel blow 
 should be struck in the name of a de- 
 scendant of St Louis ? 
 
 34. " We tolerate religion now as we 
 do a returned emigrant, on the condi- 
 tion that he is to make no claim to re- 
 stitution. We tolerate the clergy on 
 condition that they are never to be- 
 come independent, and that they are 
 
 to grow mercenary. Every year a vote 
 of the Chamber is to determine the 
 salaries of the clerg}'- : it depends on 
 whether or not they please the majority 
 of the members whether their condi- 
 tion is to be comfortable or destitute. 
 Is this a fit condition for the teachers 
 of the people, the ministers of our holy 
 religion, to be kept in? We are ap- 
 parently aAvaiting the election of a 
 thoroughly democratic Assembly, the 
 worthy inheritors of the Constituent, 
 which shall confiscate the whole re- 
 maining property of the Church, and 
 withdraw the miserable pittance which 
 they have allowed instead of its once 
 magnificent endowmients. 
 
 35. "A proprietary clergy, the grand 
 object of terror to the philosophers of 
 the eighteenth century, seems to be 
 equally the object of dread to the 
 statesmen of the nineteenth. They 
 lay their plans with more skill, dis- 
 guise their motives witli more address, 
 embody their measures in a less revolt- 
 ing form ; but their object is the same. 
 That design is to render the clergy 
 entirely destitute of property, and de- 
 pendent for their subsistence on the 
 votes of the Chamber. ^Nevertheless, 
 it is to our proprietary clergy that we 
 owe the gi'eatest blessings we possess — 
 the fertility of our fields, and the ex- 
 ample of a vigilant and paternal ad- 
 ministration. Is it to favour agricul- 
 ture, that great branch of industry, the 
 interests of which are incessantly in- 
 voked and incessantly betrayed, that 
 this measure is adopted ? It would 
 seem that our rulers take a pleasure 
 in consummating its ruin, by furnish- 
 ing fresh fuel to the flame which, ever 
 since the Revolution, has never ceased 
 to consume it — that is, the infinite 
 subdi^asion of properties. Now that 
 levelling fury is carried to such a length 
 that it is desired to sacrifice to it the 
 woods Avhich the Revolution itself, in 
 the midst of its furies and its extrava- 
 gances, has left untouched. Despite 
 the universal complaints on the state 
 of our fields, supported by a thousand 
 reasons, by a thousand facts, our pre- 
 sent enlightened friends of agriculture 
 propose to level with the ground those 
 ancient forests which adorn our hills, 
 
1817.] 
 
 shelter our plains, and constitute the 
 sole fuel of our people. It has been 
 reserved for an age boasting its intelli- 
 gence and its wisdom to accomplish 
 tlie prediction of Sully, that France 
 Avould one day perish for want of woods. 
 Pagan superstition has for useful pur- 
 poses clothed these woods with super- 
 stitious reverence, to save them from 
 the cupidity of the spoiler; but we, 
 who pay so little respect to the laws of 
 the living God, we insult alike the 
 wisdom of the ancients and the fore- 
 sight of oiu" ancestors, in order to lay 
 the foundation of a sinking fund, des- 
 tined to afford food for speculation on 
 compound interest, the worthy bequest 
 of an age of revolutions." 
 
 36. On the other hand, it was con- 
 tended by M. Camille-Jourdan, M. 
 Courvoisier, and the Keeper of the 
 Seals: "There is an essential differ- 
 ence between the property of an incor- 
 poration, and the proj^erty of an indi- 
 vidual which descends to his heirs. The 
 jurisprudence of every country has re- 
 cognised this distinction ; and it is 
 founded on the obvious consideration 
 that the heirs of an individual are 
 known and designed by law, and there- 
 fore there is an obvious injustice done 
 to them if they are deprived of their 
 inheritance ; but no man can say who 
 are to be the successors of an incorpo- 
 ration, and therefore no one can say he 
 is injured by its property being ap- 
 plied to the service of the State. The 
 pretensions now openly put forth by the 
 clergy, and sought to be embodied in 
 these enactments, clearly reveal the 
 ambition of that aspiring body ; and 
 their determination, at all hazards, to 
 regain that opulence and political 
 ]iower which they once possessed, and 
 so much abused. Such an attempt, 
 made in this age, is a gi'eater absurdity 
 than the worst extravagances of the 
 Revolution ; it is more calculated to 
 inflict a wound on religion itself than 
 the efforts of its worst enemies. For 
 what object is the sacrifice of these 
 •woods, of which so much is said, re- 
 quired ? Is it not to liberate our soil 
 from the presence of the stranger, to 
 emancipate our citadels from his hands? 
 Is it to withhold such a blessing from 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 287 
 
 France that so great an effort is now 
 made to prevent any part of the woods 
 of the Church from being alienated for 
 their redemption? 
 
 37. "What signify, in so grave a 
 discussion, and when such weighty 
 interests are at stake, the frivolous 
 lamentations of our adversaries on the 
 hardship of being deprived of the many 
 recreations affoi'ded by our forests ; on 
 beholding the trees fall which have 
 sheltered our infancy, on their loss as 
 depriving us of splendid appanages ? 
 Their hearts appear to have contracted 
 for those noble trees a sort of chival- 
 lous enthusiasm — one of them has 
 even gone so far as to enter into a 
 pathetic dialogue. The oak which en- 
 closed the soul of Clorinda did not 
 draw more tears from Tancredi, when 
 prepared to strike it, than our men- 
 aced forests have caused to fall from 
 the eyes of M. Piet, in the course of 
 the speech which evinced that singu- 
 lar species of sensibility. To answer 
 all that, is to say that it would be very 
 allowable and very agreeable to alian- 
 don ourselves to all these fantasies, for 
 trees, for gardens, for palaces, if our 
 fortune would admit of it ; but that 
 when bankruptcy threatens us, the best 
 direction which even the most jioetical 
 imagination can take — the best mea- 
 sure which this most chivalrous sensi- 
 bility can adopt — is to endeavour to 
 pay our debts not only by abandoning 
 all useless superfluities, but even by 
 retrenching some of our most cherished 
 long-established necessities. " 
 
 38. Upon this debate the Chamber, 
 by a large majority, supported both 
 the propositions of Government — that 
 is, they admitted legal donations or 
 bequests of property to the Church, 
 provided they were sanctioned by the 
 King ; and they voted the alienation 
 of woods belonging to the Church 
 to the extent of 20,000,000 francs 
 (£800,000). As an increased gi-ant of 
 4,000,000 francs (£160,000) was voted 
 to the clergy, there was no injury done 
 to the Church in the mean time ; but 
 the debates, nevertheless, are valuable, 
 as bearing on a gi'eat question of state 
 principle of lasting interest to man- 
 kind, and illustrating the indomitable 
 
288 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. VI. 
 
 firmness, strong vitality, and aspiring 
 disposition of that ecclesiastical estab- 
 lishment which had, to all appearance, 
 been entirely crushed by the events of 
 the Revolution. 
 
 39. As the Chamber of Deputies 
 was now decidedly liberal, and the 
 majority of the Ministry of the same 
 way of thinking, Government felt the 
 necessity of making it entirely so, and 
 rooting out of the Cabinet the last re- 
 mains of that Royalist party, of which, 
 in the first instance, it had been al- 
 most entirely composed. The first 
 change was made in the Ministry of 
 Marine, in which M. Dubouchaze was 
 supplanted by Marshal Gouvion de St 
 Cyr, whose great abilities, as well as 
 popularity with the imperial veterans, 
 seemed to point him out as the proper 
 person to carry into execution the im- 
 portant changes in the composition of 
 the army which were in contemplation. 
 The appointment of St Cyr to the 
 ministry of marine, accordingly, was 
 only temporary ; and ere long a royal 
 ordinance appeared, appointing Gou- 
 vion St Cyr to the ministry at war 
 and Count JMole to that of the marine. 
 This was a material change ; for both 
 the dismissed ministers belonged to 
 the Royalist party, and the Duke de 
 Feltre was one of their ablest and 
 stanchest supporters. All the pure 
 Ro3^alists were now rooted out of the 
 Cabinet ; its composition had become 
 entirely Liberal or Doctrinaire, and in 
 complete accordance with the majority 
 of the Chamber of Deputies. Of its 
 whole original members, the Duke de 
 Richelieu, MM. Decazes and Corvetto, 
 alone remained in it ; and they, either 
 from necessity or conviction, had em- 
 braced in their full extent the Liberal 
 doctrines. Things were advancing 
 swiftly in their natural course. For 
 good or for evil, the coiqj d^etat of 5th 
 September 1816 was producing its un- 
 avoidable fruits — it was either to prove 
 the salvation or the ruin of the mon- 
 archy. 
 
 40. Count Mole, who was now for 
 the first time admitted into the Cabi- 
 net, was one of the most remarkable 
 men of tlie Restoration. He enjoyed, 
 in a very high degree, the confidence 
 
 of the Duke de Richelieu ; and his 
 administrative talents fully justified 
 his predilection. Endowed by nature 
 with a firm and energetic mind, he 
 had been early thrown into the school 
 of Napoleon ; but even the ascendant 
 of that great man had not been able to 
 modify the strong mould and distinc- 
 tive marks of his character. He was 
 better fitted to direct than to obey — 
 to communicate than to receive im- 
 pressions. ISTo one in his grade pos- 
 sessed in a higher degree the confi- 
 dence of N'apoleon ; and in the even- 
 ing conversations in which the Em- 
 peror took such delight, and in which 
 the talents of Cambaceres, Monge, 
 Portalis, and M. de Fontaues, shone 
 forth with so much lustre, he bore a 
 more distinguished part. Had he pos- 
 sessed, with these brilliant equalities, 
 perseverance and patience equal to his 
 energy and determination, he would 
 have been a first-rate statesman. But 
 the defect of his character was a want, 
 not of resolution, but of endurance ; 
 he was easily disconcerted, and fre- 
 quently led to abandon the most im- 
 portant objects, and even retire into 
 private life, rather than exert the re- 
 solute perseverance which so often, by 
 wrestling with difiiculties, overcomes 
 them. 
 
 41. Marshal GorvioN de St Cyr 
 was one of those celebrated characters 
 of the Empire whose name it is impos- 
 sible to hear without a thrill of emo- 
 tion. No one acquainted with the 
 annals of those memorable years need 
 be told of his achievements. On the 
 Rhine and the Moselle, in Catalonia 
 and Saxony, he was equally distin- 
 guished ; and the military works he 
 has left on those campaigns are not 
 the least valuable of the monuments 
 which remain of the astonishing talent 
 and energy with which they Ave re con- 
 ducted. He was a decided Liberal in 
 politics, and therefore eminently qua- 
 lified to carry through the great task 
 to which he was destined by the Gov- 
 ernment — that of remodelling and po- 
 pularising the army. This had now 
 become in a manner a matter of neces- 
 sity ; for, as there was now a fair pro- 
 spect of the Allied troops being with- 
 
1S17.1 
 
 HISTORY OF EUEOPE. 
 
 289 
 
 drawn from the frontier fortresses, the 
 Government would be left to its own 
 resources, and could not expect either 
 to maintain its existence or indepen- 
 dence but by the support of its own 
 subjects. St Cyr was a soldier of the 
 Pievolution ; and he never got over 
 the strong impression in favour of 
 public freedom then made on his 
 mind. But he was an honest and 
 upright man ; he Avas attached, like so 
 many others, to the popular party, be- 
 cause he, in truth, believed it to be 
 the only true foundation of constitu- 
 tional freedom or social happiness. In 
 command, he was a strict disciplin- 
 arian, as persons of these principles 
 generally are, and rigid in exacting 
 the discharge of their duties by the 
 olHcers ; but he Avas beloved by the 
 private men, for whose interests and 
 comforts he was always ready to exert 
 himself. His appointment to the im- 
 portant situation of "War Minister was 
 therefore a very significant step, and 
 regarded as such by both parties. The 
 Napoleonists and Democrats hailed it 
 as an indication of the disposition of 
 the Court to throw itself in sincerity 
 and good faith on the nation, and, 
 casting away foreign influence, to re- 
 sume its proper place in the scale of 
 European politics ; the Royalists re- 
 garded it as a step which would pro- 
 bably be irrevocable in the overturn- 
 ing of the monarchy. The Count 
 d'Artois said that, since the King was 
 determined to destroy himself, he 
 might do so, and that he would look 
 out for his own interests. 
 
 42. The elections of 1817 for the 
 fifth of tlie Chamber, who by lot vacated 
 their seats, and Avere replaced by new 
 members, were conducted peaceably, 
 and without any external tumult ; but 
 theu- importance Avas not on that ac- 
 count less generally felt, and it was 
 already foreseen by both parties, that, 
 in its ultimate results, the new elec- 
 toral laAV would prove decisive of the 
 fate of the monarchy. Eight neAV de- 
 puties AA^ere to be returned for Paris ; 
 they Avere all elected from the Liberal 
 ranks, and more than a half Avere de- 
 mocrats, hostile e\"en to the present 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 Liberal government. MM. Lafitte, 
 Delessert, Roy, and Casimir Perier, 
 Avere among the chosen ; not one Roy- 
 alist was to be found in the number. 
 Upon the Avhole, although, as usual in 
 such cases, the results Avere A'arious, 
 and success apparently neai'ly balanced, 
 yet the Royalists sensibly lost ground, 
 and the extreme Republicans gained 
 it. Government might congratulate 
 themselves upon the defeat of the 
 three knoAAm leaders of the republi- 
 cans, MM. Lafayette, Manuel, and 
 Benjamin Constant ; but they experi- 
 enced a bitter alloy in seeing three 
 extreme Liberals, Dupont de I'Eure, 
 Chauvelin, and Beguin, admitted to 
 the legislature. The Royalists, who 
 were generally defeated, loudly de- 
 claimed against an electoral laAv AAdiich 
 excluded from the King's service his 
 most faithful serA'ants, and predicted 
 the ruin of the monarchy from its ef- 
 fects. The Doctrinaires, Avho had in- 
 troduced that law, began in secret to 
 dread its eff"ect3, but still in public de- 
 fended it, and flattered themselves 
 that, though in poAver, and exposed to 
 the obloquy of ofiice, they Avould be 
 able to contend successfully in the 
 elections Avith their democratic rivals. 
 43. But the circumstances of the 
 country Avere such that the democratic 
 party, hoAvever much in reality inclin- 
 ed to overturn the monarchy and re- 
 vert to a republican form of goA'^ern- 
 ment, were constrained to be circum- 
 spect in their measures. NotAvith- 
 standing the embarrassments of the 
 Treasury, and the enormous Aveekly 
 contributions which were paid to the 
 Allied poAvers, the nation generally Avas 
 rapidly increasing in prosperity. The 
 Avretched harvest of 1816 had been 
 succeeded by one in 1817 AA'hich, al- 
 though still beloAv an average, was 
 greatly better than that Avhich had 
 preceded it ; and the blessed eflects of 
 peace and tranquillity appeared in a 
 general, and, for so shoit a time, surpris- 
 ing reA'iA-al of industry and increase of 
 opulence. Paris, especially, had already 
 attained an unprecedented degi-ee of 
 prosperity. Strangers arrived from all 
 quarters to visit its monuments, its 
 
290 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. VI. 
 
 theatres, its galleries ; its pleasures 
 attracted the young, its historical in- 
 terest and objects of art the middle- 
 aged and reflecting. Those who had 
 visited it in 1814 or 1815 and returned 
 again in 1818 — among whom the au- 
 thor may include himself — were asto- 
 nished at the unmistakable marks of 
 prosperity which were to be seen on 
 all sides. Splendid streets had arisen 
 or were in progress in many quarters ; 
 the Boulevards, the gardens of the 
 Tuileries, the Champs Elysees, breath- 
 ed, even on ordinary occasions, the 
 air of happiness and joy ; the streets 
 were filled with elegant equipages ; 
 while the increasing brilliancy of the 
 shops, and variety and beauty of the 
 dresses of the women, proved that the 
 bourgeois class shared in their full 
 proportion of the general affluence and 
 prosperity Avhich the continuance of 
 j)eace and the immense concourse of 
 sti-angers had brought upon the metro- 
 polis. Among these strangers, the 
 Russians and the English were par- 
 ticularly remarkable for the eagerness 
 after works of art which they exhibit- 
 ed, and the immense sums which they 
 spent. These sums, indeed, were so 
 great as much to exceed the heavy 
 weekly payments which the French 
 were still compelled to make to the 
 commissioners of the Allied powers ; 
 and, like the Greeks of old, they might 
 console themselves wnth the reflection 
 that they had established a more de- 
 sirable ascendant than that of con- 
 quest over the minds of their conquer- 
 ors ; and that, if they paid tribute to 
 the rude barbarians of the North, they 
 received a homage more lasting and 
 flattering in the influence of their ac- 
 knowledged superiority in taste and 
 art. 
 
 44. In presence of so much material 
 prosperity, and with the happy pros- 
 pect of soon obtaining a definitive 
 liquidation of their debts, and evacua- 
 tion of their territory by the Allied 
 poAvers, the Liberal party did not ven- 
 ture openly to attack the government 
 of the Bourbons. Too many real in- 
 terests had flourished, too much un- 
 doubted prosperity prevailed, to admit 
 of this being done at the moment, 
 
 with any prospect of success. But 
 they were not, on that account, the 
 less detei-mined nor the less able and 
 energetic in the policy which they 
 pursued. They prepared the ground, 
 for future operations by every means 
 which prudence could suggest, or talent 
 carry into eff"ect. The press was the 
 great engine of which they made use to 
 agitate the public mind, and dissemi- 
 nate those alarms, or inculcate those 
 principles, which might, at some future 
 period, lead to the overthrow of the 
 monarchy. Declarations against the 
 ambition of priests and the intrigues 
 of the Jesuits ; alarms insidiously 
 spread as to the resumption of the 
 Church property and the dispossessing 
 of the holders of national domains ; 
 eloquent eulogies on the glories of 
 the Empire, and the boundless career 
 of fame and fortune then open to every 
 Frenchman, formed the staple of their 
 compositions. By a skilful use of 
 these topics, and no small ability in 
 the handling of them, they succeeded 
 in attracting to their standard the 
 large bourgeois class, who, in towns 
 especially, are for the most part envi- 
 ous of Government, and desirous of 
 humbling it ; and it soon appeared 
 that, on every successive election, the 
 great majority of this portion of so- 
 ciety would vote for the Liberal can- 
 didate. 
 
 45. The partisans of the Orleans 
 family still formed a considerable 
 party, which was held firmly together 
 by the skill and riches of their chief, 
 and the chances of eventually succeed- 
 ing to the throne which were evidently 
 open to him in the divided state of the 
 public mmd. Part of the immense 
 estates of the family had, with per- 
 haps imprudent generosity, been re- 
 stored to them by Louis ; he hoped to 
 attach them by this act of liberality ; 
 but, although acts of kindness may 
 sometimes conciliate an enemy, they 
 seldom have any other eff'ect but that 
 of augmenting the alienation of a rival. 
 It is the mortification to self-love 
 which arises from being indebted to 
 one whom it is desired to supplant 
 which has this eff'ect. The Duke of 
 Orleans, however — Avho was sifted with 
 
181S.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 291 
 
 uncommon penetration and powers of 
 mind, and whose eventful career had 
 made him acquainted with the secret 
 designs of all the parties in the State 
 — Avas fully aware of the difficulties of 
 liis position, and the still greater em- 
 barrassments he would encounter if 
 he were to succeed to the throne. **1 
 am too much a Bourbon," said he, 
 * ' for the one, and not enough for the 
 other," — a very just observation, on 
 which his future eventful career affords 
 a striking commentary. Thus the 
 different parties arrayed against the 
 Government were held to their respec- 
 tive banners rather by a vague hope 
 for the future than any definite pro- 
 jects for the present ; and the only 
 point on Avhich they were all united, 
 and to which their immediate endea- 
 vours tended, was that of resisting the 
 measures, and augmenting to the ut- 
 most of their power the unpopularity, 
 of the Bourbons. 
 
 46. The general result of the elec- 
 tions had been so decidedly Liberal, 
 that Ministers felt the necessity of both 
 conciliating the Chambers and disarm- 
 ing their opponents by bringing for- 
 ward measures in the interest, and 
 likely to secure the suffrages, of the 
 majority. The first and most impor- 
 tant of these was the law of recruiting 
 for the supply and future establish- 
 ment of the army. This had now be- 
 come a matter of necessitj^, for the 
 negotiations with the Allied powers 
 left no room for doubt that the evacu- 
 ation of the territory would take place 
 at an earlier period than was originally 
 contemplated, and the present strength 
 of the army was not such as to enable 
 the Government to stand alone, or 
 maintain its position as an indepen- 
 dent power. On the other hand, there 
 were no small difficulties in the Avay of 
 augmenting it. The rallying-cry of 
 the Bourbons, when they returned to 
 France in 1814, had been, ^' Plus de 
 Conscription ! " and it was the extreme 
 impopularity of that mode of filling 
 the ranks which had been the chief 
 cause of the reluctance of the people 
 to support Napoleon in the later years 
 of the war which had occasioned his 
 fall. The army had been recruited 
 
 hitherto, since the peace, by volun- 
 tary enlistment ; but that metliod 
 brought a great number of loose char- 
 acters about the royal standards, and 
 it was very doubtful whether it would 
 prove adec^uate to the support of the 
 extended force which would become 
 necessary upon the withdrawal of the 
 Allied forces. On the other hand, the 
 conscription brought forth the very 
 flower of the entire population ; but it 
 ran the risk of becoming unpopular, 
 it involved a breach of the royal Avord, 
 and it could not, it AA^as Avell known, 
 be re-established Avithout that progres- 
 sive rise of privates to the rank of 
 officers Avhich Avas the great alleviation 
 of its bitterness to the people, and Avas 
 so direct an expression of the desires 
 of the Revolution. This filling up of 
 commissions from the ranks of the 
 soldiers might be extremely agreeable 
 to them, and so far obviate the objec- 
 tions to this mode of recruiting the 
 army ; but it involved the sacrifice of 
 the most important part of the royal 
 prerogative, and it might ultimately 
 place the armed force in the hands of 
 those upon AA'hom, in a crisis^ no re- 
 liance could be placed. 
 
 47. In a question surrounded by 
 so many difficulties, the Government 
 adopted the course usually folloAved in 
 such cases ; they brought in a measure 
 in harmony Avith the inclination of the 
 majority of the legislature. !M. GouA'ion 
 St Cyr, in a very able report, unfolded 
 both the principles and the details of 
 the proposed project. " All modes of 
 recniiting, " said he, " reduce them- 
 selves to tAvo — voluntary enrolment 
 and compulsory service ; the latter Avill 
 not be called into operation unless 
 the first shall prove insufficient. The 
 complement of the legions is fixed at 
 150,000 men ; the number required 
 yearly is 40,000. The proposed regu- 
 lations are to be diA^ded into three 
 heads : those concerning the leA-ying, 
 the legionary veterans, and the pro- 
 motion. The first are mainly founded 
 on the old laws of the conscription — 
 softened, hoAvever, in every particular 
 in AA'hich it was practicable. The re- 
 gulations concerning the legionary A^e- 
 terans are based on the principle that, 
 
292 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. VI. 
 
 in a free State, every man is bound to 
 render service to maintain the inde- 
 jiendence of his country. Those re- 
 garding promotion, on the principle 
 that, as a compensation for the sacri- 
 fices thus imposed upon the people, a 
 regular and invariable system of pro- 
 motion should be established in the 
 army ; that, beginning from the ranks, 
 it should ascend to the highest grades ; 
 that the regulations on this subject 
 should have the fixity of laws, and the 
 recompenses should be as widespread 
 as the services, so that the common 
 soldier might have the prospect of ar- 
 riving at any rank, any employment, 
 without any limit, or any other title 
 but his talents or his services." 
 
 48. A law fraught with such mo- 
 mentous, and it might be irreparable 
 consequences, called forth, as well it 
 might, animated debates inboth Cham- 
 bers. On the one hand, it was con- 
 tended on the part of Ministers, by 
 MM. Courvoisier and Royer-Collard : 
 •' The proposed law differs from the 
 conscription in the most essential par- 
 ticular, for it fixes the maximum of 
 the levy, Avhereas the main grievance 
 of [N'apoleon's system consisted in this, 
 that nothing was determined absolute- 
 ly ; no amount of sacrifices secured the 
 country against fresh demands. Under 
 the monarchy, although voluntaiy re- 
 cruiting was as much as possible en- 
 couraged, government never lost hold 
 of the important right of forced enrol- 
 ment : the militia was constantly raised 
 b}' levy ; in remoter times the Ban and 
 Arri^re Ban were called forth by royal 
 proclamation. Forced levies were re- 
 peatedly had recourse to during the 
 long and disastrous wars of Louis XIV. 
 Look at England, that model of re- 
 presentative government ; does it not 
 make use, in cases of necessity, of com- 
 pulsory ser\dce ? What else is the press, 
 which mans the fleet which has' given 
 her the empire of the waves? Look 
 around you in Eui'ope, and yon will 
 see armies everywhere maintained by 
 forced enrolments, which latterly have 
 been pushed to a length that appa- 
 rently knows no limits. Is it fitting 
 for us, surrounded by so many power- 
 ful neighbours, decorated with so much 
 
 glory, the object of such inextinguish- 
 able animosities, to rely for our defence 
 only on the shadow of an army ? Are 
 we prepared to descend from the sum- 
 mits of military fame, to the condition 
 and the reputation of a second-rate 
 power ? We have still within ourselves 
 the elements of a military force capable 
 of securing for ever the independence 
 of our country ; shall Ave let them 
 wither away for want of employment? 
 Our misfortunes have not deprived us 
 of the right to be proud, but they have 
 imposed upon us the duty of being vi- 
 gilant. Cast your eyes on our frontiers, 
 on the garrisons of our citadels, and 
 say if this is the time to slumber at our 
 posts? We are accused of betraying 
 the royal authority when, if we acted 
 otherwise, we should be betrapng the 
 independence of our country ; and the 
 King, by surrendering that of his pre- 
 rogative, has given a noble example of 
 what the duty of liis situation requires, 
 the love of his people can eff'ect. 
 
 49. " The reserve of veterans which 
 it is proposed to establish, rmder the 
 name of ' legionary veterans,' is a mea- 
 sure at once called for by necessity, and 
 justified by every noble and honourable 
 feeling. AVe have to consider, in ap- 
 proaching this subject, if we shall again 
 call to the defence of the country the 
 soldiers who have created its glory, or 
 if we shall for ever stigmatise them as 
 dangerous to its repose. Such a decla- 
 ration would be at once rigorous and 
 unjust, for our soldiers were admirable 
 in the day of battle, and indefatigable 
 ardour animated and heroic patience 
 sustained them ; never have they ceased 
 to feel that they owed their life to the 
 safety of France ; and when they re- 
 tired from their standards they were 
 still prepared to otter to them immense 
 treasures of force and bravery. Is it 
 fitting that France should renounce 
 the privilege of demanding them ? Is 
 it fitting she should cease to pride her- 
 self on those whom Europe is never 
 weary of admiring? Ko ! the thing is 
 impossible ; our safety is not placed iu 
 the oblivion of such services, in the 
 distrust of such courage, in the aban- 
 donment of so secure a rampart. Em- 
 pires are not founded on distrust. The 
 
1818.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUEOPE. 
 
 293 
 
 King knows it ; the King wishes that 
 there should not exist in France a single 
 national force which does not belong 
 to him, a single generous sentiment of 
 Avhich he has not made the conquest. 
 Our soldiers have expiated much, for 
 they have suffered much; breathes there 
 the man who would still repel them ? 
 
 50. " "We must say to those whom the 
 l^hantom of the old army terrifies, that 
 their prejudices are unjust, their alarms 
 without foundation, and that in tliis, 
 as in so many other cases, the dread 
 of imaginary perils may induce real 
 danger. After a crisis such as we arc 
 emerging from, for evils such as we 
 have endured there is but one remedy 
 — and that is oblivion. It is oblivion 
 alone which can heal the wounds of a 
 State so long and violently agitated. 
 Whoever refuses to sacrifice to oblivion 
 prepares new tempests. What French- 
 man has not need of oblivion, if not for 
 himself, at least for his family, his 
 brothers, his children ? Error has been 
 in all camps, within all walls, with- 
 out all walls, under all banners. Our 
 country has often seen rebels in both 
 armies. All of us have faults more or 
 less grave to expiate ; and the King 
 has given the best proof that he knows 
 liow to reign by his knowing how to 
 lorgive. 
 
 51. The last words, pronounced in a 
 most emphatic manner by the ilinister 
 at War, produced a prodigious impres- 
 sion both in the Chamber and over 
 France. They spoke too strongly to the 
 most powerful passions of the people 
 not to excite a universal enthusiasm. 
 They penetrated alike the camps, the 
 towns, and the cottages ; already the 
 words were heard in the streets, " the 
 Grand Army still exists." But the 
 Eoyalists were not discouraged ; and, 
 without du'ectly nmning counter to 
 tliese noble and popular sentiments, 
 they rested their opposition to the pro* 
 posed measure chiefly on its tendency 
 to despoil the Crown of the most im- 
 portant part of its prerogative, that of 
 appointing officers to tlie army, and 
 to establish an armed force which could 
 not be relied on, under all circumstan- 
 ces, to support its authority. "The 
 proposed law," said MM. de Villele, de 
 
 Chateaubriand, and Salaberry, "will 
 renew what was most odious and op- 
 pressive under the Imperial regime — 
 the forced levying of men by the con- 
 scription. Such a measure is repugnant 
 to every idea of a tempered constitu- 
 tion or real freedom ; it is unknown in 
 England, where compulsory enrolment 
 is tolerated only in time of war, and 
 then only for the militia, which cannot 
 be sent out of the country but with its 
 own consent. Other kings have known 
 how to conquer provinces, resist formi- 
 dable leagues, \vith the aid of voluntary 
 enrolment ; are we less powerful than 
 they ? The conscription is the scourge 
 of every country, but, above all, of an 
 agricultural one ; for what can replace 
 the robust arms which are torn from 
 the plough? It leaves, as in tlie last 
 years of the Empire, none to conduct 
 cultivation but widows and orphans. 
 AVhy make such a display of hostile 
 intentions at this time ? Is it desired 
 to awaken the jealousy of the Sove- 
 reigns, to make them call to mind the 
 exploits of the Grand Army, and dream 
 of a second Waterloo? Is legitimacy 
 so very firmly established, that it can 
 with safety be abandoned to those who 
 have so recently shown themselves its 
 bitterest enemies ? On the other hand, 
 Avhy oblige the veterans to come forth, 
 from their retreats, and persecute theni 
 by a compulsory service, under a gov- 
 ernment which there is too much rea- 
 son to fear they are for ever severed 
 from in their hearts. 
 
 52. " ' Promotion, promotion ! ' 
 These are the magic woids which are 
 presented as the soul of the new law, 
 as the secret destined to pi'ocure for 
 us the restoration of our perilous glory. 
 Promotion indeed ! is it already forgot- 
 ten that frenzy was substituted for tho 
 noble sentiment of patriotism in the 
 young clevcs of Napoleon, and that to 
 it are entirely to be ascribed the disas- 
 ters of the Hundred Days ? How is it 
 proposed to regulate this promotion ? 
 Why, by despoiling the King of what 
 is the very essence of the royal prero- 
 gative — the appointment of officer to 
 the armed force ! The charter ex- 
 pressly secures this important power 
 i to the King ; and now the authors of 
 
294 
 
 HISTOEY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. vr. 
 
 the ordinance of 5th September, who 
 were so loud in their assertion of the 
 principle that not an iota of the char- 
 ter should be changed, openly violate 
 it, in order to secure the suffrages of a 
 party the sworn enemies of legitimacy, 
 and 'in order to humiliate the rural 
 noblesse, who are the best supporters 
 of the throne ! 
 
 53. "It is not the law as a military 
 institution which we are to consider. 
 Possibly, in that view, it may be open 
 to very few objections. It is' its spirit, 
 its tendency, that we are to consider. 
 Its tendency in this view is perfectly 
 plain — it is anti-monarchical. All its 
 clauses are conceived in this spirit, 
 that the impulsion and the movement 
 shall no longer proceed from the 
 throne. Under the monarchy, on the 
 same principle, and for the same rea- 
 son, that all judicial appointments and 
 authority flowed from the throne, so 
 the army, essentially obedient, recog- 
 nised no other but the Sovereign. It 
 was his name, and his alone, which it 
 bore on its arms, on its standards. 
 The proposed law alters this entirely, 
 for it takes the nomination and pro- 
 motion of officers from the King ; it 
 violates the charter, which expressly 
 recognises that privilege as residing 
 on him : the formation of veteran le- 
 gions is nothing but a decisive conces- 
 sion to those who have never ceased, 
 and will never cease, to aim at the 
 overthrow of the monarchy and the 
 charter. There exists a flagrant con- 
 spiracy against both. The coup cVetat 
 of September 5 has rendered it omni- 
 potent in civil matters, the present 
 law will do the same Avith military. 
 There was wanting to the Genius of 
 Evil nothing but au army ; when he 
 has obtained one, he will seat himself 
 on the ruins of a throne, at the foot of 
 which fidelity and honour will fall in 
 vain, too late recalled, too late appre- 
 ciated." 
 
 54. Various amendments were pro- 
 posed, and some carried, in both Cham- 
 bers : but they related only to matters 
 of detail, w^hich were w'orked out with 
 extreme care. The principle of the 
 law was too strongly intrenched in the 
 feelings and opinions of the majority 
 
 of the Chamber of Deputies to be 
 shaken ; and although a majority of 
 the Peers were inclined to the other 
 side, the influence of Ministers, and 
 the personal solicitations of the King, 
 obtained for it success. On the final 
 division, the law passed the Deputies 
 by a majority of 55 — the numbers 
 being 147 to 92. In the Peers, the 
 majority was less considerable — the 
 numbers being 96 to 74, Thus passed 
 this bill, which has ever since contin- 
 ued the charter of the French army, 
 and has been successively adopted by 
 all the governments which have suc- 
 ceeded to its du'ection. Its conse- 
 quences were great — it may be said 
 decisive — on the future fate of France 
 and of Europe. It is remarkable that 
 this important change in the composi- 
 tion of the French army — fraught, as 
 the event proved, with such moment- 
 ous consequences — was carried through 
 in presence of the European ambas- 
 sadors, and with their armies still oc- 
 cupying the French citadels ; and 
 there was as much truth as eloquence 
 in the last speech of the Minister at 
 War on the subject — "It is a spec- 
 tacle unique in the history of the 
 w^orld to behold a free and national 
 government discussing its military 
 system in presence of the armies of 
 Europe, still encamped on its terri- 
 tory." 
 
 55. This was the great and decisive 
 measure of the session. When this 
 important victory was gained by the 
 popular party, the lesser successes fol- 
 lowed as a matter of course. The prin- 
 cipal remaining sti'uggle took place on 
 the law proposed by Government in 
 regard to the liberty of the press. The 
 provisions of the bill on this subject, 
 brought forward by M. Pasquier, the 
 Keeper of the Seals, were these : The 
 author of every writing published in 
 France was to be primarily responsible 
 for its contents ; if the author was 
 unknown, the publisher ; and minute 
 regulations were laid doAATi for the 
 seizure of Avorks of an inflammatory 
 tendency, and leading to revolt ; and 
 no journals or periodical works were 
 to appear, without the sanction of the 
 censorship, before the 1st January 
 
1818." 
 
 HISTORY OF EUEOPE. 
 
 295 
 
 1821. This certainly was very far 
 from being the liberty of the press, 
 but still it was a step towards it, and 
 indicated an intention on the part of 
 Government, at no distant period, to 
 remove all restrictions on it. The 
 project, however, excited a great divi- 
 sion in the Chamber ; and a portion of 
 the Centre, headed by Camille Jonr- 
 dan, voted against it. This was an 
 ominous symptom, and so the event 
 proved. The bill was so altered by 
 successive amendments — carried some 
 against, some by the Government — 
 that, in the end, neither party was 
 very anxious for its passing into a law ; 
 and the result was, that after having 
 passed the Chamber of Deputies by a 
 majority of 34 — the numbers being 
 131 to 97 — it was thrown out by the 
 Peers by a majority of 43 — the num- 
 bers being 102 to 59. This result Avas 
 obtained by the Eoyalists having to a 
 man united with the extreme Left to 
 throw out the bill ; — a strange coali- 
 tion at first sight, but natural in real- 
 ity, when two parties — the most at 
 variance on other points — are excluded 
 from power, and both look to freedom 
 of discussion as the only means of re- 
 gaining it. 
 
 66. The laws restrictive of indivi- 
 dual liberty, and establishing the odi- 
 ous prevotal courts, expired at the end 
 of this year, to which period alone they 
 stood extended, without either renewal 
 or observation. In fact, they had be- 
 come a dead letter ; only four arrests 
 had been under their authority in the 
 course of the year. Thus the cause of 
 freedom was sensibly advancing in 
 France with the cessation of treason 
 and sedition. Government no longer 
 felt the necessity of exceptional laws, 
 and were too happy to let them ex- 
 pire ; the public feeling at once repro- 
 bated and rendered imnecessary their 
 continuance. A great truth, interest- 
 ing to all, and especially free nations, 
 may be gathered from this circum- 
 stance — and that is, that the cause of 
 real freedom never is promoted by 
 sedition or revolt. A change of gov- 
 ernment may result, and often has re- 
 sulted, from the success of such at- 
 tempts ; but the cause of liberty has 
 
 never failed to suffer from them. If 
 the treason is successful, none dare 
 call it treason ; its leaders are elevated 
 to high stations, and liberty is in every 
 mouth ; but meanwhile the substance 
 is lost, and the new government is 
 both more powerful and oppressive 
 than the old. If it is unsuccessful, 
 the former government is only render- 
 ed the more powerful and vindictive, 
 from the failure of an attempt to shake 
 its authority. Freedom cannot be won 
 by rude violence, though a change of 
 masters for the worse may : it is the 
 result only of continued tranquillity 
 and peace, and perishes in the first 
 burst of civil dissension. 
 
 57. A more serious difficulty awaited 
 I^Iinisters in the establishment, in the 
 realm of France, of the concordat 
 lately concluded with the Court of 
 Rome. This could only be done by 
 the consent of the Chambei'S, because, 
 as the Church had been despoiled of 
 all its inheritance by the Revolution, 
 the new sees and establishments pro- 
 posed required to be endowed from the 
 funds of the State. It was no easy 
 matter, with a Chamber the majority 
 of which was decidedly Liberal, to ob- 
 tain such a grant ; and yet, without 
 it, the concordat would remain a dead 
 letter. The Duke de Richelieu, to 
 meet the difficulties, brought in a mo- 
 derate bill, the purport of which was, 
 that, in conformity with the concordat 
 of Leo X. and Francis I., now again 
 become the law of France, there should 
 be seven new archbishoprics, and one 
 hundred and thirty-five new episcopal 
 sees established in the countr}', the 
 funds for the support of which should 
 be taken from the public exchequer ; 
 that no bull or brief of the Pope should 
 be published in France till it had re- 
 ceived the sanction of the King ; and 
 that those concerning the Church in 
 general, the interest of the State, or 
 which modified its existing institu- 
 tions, should be submitted to the 
 Chambers. It was not likely that a 
 bill which went, on the one hand, to 
 impose so considerable a burden on 
 the public funds, and, on the other, 
 abridged in such important particulars 
 the authority of the Church of Rome^ 
 
296 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [CUAP. VI. 
 
 would meet with the support either of 
 a Liberal Chamber, or of the Papal 
 Government. It experienced, accord- 
 ingly, great opposition ; and after 
 being anxiously discussed in commit- 
 tee, and vehemently by the public 
 press, it was witlidra^\Ti by ]\Iinister?, 
 and the matter referred again to the 
 Duke de Richelieu, for further negoti- 
 ation with the Court of Rome, 
 
 58. The most important matter 
 which remained for consideration was 
 the Budget, and the greatest interests 
 were wound up with it. On the suc- 
 cess of the Ministry's measures of fin- 
 ance it depended whether France could 
 make good its still onerous engage- 
 ments to the Allies, and thereby effect 
 an arrangement which might lead to 
 the evacuation of the territory. This 
 was a matter of the very highest im- 
 portance, upon which the King's heart 
 was most anxiously set, and upon the 
 success of which the stability of his 
 government might be considered as in 
 a great degree dependent. jMuch con- 
 sideration was requisite before a sub- 
 ject so surrounded with difficulties 
 could be adequately handled, and the 
 resources of the country, equally with 
 the capital of its moneyed men, were 
 alike unequal to making good the en- 
 
 gagements. But happily the Credit 
 of its Government stood high, and the 
 honourable punctuality with which it 
 had discharged its' obligations, since 
 the Restoration, had gone far to re- 
 move the effects of the confiscation of 
 so large a part of its public debt dur- 
 ing the Revolution. M. Corvetto, the 
 Finance Minister, estimated the ordi- 
 nary receipts at 767,778,000 francs 
 (£30,710,000) ; and the expenditure 
 was 993,244,022 francs (£39,700,000) ; 
 — so that the deficit to be provided for 
 by loan was no less than 225,465,000 
 francs, or £9,018,000. As the French 
 capitalists were wholly unequal to the 
 raising a sum so large, especially after 
 the great loans of tlie three preceding 
 years, recourse was again had to for- 
 eign aid, and Messrs Baring and Hope 
 furnished the requisite assistance. The 
 loan was obtained on more favourable 
 terms than that of the preceding year, 
 the Five per Cents being taken at 67 
 instead of 58, as in 1817 ; no less than 
 16,000,000 francs of rentes were in- 
 scribed on the Grand Livre for the 
 interest of this loan ; the loan, with 
 the extra charges of commission, &c., 
 was contracted for at nearly 10 per 
 cent ; * and it must always be regarded 
 as a most honourable circumstance for 
 
 * Budget of tae Year 1818. 
 
 Income. 
 
 
 Francs. 
 
 Land-tax, .... 
 
 259,054,937 
 
 Personal tax, patents, windows, 
 
 98,433,663 
 
 Registers and woods, . 
 
 162,200,000 
 
 Customs, .... 
 
 80,000,000 
 
 Indirect taxes, 
 
 120,000,000 
 
 Ports, 
 
 12,000,000 
 
 Lottery and salt-mines, . 
 
 14,000,000 
 
 Given up by Royal Family, . 
 
 3,000,000 
 
 Receipts by police, 
 
 5,900,000 
 
 Retained from salaiies, . 
 
 13,200,000 
 
 Total income, 
 
 767,778,600 
 
 Total expenditure, 
 
 993,244,022 
 
 Difference to be provided for 
 by loan, . . . 225,465,422 
 
 (or about £9,018,000) 
 
 — Annuaire Historiqne, i. 196, 197 
 
 Expenditure. 
 
 
 Ordinary. 
 
 Francs. 
 
 Interest of National Debt, . 
 
 140,782.000 
 
 Sinking Fund, 
 
 40,000,000 
 
 Annuities, .... 
 
 12,800,000 
 
 Pensions of all sorts, . 
 
 65,908,000 
 
 Civil list, .... 
 
 34,000,000 
 
 Clerg}' 
 
 22,000,000 
 
 Peers, 
 
 2,000,000 
 
 Deputies, .... 
 
 680,000 
 
 Various Ministries, 
 
 291,913,000 
 
 Departmental exjienses. 
 
 31,976,000 
 
 Cautionary engagements. 
 
 8,000,000 
 
 Negotiation, .... 
 
 18,000,000 
 
 Cadastre, .... 
 
 3,000,000 
 
 Non valeurs, .... 
 
 9,916,000 
 
 
 680,975,000 
 
 Extraordinary/. 
 
 
 Fifth -war-contributiou, . 
 
 140,000,000 
 
 Cost and pay of Allied troops. 
 
 154,800,000 
 
 Arrears of do., 
 
 11,468,422 
 
 Miscellaneous, 
 
 6,000,000 
 
 
 312,268,421 
 
 Total, 
 
 993,224,022 
 
1S18.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 297 
 
 the French Government and nation, 
 that they discharged such enormous 
 obligations with exactness and fidel- 
 ity: 
 
 59. This great difficulty having heen 
 surmounted, negotiations began in 
 good earnest for the evacuation of the 
 French territory. The great obstacle 
 was the enormous amount of the in- 
 demnities claimed by governments or 
 individuals for exactions made from 
 them during the war, which had 
 swelled to 1,600,000,000 francs, or 
 £64,000,000. At length, however, by 
 the indefatigable efforts of the com- 
 missioners, aided by the liberal and 
 just views of the Duke of "Wellington, 
 Avho was at their head, the claims were 
 .•so far adjusted that the interest of the 
 new debt, to be created for this pur- 
 pose, was fixed at 12,400,000 francs, 
 or £482,000, a very small sum com- 
 pared with what had been anticipated. 
 "France," said the Duke de Richelieu, 
 in announcing the conclusion of this 
 arrangement to the Chamber of Peers, 
 "should now reap the reward of her 
 courageous resignation. Holding in 
 her hands the treaties of which she 
 has performed the most onerous con- 
 <litions, she will not appeal in vain to 
 Europe for the execution, in her turn, 
 of such as are favourable to her. The 
 treaty of 20th ]^ovember 1815 bears 
 this clause : ' The military occupation 
 of France may terminate at the end of 
 three years ! ' That term approaches, 
 and every French heart quivers at the 
 thought of seeing on the soil of our 
 country no other banner but that of 
 France. The Sovereigns are about to 
 assemble, to deliberate on this gi-eat 
 question. Thi:s assembly will not be 
 one of the congresses of kings which 
 history has often recounted as of sinis- 
 ter omen : that august reunion will 
 open under noble auspices. Justice 
 will preside over it — the august rulers 
 of nations will }neld to the wish of the 
 King — to that Avish which, after the 
 example of its august family, entire 
 France has pronounced with a unani- 
 mous voice. The most perfect tran- 
 •piillity reigns in France — our institu- 
 tions are developed and strengthened 
 — the Charter, throAvn open to all 
 
 parties, receives them, not to become 
 then- prey, but that they may be cher- 
 ished, and lost in its bosom. If, for a 
 moment, they have seemed to revive, 
 the Avise firmness of the King has im- 
 mediately disarmed them ; and the 
 experience of that has proved for us, 
 as for all Europe, an evident demon- 
 stration of their impotence. Last year 
 a cruel calamity, the most likely of 
 any to agitate a people, made itself 
 severely felt. If, in the midst of so 
 many difficulties, the legitimate mon- 
 archy has displayed so much strength, 
 what has it to apprehend for the fu- 
 ture ; and what alarm can Europe feel 
 at the prospect of France, free under 
 the beneficent sceptre of its Sove- 
 reigns ? " As a corollary to these 
 cheering expressions, he propos-ed the 
 inscription on the Grand Livre — in 
 other words, the creation of stock — to 
 the extent of 12,400,000 francs, to 
 meet the demands of private parties, 
 and 24,000,000 francs of rentes yearly 
 (£960,000), to form a fund of credit 
 where-svith to meet the demands of the 
 foreign powers. Overjoyed at the pro- 
 spect of obtaining a liberation of their 
 territory by such sacrifices, these grants 
 were agreed to AAithout a dissenting 
 voice in both houses. 
 
 60. Aix-la-Chapelle, where it was 
 determined that the Congress charged 
 with such weighty matters of consi- 
 deration should sit, is an old town in 
 the German part of the Low Countries, 
 long celebrated for its antiquities, and 
 the memorable events of which it has 
 been the theatre. Charlemagne fixed 
 upon it as the capital of his extensive 
 dominions, which, like those which a 
 thousand years afterAvards were under 
 the influence of Napoleon, extended far 
 into Germany on the right bank of the 
 Rhine. It contains the tomb of that 
 illustrious man, and many objects of 
 antiquarian interest; but, having ceased 
 to be a metropolis when his mighty 
 dominion fell to j)ieces, it had rapidly 
 sunk from its ancient splendour, and 
 for several centuries had been chiefly 
 supported by the concourse of strangers 
 who assembled annually to drink its 
 celebrated waters. Now, however, it 
 received a passing but brilliant illus- 
 
29S 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. VI. 
 
 tration from the momentous Congress 
 •which assembled within its walls, and 
 on whose decisions the fate, not only 
 of France, but of Europe, in a great 
 measure depended. To those who re- 
 flect on the vicissitudes of time, and 
 the mighty changes produced by the 
 course of events, it will not appear the 
 least remarkable coincidence of that 
 memorable era, that the Sovereigns 
 charged with the consideration of when 
 the French territory should be liberated 
 from its thraldom, assembled after the 
 lapse of a thousand years in the capital 
 city of their fonner conq^ueror, and in 
 the close vicinity of his tomb ; and that 
 a leading power in the conferences was 
 that formed by the descendants of the 
 heroic Witikind, who had struggled as 
 long and perseveringly against the first 
 Charlemagne as his descendants had 
 done against the second. 
 
 61. The concourse of strangers soon 
 began in Aix-la-Chapelle. Prince Met- 
 ternich arrived on the 20th September, 
 and soon after M. Capo d' I stria, Prince 
 Lieven, and Pozzo di Borgo, and Nes- 
 selrode ; on the part of Russia, General 
 Chernicheff, Count Woronzoff, General 
 Jomini, and several others. Prince 
 Hardenberg, Baron Bernstorff, and 
 Baron Alexander de Humboldt, ap- 
 peared on behalf of Prussia; Lord Cas- 
 tlereagh, the Duke of Wellington, and 
 Mr Canning, on that of Great Britain. 
 Finally, Messrs Hope, Baring, and 
 Rothschild, were there as private in- 
 dividuals, but possessing more weight 
 than many Sovereigns, from being alone 
 possessed of the capital requisite to carry 
 into effect the vast financial operations 
 which were in contemplation. The Duke 
 de Richelieu attended on the part of 
 France ; he took an afi'ectionate leave of 
 Louis XYIIL, whose last words to him 
 on setting out were : " M. de Richelieu, 
 make every sacrifice to obtain the eva- 
 cuation of the territory ; it is the first 
 condition of our independence : no flag 
 but our OAvn should wave in France. 
 Express to my allies how difiicult my 
 government will be so long as it can 
 be reproached Avith the calamities of 
 the countr}', and the occupation of the 
 territory; and yet you know, M. de 
 Richelieu, it Avas not I, but Buonaparte, 
 
 who brought the Allies upon us. These 
 are my whole instructions. Repeat to 
 the Emperor Alexander that he has it 
 in his power to render a greater service 
 to my house than he has done in 1814 
 or 1815 ; after having restored legiti- 
 macy, it remains for him to reap the 
 glory of having restored the national 
 independence. Obtain the best condi- 
 tions possible ; but, at any sacrifice, 
 get quit of the stranger," 
 
 62. The King of Prussia, within whose 
 territories Aix-la-Chapelle is situated, 
 arrived on the 26th September, to re- 
 ceive his august allies, the Emperors of 
 Russia and Austria, who arrived on the 
 28th. As the congress Avas expected to 
 be short, there AA^as not the same bril- 
 liant concourse of strangers AA'hich had 
 met at Vienna in 1814 ; but still enough, 
 to throw an air of splendour OA'er the 
 august assembly. The Princess Lieven 
 and Lady Castlereagh shone pre-emi- 
 nent among the female diplomatists — 
 not the least important personages in 
 a congress of that description — and re- 
 ceived all the illustrious persons Avho 
 were assembled on the occasion. The 
 splendid diamonds of the latter were 
 the object of general admiration. ]\Ia- 
 dame Catalan! appeared there with the - 
 magnificent diamond brooch which had 
 been given her by the Emperor Alex- 
 ander; and the chief beauties of the 
 opera at Paris added the influence of 
 their charms to the gaiet}^ of the scene. 
 ISTor Avere there wanting some Avho aimed 
 at attracting the notice of the Emperor 
 Alexander by fallmg in with his pe- 
 culiar and superstitious feelings ; and 
 Mademoiselle Lenormand, in the dress 
 and with the pretensions of a sibyl, 
 endeaA^oured, though without the same 
 success, to play the part which Madame 
 Krudener had done in bringing about 
 the Holy Alliance. 
 
 63. The Emperor Alexander gave se- 
 veral audiences to M. de Richelieu, vnth. 
 whom he conversed in the most unre- 
 serA' ed manner on the afi'airs of France. 
 " Your nation," said he, " is brave and 
 loA^al ; it has supported its misfortunes 
 Anth a patience AA'hich is heroic. Do 
 you think, M. de Richeheu, that it is 
 prepared for the evacuation; do you 
 consider the Government sufficiently 
 
1818.] 
 
 established ? Tell me the simple truth ; 
 you know I am the friend and admirer 
 of your nation, and I Avish nothing but 
 your word on the subject." " Never," 
 replied the Duke de Richelieu, "was 
 nation more worthy and better prepared 
 to receive the great act which the mag- 
 nanimity of your Majesty is preparing 
 for it. Your Majesty has seen wath 
 what fidelity it has discharged all its 
 engagements ; and I will answer for the 
 results of its political system." " My 
 dear Eichelieu," rejoined the Emperor, 
 *' you are loyalty itself. I do not fear 
 the development in France of liberal 
 institiitions ; I am liberal myself — very 
 liberal. I should even wish that your 
 King should perform some act which 
 should conciliate the holders of the 
 national domains ; but I fear the Ja- 
 cobins—I hate them : beware of throw- 
 ing yourself into their arms. Europe 
 Avill have nothing more to do with Jaco- 
 binism. There is but one Holy Alliance 
 of kings, founded on morality and 
 Christianity, which can save the social 
 order. We should set the first exam- 
 ple." " You may rely on the King of 
 France doing all in his power to extin- 
 guish Jacobinism ; and the law of elec- 
 tions has produced satisfactory results. " 
 " I know it," replied the Emperor; 
 '* but let us await the next returns. 
 In the name of Heaven, M. de Riche- 
 lieu, let us save the social order. Prus- 
 sia is very urgent for money ; Austria, 
 too, is very needy ; I, for my own part, 
 should have no objections to receive 
 the sums due to me for indemnities as 
 King of Poland. Come to an under- 
 standing A\dth M. Baring; it is there 
 that the key to all the arrangements 
 we desire is to be found." 
 
 64. "When sentiments of this sort were 
 entertained by the principal parties at 
 the Congress, it was not difficult to come 
 to an understanding. The prelimina- 
 ries were arranged on the 1st October, 
 and a courier, the moment the signa- 
 tures were attached, was despatched to 
 the King of France to announce the 
 happy result. The conditions were — 
 1. That the troops should retire from 
 the strong places which they occupied 
 on the territory of France, on or before 
 the 30th November, which were to be 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 299 
 
 immediately occupied by the French 
 troops. 2. That the sums required for 
 the pay, clothing, and maintenance of 
 the troops, as regulated by the conven- 
 tion of December 1, 1817, should be 
 paid doAvn to the 30th November. 3. 
 That, in consideration of this evacua- 
 tion before the five years, to which it 
 might have extended, had expired, 
 France should pay to the Allies the sum 
 of 265,000,000 francs (£10,600,000), 
 of which 100,000,000 were to be made 
 good in inscriptions on the Grand Livre, 
 dated 22d September 1818, and taken 
 at the current rate of 5th October. 4. 
 The remaining 165,000,000 were to be 
 settled by drafts on the houses of Hope 
 and Baring, in nine monthly payments 
 of equal amount each, the drafts to be 
 delivered to the commissioners of the 
 Allied powers by the agents of the French 
 treasury at the time of the final evacua- 
 tion of the territory. 
 
 65. Having accomplished this great 
 object of the deliverance of the terri- 
 tory, the next object of the Duke do 
 Richelieu was to obtain the admission 
 of France into the European confede- 
 racy, by whom it had so long been an 
 object of secret dread or open hostility. 
 He addressed himself to this effect to 
 the ministers of the Allied powers, and 
 the request was favourably received ; 
 but it was deemed better that the first 
 diplomatic advance should come from 
 the powers themselves. In conse- 
 quence, a note signed by the minis- 
 ters of the four great powers was ad- 
 dressed to the Duke de Richelieu, in 
 which they stated that their sovereigns, 
 after having maturely and anxiously 
 weighed the state of France, and the 
 chances of stability in its existing in- 
 stitutions, had come to a unanimous 
 opinion that they had the happiness 
 of thinking that the order of things 
 established by the restoration of the 
 Bourbon line, and the wisdom of his 
 Most Christian Majesty, was now firmly 
 rooted ; that the French Government 
 had discharged its obligations A\-ith the 
 most scrupulous fidelity ; and, in con- 
 sequence, the Allied powers had deter- 
 mined to make the occupation of the 
 territory cease on the 30th November. 
 Animated by these sentiments, they 
 
300 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap, v: 
 
 indulged the hope that his Most Chris- 
 tian Majesty would permit them to 
 unite their councils and efforts with 
 his for the attainment of these objects ; 
 and they invite him to take part in 
 their deliberations, present or future, 
 for the maintenance of peace, and the 
 mutual guarantee of the rights of na- 
 tions. 
 
 66. This was a most important step, 
 as it tended at once to readmit France 
 into the European alliance : a matter 
 of nearly as great importance to the 
 stability of its government as the eva- 
 cuation. M. de Richelieu, in the name 
 of Louis XVIII., hastened to answer. 
 " His JMajesty the King of France has 
 received with the most lively satisfac- 
 tion this fresh proof of the confidence 
 and friendship of the sovereigns who 
 have taken part in the deliberations of 
 Aix-la-Chapelle. In casting his re- 
 gards on the past, and being convinced 
 that at no other period no other nation 
 could have discharged with equal fidel- 
 ity the engagements France has con- 
 tracted, the King has felt that this 
 new species of glory was to be ascribed 
 to the force of the institutions which 
 rule it ; and he perceives with joy that 
 the consolidation of these institutions 
 is regarded as not less advantageous to 
 the repose of Europe than essential to 
 its prosperity. Convinced that his 
 first duty is to perpetuate, by every 
 means in his j)ower, the peace now 
 happily established among the nations, 
 that the intimate union of their gov- 
 ernments is the surest pledge of its 
 durability, and that France cannot re- 
 main a stranger to a system the force 
 of which arises from an entire unity of 
 principles and actions, his ^Majesty has 
 received with cordiality the proposition 
 made to him, and has, in consequence, 
 authorised the undersigned to take part 
 in all the deliberations of the ministers 
 and plenipotentiaries, in the view of 
 maintaining the treaties and guaran- 
 teeing the mutual rights which they 
 have established." 
 
 67. It soon appeared that the acces- 
 sion of France to the European alli- 
 ance was not to be a mere formality. 
 In a few da^s after a secret protocol 
 was signed by the ministers of all the 
 
 five powers, which bore — " 1. That 
 the sovereigns are determined never to 
 deviate, neither in their mutual rela- 
 tions nor in those which unite them to 
 other states, from the principles which 
 have hitherto united them, and which 
 form a bond of Christian fraternity 
 which the sovereigns have formed 
 among each other. 2. That that 
 union, which is only the more close 
 and durable that it is founded on no 
 separate interests or momentary com- 
 bination, can have no other object but 
 the maintenance of the treaties, and 
 the support of the rights established 
 by them. 3. That France, associated 
 with the other powers by the restora- 
 tion of a Government at once legiti- 
 mate and constitutional, engages hence- 
 forth to concur in the maintenance and 
 support of a system which has given 
 peace to Europe, and can alone secure 
 its duration. 4. That if, to attain 
 these ends, the powers which have 
 conciu-red in the present act should 
 deem it necessary to establish particu- 
 lar reunions, either among the sove- 
 reigns themselves or their ministers, 
 to treat of subjects in which they have 
 a common interest, the time and place 
 of such assemblages shall be previously 
 arranged by diplomatic communica- 
 tion ; and in the event of such reunions 
 having for their object the condition 
 of other states in Europe, they shall 
 not take place except in pursuance of 
 a formal invitation to those by whom 
 those states are directed, and under an 
 express reservation of then- right to 
 participate in it directly, or by their 
 plenipotentiaries. " 
 
 68. This protocol was followed by 
 another, which was of a more practical 
 nature, and went du-ectly to regulate 
 the military arrangements which were 
 to be adopted in the event of a fresh 
 revolutionary outbreak in France. The 
 ministers of the four great powers ac- 
 cordingly — on the urgent solicitation 
 of the lesser states in Germany, who 
 Avere more immediately threatened on 
 such an event — met secretly, with- 
 out the concurrence of France or the 
 Duke de Richelieu. At this confer- 
 ence it was agreed — " 1. That all the 
 engagements stipulated by the Quad- 
 
1818.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 301 
 
 ruple Alliance of 20tli Kov. 1815, are 
 reserved in their full force and effect 
 with reference to the ^fcedcris ct belli 
 casus,' as it was foreseen and provided 
 for by that treaty. 2. That for the 
 casus fa'clcr is, such as was provided for 
 in the second paragraph of the said 
 treaty, the high contracting parties to 
 the present protocol, in pursuance of 
 tlieir existing engagements, agree to 
 concert, in such an event, in particular 
 reunions, either among the monarchs 
 in person, or the four cabinets, on the 
 most effectual means of arresting the 
 fatal cff'ects of a neia revolutionarij 
 overthrow uith ichich France may he 
 threatened; recollecting always, that 
 the progress of the evils which have so 
 long desolated Europe has only been 
 arrested by the intimacy of the union, 
 and the purity of the sentiments which 
 unite the four sovereigns for the hap- 
 piness of the world." 
 
 69. In pursuance of this agreement, 
 it was provided that the coiys d'armee, 
 stipulated by the treaty of Chaumont, 
 should simultaneously enter upon the 
 campaign the day when the Allied 
 powers declared that the casus foederis 
 had arisen. The British corps was to 
 assemble at " Brussels, the Prussian 
 at Cologne, the Austrian at Stuttgardt, 
 the Ru.ssian, after the lapse of three 
 months, on account of its great dis- 
 tance, at Mayence. The Duke of Wel- 
 lington, who had been specially direct- 
 ed by the Government of Great Britain, 
 and that of the Netherlands, to over- 
 look and report upon the fortifications 
 of the Low Countries, has declared 
 that he can certify that the c^uantity 
 of works executed has been immense ; 
 and that a powerful defensive attitude 
 Avould be taken in the next year, should 
 circumstances demand it. The pleni- 
 potentiaries of the other powers have, 
 in like manner, declared that they can 
 give satisfactory assurances on the pro- 
 gress of the defensive preparations on 
 the other countries adjoining the 
 French frontier. In these circum- 
 stances, the plenipotentiaries of the 
 four powers have considered the best 
 means of providing for the garrisoning 
 of these fortresses, in the event of a 
 war breaking out and hostilities com- 
 
 mencing in the Low Countries. These 
 fortresses have not been constructed 
 for the defence of any single country, 
 but for the general protection of Eu- 
 rope ; and there are several in the 
 second line which require to be occu- 
 pied on the Dutch frontier. It has 
 therefore been agreed to recommend 
 to his Majesty the King of the Nether- 
 lands, in the event of the casus foederis 
 being declared, that the fortresses of 
 Ostend, Nieuport, Ypres, and those on 
 the Scheldt, with the exception of the 
 citadels of Antwerp and Tournay, 
 should be occupied by the troops of 
 his Britannic Majesty, and the citadels 
 of Huy, Namur, and Dinant, as well 
 as the strong places of Charleroi, Mari- 
 enburg, and Philippe ville, by those of 
 his Prussian Majesty." 
 
 70. It was not surprising that, amidst 
 all this seeming cordiality with the 
 French nation, the Allied powers took 
 these precautionary measures against 
 a possible revolution in its govern- 
 ment; for, in truth, they were in- 
 spired with very grave alarms on the 
 subject. Although the new electoral 
 law had been only two years in opera- 
 tion, the results obtained from the 
 two-fifths of the Chamber Avhich had 
 been returned under it, were sufficient 
 to inspire the most serious apprehen- 
 sions that, when the whole Assembly 
 was remodelled after the same fashion, 
 the majority would be decidedly hos- 
 tile to the Bourbon dynasty. A very 
 able memoir had been drawn up by 
 the Royalists at Paris, and secretly 
 transmitted to the sovereigns at Aix- 
 la-Chapelle, in which the Liberal po- 
 licy of M. Decazes was violently ar- 
 raigned, the certain overthrow of the 
 monarchy predicted from its continu- 
 ance, and the only remedy suggested 
 in an entire change of men and mea- 
 sures.* Without giving complete cre- 
 
 * "La revolution etend jnjsqu'aux demiferes 
 classes de la nation, qu'clle agite partout avec 
 violence, les principes destnicteurs de notro 
 monarchie proi)os6s a la tribune par les min- 
 istres du Roi; et Ton ne veut pour exemple 
 que le discours du Ministre de la Guerre sur 
 la loi du recrutement, et celui du Ministre dc 
 la Police sur la liberte de la presse ; des ecrits 
 audacieux sapent tons les fondeni ens de I'ordre 
 social, et les lois repressives ne font obstacle 
 qu'aux ^crivains qui soutiennent la mouarchie 
 
302 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. yi. 
 
 dit to these prognostications, wliich 
 were evidently the offspring of vehe- 
 mently excited and deeply chagrined 
 party feelings, the Allied sovereigns 
 saw that there was sufficient founda- 
 tion for some of them to render it ad- 
 visable to make arrangements for an 
 eventual renewal of the war. 
 
 71. But whatever might be the ap- 
 prehensions which the Allies in secret 
 entertained in regard to the stability 
 of the existing order of things in 
 France, there was no want, so far as 
 external appearances went, of the most 
 entire conhdence and cordiality be- 
 tween them. The Allied sovereigns, 
 and the Emperor Alexander in parti- 
 cular, considered it a point of honour 
 to carry into execution all the arrange- 
 ments for the evacuation of the terri- 
 tory, with the same scrupulous good 
 faith and exactness with vrhich the 
 French Government had discharged all 
 the onerous engagements undertaken 
 by it under the treaty of 20th Novem- 
 ber 1815. On the day stipulated, the 
 30th November 1818, the fortresses oc- 
 cupied by the Allies were everywhere 
 evacuated by their troops, and handed 
 over to the French corps under the 
 Duke d'Angouleme, wliich were at the 
 gates to occupy them. With speech- 
 less delight the French troops defiled 
 through the gates of their ancient 
 strongholds, reoccupied the well-known 
 quarters, and beheld, amidst thunders 
 of artillery, the national standard again 
 hoisted on their walls. The most scru- 
 
 et la legitimite ; les jugements des tribunaux 
 sont li\Tes aux diatribes les \A\is violentes ; 
 tous les liens de I'etat social sont relaches ; 
 le Gouvernemeut ne parait marcher que par 
 rimpulsion d'un pouvoir qui n'existe plus, et 
 par la presence des forces etrangferes ; enfiu, 
 tout se prepare a faire la guerre a I'Europe. 
 Par quels nioyens pent - on empeeher que 
 la France, et par elle I'Europe entiere, ne 
 viennent encore la proie des revolutionnaires? 
 Changer le sj'stfeme du gouvernement par le 
 ehangemeut complet du Minist&re qui le 
 dirige. Le changement complet du Minis- 
 tfere est le seul moyen salutaire, le seul v^ri- 
 tablement efficace, et en meme temps qu'il 
 est le seul loyal et admissible pour empeeher 
 que la France ne redevienne encore uii foyer 
 de riSvolution, qui ne tarderait pas a enibras- 
 ser I'Europe enti&re." — Memoire Secret 2>'>'e- 
 scnte aux Souverains a Aix-la-Chapelh, par 
 M. le Baron Vermeuil. Capefigue, Histoire 
 de la Restauration, v. 34S, 353. 
 
 pulous good faith and exactitude pre- 
 vailed in all the arrangements, and the 
 utmost courtesy and politeness between 
 the officers of the retiring and the en- 
 tering armies. As the Allied troops 
 had, in general, conducted themselves 
 exceedingly well, imder the firm and 
 judicious direction of the Duke of 
 "Wellington, and had spent large sums 
 of money in the cities which they oc- 
 cupied, their \\ithdrawal was a matter 
 of regret to many; but to the majority, 
 whatever regard they entertained for 
 them individually, it was a subject of 
 unspeakable delight to see the foreign 
 colours lowered, and the national ones 
 again hoisted on their citadels. The 
 Duke of "Wellington, previous to the 
 breaking-up of the army of occupation, 
 issued a touching valedictory address 
 to the noble army, composed of so many 
 nations, whom he had commanded for 
 three years; and retired with cheer- 
 fulness into the comparative obscurity 
 of English life, from the proudest situ- 
 ation, ' ' above all Greek, above all Ro- 
 man fame," ever held by an uncrowned 
 military commander.* 
 
 * " Le Field-Marechal Due de Wellington 
 ne peut preudre conge des troupes qu'il a eu 
 I'honneur de commander, sans leur exprimer 
 sa gratitude pour la bonne conduite qui les a 
 fait distinguer pendant le temps qu'elles ont 
 ete sous ses ordres. II y a prfes de trois ans 
 que les souverains allies ont confle au Field- 
 Marechal le commandement en chef de cette 
 parti de leurs forces que les circonstances 
 avaient rendu necessaire de laisser en France. 
 Si les mesures que leurs MM. avaient com- 
 mandees ont et^ executees a leur satisfaction, 
 le resultat doit etre eutiferement attribu^ a la 
 conduite prudeute et eclairee tenue dans les 
 circonstances par leur excellences les Gene- 
 raux en chef, au bon exemple qu'ils ont 
 donn^ aux autres Generaux et officiers leurs 
 subordonnes, aussi bien qu'aux efforts de 
 ceux-ci pour les seconder, et enfin a I'excel- 
 lente discipline qui a ete constamnient ob- 
 servee dans les contingences. C'est avec re- 
 gret qu'il a vu arriver le moment oii la dislo- 
 cation de cette ai-mee allait mettre fin a ses 
 rapports publics et prives avec les conmiand- 
 ants et autres officiers des divers corps. Le 
 Field-Marechal ne peut assez exprimer com- 
 bien ces rapports lui ^taient agrealjles; il 
 prie les Gouvemeurs en chef de recevoir et 
 de transmettre aux troupes qui sont sous 
 leurs ordres, I'assurance qu"il ne cessera ja- 
 mais de prendre le plus vif interet a ce qui 
 les conceme, et qui le souvenir des trois an- 
 nees durant lesquelles il a ^te a leur tete, lui 
 sera toujours cher." — G. Murray, le General 
 en chef de I'Etat J[ajor de I'Armee Alli^e." — 
 Annates mstoriqucs, i. 437, 438. 
 
1818.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 303 
 
 72. Justice requires that the course 
 of the narrative should for a moment 
 he suspended, to reflect on the conduct 
 of the Duke of Wellington on this oc- 
 casion. As commander-in-chief of the 
 Allied army of occupation, his appoint- 
 ments were immense; his expenses 
 were all paid ; and he held a situation 
 which, in point of dignity and import- 
 ance, any conqueror might envy, and 
 which far exceeded that enjoyed by 
 any sovereign prince. He was at the 
 head of tlie united armies of Europe, 
 and he held in fetters the realm of 
 Napoleon. Nevertheless, so far was he 
 from endeavouring to prolong a situa- 
 tion of so much dignity and emolu- 
 ment to himself, that his whole efforts 
 were directed to its abridgment ; from 
 first to last, he did everything in his 
 power to induce the Allies to shorten 
 the stay of the army of occupation; 
 and at last succeeded, very much by 
 his personal efforts, in lessening it by 
 two years. His situation as comman- 
 der-in-chief, and, still more, his vast 
 personal reputation, rendered him in a 
 manner the final arbiter in the many 
 disputed points which arose between 
 the French and the Allies regarding 
 the pecuniary indemnities; and in 
 that capacity his decisions were not 
 only regulated by the strictest justice, 
 and the most assiduous attention to 
 the rights of the parties, but they were 
 so liberal and indulgent towards the 
 vanquished and unfortunate, that they 
 have extorted the praise even of the 
 French historians, the most envious of 
 his great reputation.* In this con- 
 
 * " On n'a point en gdn^ral rendu assez de 
 justice au Due de Wellington, pour la mani- 
 fere large et loyale dont il prot^gea les int6- 
 rets de la France dans toutes les n^gociations 
 avec I'etranger. Je ne parle pas d'abord de 
 riiumense service rendu par S. S. dans la 
 fiyation des creances ^trangferes. Le Due de 
 Wellington se montra arbitre desinteresse, et 
 la posterity doit reconnaitre, a I'honneur de 
 M. de Richelieu, qu'il sortit pauvre d'une 
 position ou I'oubli de quelques devoirs aus- 
 tferes de la conscience aurait pu creer pour 
 lui la plus colossale des fortunes. Le Due 
 de Wellington fut trfes-favorable a la France 
 dans tout ce qui touchait I'evacuation du ter- 
 ritoire. Sa position de G^neralissime de I'ar- 
 mee de I'occupation donnait un grand poids 
 a son avis sur cette question ; il fut chaqiie 
 fois consulte, et chaque fois egalement il re- 
 pondait par des paroles ^lev^es ^ui faisaient 
 
 duct we discern another trait of that 
 singleness of heart and disinterested- 
 ness of disposition which formed the 
 leading features of that great man's 
 character ; and a memorable proof how 
 completely a mind actuated only, and 
 on every occasion, by a sense of duty, 
 can rise superior to the most powerful 
 influence and greatest temptations of 
 this world. The author has a melan- 
 choly pleasure in recording this tribute 
 to the greatest man of the age, now no 
 more ; and when there remains only 
 to his country the pride of his deeds 
 and the example of his virtues.* 
 
 73. It was while engaged in these 
 great and beneficent deeds, which came 
 with such peculiar grace and lustre from 
 the conqueror of Waterloo, that the 
 hand of an assassin had all but cut 
 short his career. On the 11th Febru- 
 ary, when the Duke was at Paris, active- 
 ly engaged in endeavouring to reduce 
 the enormous pecuniary indemnities 
 claimed from the French, and the 
 diminution of which was indispensable 
 to any arrangement which might 
 shorten the period of the occupation of 
 their territory, an attempt was made 
 to assassinate him. At one in the 
 morning, as he was stepping out of his 
 carriage at the door of his hotel, a 
 pistol was suddenly discharged at him, 
 though happily it missed the object. 
 The assassin, who was seen by the 
 servant behind the carriage, glided off 
 in the obscurit}% and escaped in the 
 dark ; but a man of the name of Can- 
 
 honneur a son caract^re. Le Due de Wel- 
 lington, par la cessation de I'occupation ar- 
 m^e, avait a perdre une grande position eu 
 France, celle de Gen^ralissinie des Allies, ce 
 qui le faisait en quelque sorte niembre du 
 Uouvernement; il avait a sacrifier im traite- 
 ment immense ; de plus, le noble Lord con- 
 naissaitl'opinion de Lord Castlereagli, et d'une 
 grande partie des membres de I'aristocratic 
 Anglaise, sur la n^cessite de I'occupation 
 armee. Tons ces intdrets ne I'arretferent 
 point ; il fut d'avis que cette mesure de pre- 
 caution devait cesser, car la France avait 
 non-seulement accompli les itaiemens sti- 
 pules, mais son Gouvemement semblait offrir 
 le caractfere d'ordre, et de dur^e : cette opi- 
 nion fut tr^s-puissante dans le congi-fes d'Aix- 
 la-CIiapelle." — Cafefigve, Histoire de la Re- 
 staurntion, v. 354, 357. 
 
 * Written on ISth September 1852, the day 
 after the intelligence of the Duke of Welling- 
 tou's death was received in Scotland. 
 
304 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. VI. 
 
 tiilon, and another of tlie name of 
 Marenit, both old soldiers, wei-e after- 
 wards arrested, and brought to trial. 
 But the evidence was deemed insuffi- 
 cient, and they were buth acquitted. 
 Tile calm attitude of Wellington was 
 not in the slightest degree aliected by 
 this circumstance ; he continued his 
 diplomatic labours as if nothing had 
 occurred ; and felt only gi-eat gratifi- 
 cation from the marked interest which 
 the attempt excited over all Europe. 
 Although the jury did not deem the 
 evidence against Cantillon sufficient, 
 yet there can be no doubt of his guilt ; 
 for Napoleon, in his testament made 
 not long afterwards, left him a legacy 
 of 10,0'00 francs (£400)_, expressly in 
 consequence of his having attempted 
 to murder the Duke of Wellington— a 
 step as characteristic of the revengeful 
 nature of his Italian disposition, as the 
 noble conduct of the Duke, in stri\ing 
 at the very time to alleviate the bur- 
 dens of France, was of his more ele- 
 vated character.* The contrast be- 
 tween the two was the more remark- 
 able, that the Duke had, during the 
 advance to Pads after the battle of 
 Waterloo, strenuously resisted, and 
 succeeded in averting a proposal of 
 Blucher's, that, if taken, Napoleon 
 should be instantly executed as a 
 pirate, the enemy of mankind. 
 
 74. After the conclusion of the con- 
 gress of Aix-la-Chapelle, the Emperor 
 Alexander adopted the resolution of 
 paying a visit as a private individual 
 to Louis XVIII. at Paris. He arrived 
 accordingly, and remained but one day; 
 
 * "Je Ifegue 10,000 francs au sous-ofRcier 
 Cantillon, qui a essuye un proces comrae pre- 
 venu d'avoir voulu assassiner Lord Welling- 
 ton, ce dont il a ete declare innocent. Can- 
 tillon avait autant le droit d'assassiner cet 
 oligarque que celui-ci de m'envoyer perir sur 
 le roelier de St Helfeue. Wellington, qui a 
 propose cet attentat, cliercliait a le justifier 
 sur I'iuteret de la Grande Bretagne. Cantil- 
 lon, si vraiment il eut assassine le Lord, se 
 serait convert et aurait ete justifie par les 
 memes motifs, I'interet de la France, de se 
 defaire d'un General qui d'ailleurs avait viole 
 la capitulation de Paris, et par la s'etait rendu 
 responsable du sang du martyr Xej', Labe- 
 doyfere, &c., et du crime d'avoir depouille les 
 Musees contre le texte des Traites." — Art. 5, 
 Codicil au Testament de Napoleon, April 24, 
 1S20.— Antommarchi, Demiers Moments dc 
 Napoleon, ii. 23^. 
 
 and the King has told us, in an ele- 
 gant memoir, given entire in Lamar- 
 tine's History of the Restoration, that 
 that day was the happiest of his life. 
 The French monarch had felt the ut- 
 most solicitude for the evacuation of 
 the territory, which he justly regarded 
 as the great work, and only secure in- 
 auguration of his reign ; and when it 
 was finally arranged, he said to the 
 Duke de Richelieu — ' ' I have lived 
 enough ; I have seen the day when no 
 standard but that of France waves 
 over the French citadels." The joy 
 which he felt at this great deliverance 
 heightened the satisfaction he experi- 
 enced at receiving the monarch whom 
 he, with reason, regarded as his chief 
 deliverer. Alexander opened his mind 
 to him without reserve. "Your Ma- 
 jesty," said he, "has conducted your 
 afi'airs A\-ith great wisdom. I approve 
 of your ordinance of 5th September. 
 It had become indispensable to get 
 quit of a Chamber which dragged you 
 back. See what I have done for 
 Poland ! ShaU I be deceived in my 
 fond desire to reconcile the two great 
 principles of Peace and Liberty ? The 
 fermentation in Germany is alarming, 
 but it is owing to the imprudent at- 
 tempts of the Emperor of Austria and 
 the King of Prussia to recede from 
 the promises they have made to their 
 people. Let us have no Revolutionists 
 or Jacobins, but Christian freedom." 
 He was made acquainted vnXh. M. De- 
 cazes, whom he commended in the 
 highest terms to the King. The Grand- 
 Duke Constantme arrived after the 
 departure of the Czar, and was entirely 
 absorbed with military ideas. At one 
 of the reviews he had presented to 
 him a private in the 1st regiment of 
 grenadiers-a-cheval, who had wounded 
 him in single combat during the war 
 in Russia. He paid him the highest 
 compliments, and off"ered to take him 
 into his service — an offer which the 
 grenadier had the patriotism and the 
 good sense to decline.* 
 
 * " Un des moments les plus heureux de 
 ma vie a ete celui qui a suivi la visite de I'Em- 
 pereur de Russie. Sans parler de la grace 
 extreme qu'il a mise a venir me voir, et a re- 
 tracer ainsi, mais bien moUement, ce que la 
 plus basse flatterie fit faire au Due de la Feu- 
 
1818.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 305 
 
 75. The approach of the annual re- 
 newal of a fifth of the Chamber of Depu- 
 ties in 1818, threw France, as usual, into 
 an agony of excitement, and awakened 
 on all sides the most violent passions. 
 It was worse than annual parliaments 
 would be in the ordinary state of the 
 British constitution ; for the parties 
 were so nearly balanced that it was 
 generally felt that a few votes either 
 way would cast the balance decisively 
 in favour of the one or the other party. 
 Thus the Avhole efforts of faction, the 
 whole declamations of the journals, the 
 whole anxieties of the people, were con- 
 centrated on the limited number of elec- 
 tions in which the struggle was to be 
 maintained. As the contest drew near, 
 the weakness of the Royalist party, 
 and the progressive growth of the 
 Liberal, became manifest. One jour- 
 nal only, the Conservaieur, supported 
 the white flag, while dozens poured 
 forth daily declamations on the popu- 
 lar side. Few of the Royalists pre- 
 sented themselves as candidates for 
 the vacant seats ; Avhen they did so, it 
 was as martyrs rather than with the 
 step of conquerors. So completely 
 were they depressed, that the contest 
 scarce anywhere took place between 
 them and the Ministerialists ; it lay 
 between the latter and the extreme 
 Democrats, and in most cases termi- 
 nated to the advantage of the latter. 
 M. Lafayette was returned for La 
 Sarthe ; M. Manuel, a popular leader, 
 for La Vendee ; and M. Benjamin 
 
 illade a I'egard de Louis XIV., il etait difficile 
 de ne pas etre s.itisfait dc son entretien. Non- 
 seulement il 4tait entie dans tontes mes pen- 
 sees, mais il les avarit dites avant que j'eusse 
 eu le temps de les emettre. II avait haute- 
 ment approuve le systeme de gouvernement, 
 et la ligne de conduite que je suis, depuis que 
 je me suis determine a rendre I'ordonnance 
 du 5 Sept. 1816. (Je ne puis m'empecher de 
 remarquer que c'etait le momentdes elections 
 de Paris, et que I'Empereur partit persuade 
 que Benjamin Constant seroit elu.) Enfin, 
 ce Prince m'avaitfait I'elogedemesministres, 
 et particuliferement du Compte Decazes, pour 
 lequel je ne crains point d'avoir une amitie 
 fondee sur les qualites a lafois les plus solides 
 et les plus aimables, et sur un attachement, 
 dont il faut etre I'objet pour en sentir tout 
 le prix "—3/emoires de Louis XVIII., Dec. 
 1818. Lamartine, Histoire de la Rcstaura- 
 tion, vL 163. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 Constant, after having run the Minis- 
 terial candidate very hard in Paris, was 
 returned as another deputy for La 
 Sarthe. As these districts were known 
 to be Royalist, these returns spread 
 great dismay in the Tuileries, and first 
 suggested a serious doubt as to whether 
 the new electoral law rendered the re- 
 turns a true index of general opinion. 
 It was evident it did not, for it threw 
 the elections entirely into the hands of 
 one single class, the sinall jjroprietors, 
 who supported the Revolution, because 
 they had been enriched by its spoils. 
 The Royalists did not disguise their 
 satisfaction at these results, and the 
 verification of all their predictions. 
 " We foretold it all," they exclaimed ; 
 '* one or two more of the annual re- 
 newals, and a Convention all complete 
 will emerge from the new electoral law. " 
 Even the Government shared in some 
 degree these apprehensions. " I see 
 with pain," said the Duke de Riche- 
 lieu, "that the law of elections is ex- 
 cluding all the Royalists from the 
 Chamber. I fear we have gone too far 
 to the other side ; I would rather have 
 Royalist exaltation than Jacobinism. 
 In the name of Heaven, look out for a 
 remedy. I see with terror the men of 
 the Hundred Days returning; they have 
 destroyed our position in Europe : for 
 God's sake let us avoid revolutions." 
 
 76. The difficulties of Government 
 were much augmented in the close of 
 the year by a severe monetary crisis, 
 the natural result of the great finan- 
 cial arrangements concluded at Aix-la- 
 Chapelle, and the immense sums which 
 the contractors for the loans borrowed 
 by the French Government had to 
 raise to make good their engagements. 
 The unavoidable effect of these cir- 
 cumstances was grievously aggravated 
 at this period by the known determi- 
 nation of the English Government, in 
 the next session of Parliament, to put 
 a period to the paper credit, and resort 
 to the system of cash payments. As 
 this restricted creditand limited accom- 
 modation took place in both countries, 
 at the very time when the aid of paper 
 cuiTency was most required, the con- 
 sequence was a general run upon the 
 u 
 
306 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. VI. 
 
 Bank of France for cash, and an im- 
 mediate and most serious contraction 
 of its discounts. A severe monetary 
 crisis, with all its alarming conse- 
 quences, quickly followed ; and so 
 great did the pressure soon become, 
 that the funds at Paris fell 10 per cent, 
 and, in the middle of jSTovember, credit 
 was almost annihilated in that capital. 
 In this extremity the Duke de Eiche- 
 lieu, on the advice of Messrs Hope and 
 Baring, made a proposal to the Allied 
 powers to prolong to eighteen months 
 the heavy payments which were to be 
 made in nine months, according to the 
 convention of 9th October preceding. 
 The ministers of the Sovereigns at Aix- 
 la-Chapelle had several conferences on 
 this subject, and it was no easy mat- 
 ter to come to an understanding, for 
 they themselves, especially Prussia and 
 Austria, were nearly as much pressed 
 for money as the Bank of France. At 
 length an arrangement, drawn up by 
 Prince Metternich, was agreed to, by 
 which the period of payment was pro- 
 longed to eighteen months, 5 per cent 
 interest being stipulated for the post- 
 poned season, and a certain propor- 
 tion of the payments were to be re- 
 ceived in bills drawn upon places out 
 of France. By this means, aided by 
 the strenuous efforts of the Govern- 
 ment and Bank of France, the crisis 
 was surmounted, without any suspen- 
 sion of payments ; but it had been so 
 severe, and required such exertions to 
 meet it, that it broke dovni the health 
 of the able finance minister, M. Cor- 
 vetto, who solicited and obtained leave 
 to retire. He was succeeded by M. 
 Roy, who had been one of the Cham- 
 ber of Deputies during the Hundred 
 Days, and who augmented the already 
 preponderating influence of the Libe- 
 ral party in the Cabinet. 
 
 77. The known result of the last 
 elections, and the certain majority 
 which it was foreseen the Liberals 
 would have in the Chamber of Depu- 
 ties, rendered the situation of the Duke 
 de Richelieu very difficult. He had 
 given a somewhat reluctant consent to 
 the coup d'etat of 5th September 1816, 
 which shook the confidence the Ro}'- 
 alists had hitherto reposed in him ; and 
 
 now he was threatened with a hostile 
 majority in the Chamber of Deputies, 
 composed of the very persons whom 
 that measure had brought into the 
 legislature. Threatened thus with 
 an adverse vote in the Lower House, 
 Richelieu had no resource but to 
 strengthen himself in the Upper ; and 
 at his instigation, a party composing 
 a majority of the Peers was formed, 
 prepared to stand by the King in any 
 emergency that might occur. Ai the 
 same time, court conferences were held 
 with ]\I. de Villele, M. Mole, and the 
 other Royalist chiefs, who promised a 
 frank and loyal adhesion, provided 
 only the Electoral Law was changed ; 
 but that was insisted on as an indis- 
 pensable preliminary to any arrange- 
 ment. M. de Richelieu was not averse 
 to such a modification ; and it was 
 agreed, in the preparatory scrutiny of 
 votes, to ascertain how the numbers 
 of the Centre and Right united toge- 
 ther in the Chamber of Deputies would 
 stand. As, however, it was felt that 
 a crisis was approaching, and that it 
 would require all the influence and 
 address of the Duke de Richelieu and 
 his ministry to surmount it, the open- 
 ing of the session was postponed to the 
 10th December, in order to give time 
 for any arrangements which might be 
 found necessary to meet it. 
 
 78. As usual in such cases, the ap- 
 proaching conflict in the Legislature 
 Avas preceded by a division in the Cabi- 
 net. Some of the ministers, among 
 whom were the Duke de Richelieu, MM. 
 Laine, ilole, and Pasquier, Avere inclin- 
 ed to go into the terms proposed by the 
 Royalists, and modify the Electoral 
 Law ; but the majority, headed by M. 
 Decazes and Marshal Gouvion St Cyr, 
 deemed any change of policy unneces- 
 sary and hazardous, and decided other- 
 wise. The opening speech of the King 
 at the commencement of the session, 
 on December 10th, which committed 
 neither party, was agreed to without a 
 division in the Cabinet ; but two days 
 afterwards, various conflicts took place 
 there between the two parties, and it 
 soon became evident that their united 
 operation was no longer to be relied 
 on. When the King, who had hither- 
 
1818.] 
 
 HISTOEY OF EUEOPE. 
 
 307 
 
 to been in a great measure ignorant of 
 those ministerial divisions, perceived 
 to Avliat a length they had gone, and 
 that a separation had become unavoid- 
 able, he prepared, though with great 
 regret at losing M. Decazes, to support 
 the premier, to whom his entire con- 
 fidence had been given, whose ideas on 
 every subject entirely coincided Avith 
 his own, and whose wisdom had guided 
 him in safety through the perilous 
 period of the occupation of the terri- 
 tory. The anxiety which he felt at 
 the prospect of a break-up of the Cabi- 
 net, however, brought on a fit of the 
 gout, which for some days prevented 
 him from attending the state councils ; 
 and he was in the very worst crisis of 
 the malady, when a meeting was held 
 to consider whether any modification 
 should be introduced into the Electoral 
 Law. The votes in the Chamber for 
 the president had shown a majority of 
 101 to 91, formed by the Centre Right 
 and Eight against the Liberals of all 
 shades. Encouraged by this favour- 
 able result, the Duke de Richelieu sup- 
 ported the proposed modification ; but 
 at the close of the conference, the King 
 rose and said — •"Let us plant our 
 standard on the ordinance of the 5th 
 September : let us continue to follow 
 the line we have hitherto followed ; 
 but let us at the same time extend a 
 hand to the right as well as the left, 
 and say vnth. Csesar, ' He who is not 
 with me is against me. ' " The majori- 
 ty was of the same opinion, and the 
 Cabinet council broke up without hav- 
 ing come to any formal determination 
 on the subject ; but though the King 
 hoped the division was healed, it had 
 in reality become incurable, and next 
 day he was thunderstruck by receiving 
 letters of resignation from the Duke de 
 Eichelieu,"* MM. Laine, Mole, and Pas- 
 
 * " Votre Majeste peut imaginer dans quelle 
 penible situation m'a laisse I'entretien d'hier, 
 et tout ce q<ie j'ai souffert en voyant le chaginn 
 que je causais a votre Majesty. Je connais 
 trop bien mon insuffisance dans des circon- 
 stances aussi difliciles, et pour un genre d'af- 
 faires auquel il est impossible d'etre nioins 
 propre que je ne le suis, pour que je ne repfete 
 pas, Sire, ce que j'ai eu I'honneur de vous dire 
 tier. Ma nussion a ete finie au moment ou 
 les grandes affaires avec les etrangers ont 
 6te terminees ; celles de I'lnterieur aussi bien 
 
 quier, which were soon followed by one 
 from M. Decazes, who felt he could no 
 longer remain in a cabinet from which 
 so many of his old colleagues had se- 
 ceded. 
 
 79. Had a thunderbolt fallen on the 
 King, he could not have been thrown 
 into greater consternation than he was 
 by the receipt of these resignations. 
 It equalled that experienced on the 
 return of Napoleon, for then the king- 
 dom only was lost ; but now, though 
 the kingdom remained, the only means 
 of governing it had disappeared. Eiche- 
 lieu had made it a condition of his re- 
 taining office, that M. Decazes should 
 be sent on a foreign embassy to St 
 Petersburg or Naples— a stipulation 
 which sufficiently revealed the real 
 cause of the break-up of the Ministry. 
 At the earnest request of the King, 
 however, and moved by the delicate 
 situation of Madame Decazes, who was 
 in her fourth month of pregnancy, he 
 agi-eed so far to modify his demands 
 as to remain at the head of the Min- 
 istry if Decazes were removed only 
 
 que la conduite des Chambres me sont tout 
 a fait etrangeres, et je n'y ai ni aptitude ni 
 capacite. II est de mon devoir de dire a A'otre 
 Majeste dans toute la sincerite de mon coeur, 
 qu'en me retenant elle fait le plus grand tort 
 a ses affaires et au pays, et que ce sentiment 
 qu'elle avait la bonte d'appeler hier modestie, 
 n'est que le resultat d'une connaissance plus 
 approfondie de moi-meme : penser autrement 
 ne serait pour moi qu'une miserable presomp- 
 tion. Votre Majeste salt si j'estime et aime 
 M. Decazes : mes sentiiiiens sont et seront 
 toujoui's les memes. Mais d'un cote, outrage 
 sans raison par un parti dont les imprudences 
 ont cause tant de maux, il lui est impossible 
 de se rapprocher de lui ; de I'autre, il est 
 pousse vers im cote dont les doctrines nous 
 menacent davantage, tant qu'il ne sera pas 
 fixe. Hors de France par des fonctions enii- 
 nentes, tons les honimes opposes au Minis- 
 tere le considerent comme le but de leurs 
 esp^rances, et il deviendra, malgre lui sans 
 doute, un obstacle a la consolidation de Gou- 
 vernement. Je crois ce sacrifice n^cessaire si 
 je dois rester au Gouveraement. L'ambassade 
 de Naples ou de Petersbourg, et un depart 
 annonce et execute dans une semaine, tels 
 sont, suivant moi, les ])reliminaires indispen- 
 sables, je ne dis pas au succfes, niais ala marche 
 de I'administration. Aprfes avoir exprime ma 
 pensee, souffrez. Sire, que je me jette encore 
 aux pieds de votre Majeste, pour lui demander 
 avec les plus vives instances de m'accorder 
 ma liberte."— Due de Richelieu au Roi Louis 
 XVIII., Dec. 23, 1S18. Lamartinb, Hittoir* 
 de la Bestauration, vL 183, 185. 
 
803 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. VI, 
 
 to Italy. He endeavoured to form a 
 ministry resting on the Centre Right 
 and Right of the Chamber, and from 
 which M. Decazes was to be excluded ; 
 but all his proposed arrangements 
 proved ineffectual. The Electoral Law 
 proved an invincible barrier to any 
 united administration. Finding he 
 could not form a ministry, M. de Riche- 
 lieu simply resigned ; and the King, 
 driven thus to throw himself without 
 reserve into the arms of the Liberals, 
 sent, by the advice of the Duke de 
 Richelieu, for M. Decazes accordingly, 
 and by his advice a ministry purely 
 Liberal was formed after the following 
 manner : General Dessoles— a Liberal, 
 but who had done great service to the 
 Bourbons at the Restoration— was Pre- 
 sident of the Council and Premier ; 
 M. de Serres, Keeper of the Seals ; 
 Decazes, Minister of the Interior ; 
 Baron Portal, the Navy ; Baron Louis, 
 the Finance ; Gouvion St Cyr, Minis- 
 ter at War. These changes rendered 
 the Ministry entirely and exclusively 
 Liberal. Thus fell the Ministry of the 
 Duke de Richelieu— the victim of the 
 measure it had adopted to conciliate 
 its opponents, and of the hostile party 
 which it had introduced into power. 
 
 80. One of the first acts of the new 
 Ministry was to propose a national re- 
 compense to the Duke de Richelieu, 
 whose great public services, during the 
 three years he had held the reins of 
 power,"^ well entitled him to some dis- 
 tinguished mark of the public grati- 
 tude, while his private disinterested- 
 ness had left him without fortune at 
 its close. The subject was introduced 
 in the Chamber of Peers by the Mar- 
 quis de Lalli, and seconded by Gen- 
 eral Dessoles ; in the Chamber of 
 Deputies by M. Decazes. No sooner, 
 however, did the fallen minister hear 
 what was in agitation than he address- 
 ed a noble letter to both Houses, in 
 which he declined any public recom- 
 pense, upon the gi'ound that he could 
 not bring himself to add to the public 
 burdens at a time when so many hea\7- 
 obligations already weighed upon 
 France. * Notwithstanding this gen er- 
 
 * "Si dans le cours de nion ministfere, j'ai 
 eu le bontieur de rendre des services » la 
 
 ous refusal, the project was persisted 
 in, and General Dessoles, who was now 
 created a marquis, after a brilliant 
 picture of the great services of the Duke 
 de Richelieu, proposed that an entailed 
 estate of 50,000 francs (£2000) a-year, 
 taken from the domains of the Crown, 
 should be settled to descend tohisheirs- 
 male with the peerage. Notwithstand- 
 ing the great and acknowledged services 
 of the duke, the proposal was seriously 
 combated in both Houses, the opposi- 
 tion being chiefly rested on the magni- 
 tude of the public burdens, and the 
 legality of alienating any portion of 
 the royal domains settled on the Crown 
 by the law of 1814. It was carried, 
 however, by large majorities in both 
 Chambers ; the numbers in the Depu- 
 ties being 124 to 85 — in the Peers, 83 
 to 45. The duke, however, persisted 
 in his disinterested refusal ; he accept- 
 ed only the honour, and conveyed the 
 property to an hospital at Bordeaux. 
 When he did so, he had no fortune 
 whatever either in land or money ; and 
 his sisters procured for him a slender 
 competence of 8000 francs (£320) a- 
 year only, by selling the diamonds pre- 
 sented to him, according to diplomatic 
 usage, on signing the many treaties to 
 which his name was attached. Such 
 conduct makes us proud of our species, 
 and may well induce oblivion of the 
 many baser acts which history is con- 
 strained to record. Certainly if, as 
 the Scripture says, the love of money 
 is the root of all evil, disinterestedness 
 in regard of it is the index of all good. 
 81. The decisive change in the Gov- 
 ernment soon appeared in the system 
 of administration pursued both in civil 
 and military affairs. The first care of 
 M. Decazes, as Minister of the Inte- 
 rior, was to erase from the list of pro- 
 scribed persons nearly all the names 
 
 France, et dans ces derniers temps de con- 
 courir a raffranchissement de son territoire, 
 mon ame n'est ])as moins attristee de savoir 
 7iia patrie accablee de dettes enormes ; trop 
 de calamites I'ont frappee, trop de citoyeus 
 sont tombes dans le malheur ; et il y a trop 
 de pertes a reparer, pour que je puisse voir 
 s'elever ma lortune en de telles conjonctures. 
 L'estime de mon pays, la bonte du Roi, le 
 temoignage de ma conscience me suffisent." — 
 Due de Eichelieu aux Chavihres, Jan. 27, 1819. 
 Moniteur, Jan. 28, 1819. 
 
1819.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 809 
 
 which still stood on it. The King en- 
 tered cordially into all these measures. 
 " They have suffered much," said he, 
 " but they should ascribe it less to me 
 than to circumstances ; but when we 
 do resolve on acts of grace, let them 
 be complete." So fully was this bene- 
 volent intention carried into effect, 
 that the arrears of pay during the 
 period of their exile were given to the 
 officers restored. Marshal Soult re- 
 ceived some hundred thousand francs 
 in this way. At the War Office, Mar- 
 shal Gouvion St Cyr pursued with 
 more vigour than ever his system of 
 oblivion and fusion. Not merely the 
 subordinate officers, but the superior 
 ones and generals — among the rest, 
 General Foy, and othere who had been 
 attached to the fortunes of Napoleon 
 during the Empire and the Hundred 
 Days — received permission to return. 
 To such a length was this system car- 
 ried, that at last an ordinance opened 
 to the officei's and sub-officers of the 
 army the entry into the Royal Guard 
 of the King and the Count d'Artois. 
 This excited, as well it might, the 
 loudest complaints among the Royal- 
 ists ; but the system was nevertheless 
 pursued with vigour and perseverance, 
 and in a short time a majority of the 
 officers in both services was composed 
 of men known to be partial to the 
 Liberal or Napoleon party. A still 
 more vehement clamour was raised in 
 the Royalist camp bj?- an ordinance 
 which gave certain colonels in the 
 Guard rank and position in the army 
 as marshals of the camp — a measure, 
 it was said, obviously intended to re- 
 move from the royal family the few 
 faithful defenders which still remained 
 to them. 
 
 82. The same system was pursued 
 with equally unflinching determina- 
 tion in the civil service of the State. 
 The prefects, the sub-prefects, were all 
 chosen from the Liberal side ; even 
 the Council of State was remodelled, 
 so as to give a majority to that party. 
 Among the many eminent men of that 
 side who thus obtained admission in- 
 to the Council of State, were MM. 
 Simeon, Royer-Collard, Portalis, Mou- 
 nier, and Camille Jourdan, who were 
 
 placed in the legislative section of 
 that body ; while the deliberative, a 
 still more important section, contain- 
 ed MM. Cuvier, Degerando, Berenger, 
 Ramond, the Prince de Broglie, Gen. 
 Mathieu Dumas, Guizot, Barante, and 
 a great many others, all Liberals of 
 the first rank, station, and ability. 
 In a word, the choice of Government 
 in filling up appointments realised the 
 fine saying of Louis XVIII. — " Who- 
 ever is faithful to me now has ever 
 been so." To such a length was this 
 system carried in subordinate offices, 
 that one of the royal courts in the 
 south of France, that of Nimes, was 
 composed entirely of the magistrates 
 who had held office diuing the Hun- 
 dred Days — the Royalists who had 
 succeeded them being to a man ex- 
 cluded. In a word, the Government 
 threw themselves everywhere, and 
 without reserve, into the arms of the 
 Liberal party, hoping that they would 
 thus found the monarchy upon the 
 affections or interests of the majority 
 of the nation. 
 
 83. No measure of moment was 
 brought forAvard by the new ministers 
 from their appointment on 28th De- 
 cember till the beginning of February, 
 and the Parisians, impatient of delay, 
 and thirsting for excitement, were be- 
 ginning to complain that the Liberal 
 Ministry were doing nothing ; but, 
 ere long, they had ample subject for 
 meditation from Avhat occurred in the 
 Chamber of Peers. The Royalists had 
 there a decided majority ; and they 
 were so convinced that the Electoral 
 Law would terminate in the destruc- 
 tion of the monarchy, and before many 
 years had elapsed would effect it, that 
 they resolved, at all hazards, to attempt 
 its modification. The great object was 
 to neutralise in some way the great 
 body of small 2»'02)rietoi's of the nation- 
 al domains, who at present, by the 
 Electoral Law, had the means of re- 
 turning a majority of the Chamber of 
 Deputies, of persons attached to the 
 fortunes of the Revolution. The per- 
 son selected to commence the move- 
 ment was M. Barthelemy, the veteran 
 diplomatist, who, elected, contrary to 
 his wishes, a member of the Directory, 
 
;io 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. vi. 
 
 had been seized, on occasion of the 
 revohition of lith Fructidor, in 1797, 
 by his democratic colleagues, and ti'ans- 
 ported to the burning cleserts of Sina- 
 mari, from whence his escape seemed 
 little short of a miracle. He was now 
 old and infirm, but still in the full 
 possession of his faculties ; and being 
 a living monument of the excesses of 
 the Rev^olution, he seemed a fitting 
 person to arrest its march. 
 
 84. " It is now two years," said the 
 veteran orator, " since a change was 
 introduced into our infant institutions 
 by a change in the law of election. 
 The advantages anticipated from it 
 were maintained with so much warmth, 
 the inconveniences foreseen were sup- 
 ported by reasons so plausible, that 
 there was ample room for difference of 
 opinion on the subject. The course of 
 our discussions rendered that incerti- 
 tude so natural, that it was in some 
 degree shared by the orators of Govern- 
 ment themselves ; and, in the last de- 
 bate, they declared that the new law 
 was only an experiment, which would 
 be open to revision if it should prove 
 unsuccessful. That declaration fixed 
 many of those Avho had hitherto he- 
 sitated ; and I am not ashamed to 
 confess mj^self one of those who was 
 induced by it to vote in favour of the 
 proposed law. Two years have since 
 elapsed, two elections have taken place 
 under it, and twice the Government 
 has been thrown into an agony of ap- 
 prehension from its results. I feel it, 
 therefore, a duty to solicit the redemp- 
 tion of a pledge which determined my 
 vote. I demand that the Chamber of 
 Peers should adopt a resolution to pe- 
 tition the King to bring forward the 
 project of a law which may inti'oduce 
 into the organisation of the electoral 
 colleges the requisite modifications." 
 
 85. To this it was replied on the part 
 of the ]\Iinistry by Decazes and Lally 
 Tollendal: ''Great stress has been laid 
 on certain promises said to have been 
 made by the JMinistry when the law of 
 elections Avas under discussion. No 
 minister, in bringing forwai'd such a 
 law, could promise anything but that 
 it should be literally carried into effect ; 
 and, in fact, nothing more was pro- 
 
 mised by the ministers of that period. 
 The Government is now persuaded that 
 it cannot so well discharge its duty as 
 by repelling with all its strength a pro- 
 position which it, Avith sincerity, re- 
 gards as the most dangerous that can 
 emanate from this Assembly. This 
 fundamental law, the principal spring 
 of government, the faults or merits 
 of which must have so decisive an in- 
 fluence on our destinies, was adopted, 
 after a warm and long discussion — by 
 a small majority it is true, but one as 
 large as could be expected on such a 
 subject in the circumstances. The re- 
 sult has fully answered our expecta- 
 tions. From the Rhine to the P5Tenees 
 all is now tranquil and contented : will 
 any man venture to predict that the 
 same will be the case to-morrow if this 
 proposition is adopted by the Assembly? 
 From the agitation already arising in 
 its bosom we may augur the commotion 
 which the proposal will soon awaken 
 over the whole of France." 
 
 86. These words proved prophetic of 
 the effect produced over the country 
 by the introduction of this measure. 
 Leave was given to bring in the pro- 
 position by a majority of 80 to 53. 
 Immediately the most violent agitation 
 commenced in every part of France, 
 much exceeding anything which had 
 been Avitnessed since the Restoration. 
 The people are possessed of an instinct 
 which seldom errs as to the probable 
 effect upon their immediate, interest of 
 any measures that are brought forward, 
 or the influence they may acquire over 
 the Government : it is in regard to their 
 ultimate effects — which require fore- 
 sight and reflection, to be appreciated 
 — that they are so generally deficient, 
 and so often lamentably mistaken. The 
 agitation was universal, and reached 
 far beyond the limited class to which 
 the right of voting Avas at present ex- 
 tended. The AA'hole body of holders of 
 the national domains took the alarm. 
 Conscience made cowards of them all ; 
 they felt the same dread of being dis- 
 possessed of their ill-gotten gains that 
 the holder of stolen goods does Avhen a 
 police-officer enters the house. Hun- 
 dreds of petitions were prepared in 
 every part of the country, and eagerly 
 
1S19.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 311 
 
 signed by hundreds and thousands, 
 praying the King to make no change 
 in the Electoral Law ; and, for the first 
 time since the extinction of the fervour 
 of the Revolution by the carnage of the 
 Convention, France, from the Pyrenees 
 to Bayonne, was convulsed by demo- 
 cratic passions. 
 
 87. The open declaration of the 
 Chamber of Peers, by so large a majo- 
 rity, against the Electoral Law, was 
 rendered the more serious from the 
 weight and influence of the members 
 of whom the majority was composed, 
 which embraced the most respectable 
 and enlightened of the peerage. The 
 King was ver}'- much stitick with this 
 circvmistance ; he said that, in the es- 
 timation of the best defenders of his 
 throne, it was no longer a question of 
 part}^, but of the dynasty and the mo- 
 narchy. M. Decazes had great diffi- 
 culty in persuading him that it was 
 necessary to persist in the support of 
 the Electoral Law ; which, however, 
 he at length agi'eed to do, as the Ca- 
 binet, by a great majority, thought it 
 should be made a condition of its ex- 
 istence. ]\L Lafitte, in the Lower 
 House, made a motion for the deputies 
 to present an address to the King, 
 praying him to make no change in the 
 Electoral Law ; and although this pro- 
 posal was negatived on the objection 
 in point of form, that the matter had 
 not yet come in regular course before 
 them, yet it served to support the ma- 
 jority of the Cabinet in their resolution 
 to permit no change in the existing law. 
 
 88. The discussion on the merits of 
 the question came on in the Peers on 
 the 26th February, when it was argued 
 by MM. de Barthelemy, de Fontanes, 
 and de Castellane : "We have sup- 
 ported the law of election, because we 
 thought that little was to be appre- 
 hended from a democracy of eighty 
 thousand electors in a country possess- 
 ing twenty-seven millions of inhabit- 
 ants; but experience has undeceived 
 ■us. The opponents of the law have 
 better than ourselves perceived its real 
 tendency. What is the end which we 
 should pursue? — to strengthen power 
 by giving it the support of the nation. 
 If history proves that the ministers of 
 
 kings are in general more inclined to 
 support the rights of the Crown than 
 those of the people, those who are now 
 in power are free from that reproach. 
 But have they always been equally con- 
 fident in the merits of the law, to the 
 maintenance of which they now attach 
 their political existence ? Have they 
 had no misgivings as to its democratic 
 tendency? Is it not equally open to 
 abuse on the other side, should a min- 
 istry arrive at power sufficiently un- 
 scrupulous to make use of its powers 
 in that respect ? What is so easy as to 
 niultiply patents, and bestow them on 
 persons in the interest of the Crown? 
 To eschew these evils we must recur to 
 the great territorial aristocracy. There 
 once was a man who terrified Europe 
 by his ambition : however we may re- 
 gard that man, no one can deny to him 
 the knowledge of the science of power. 
 One day he was preparing in the Council 
 of State the electoral colleges, and I 
 (M. de Fontanes) was present. Some of 
 his confidential counsellors suggested 
 to him that his plan was not without 
 danger : for several of the great pro- 
 perties still remained in the hands of 
 the former proprietors, and that sooner 
 or later the choice of the six hundred 
 most considerable in each college, in 
 whom the franchise was vested, would 
 bring in the partisans of the ancient 
 monarchy. Napoleon was noways stag- 
 gered by this observation ; his answer 
 was as follows, ' These men are great 
 proprietors — they do not wish, there- 
 fore, that the soil should tremble — 
 their interest is 'mine.' Have the great 
 proprietors any influence under the 
 present Electoral Law? None what- 
 ever ; for they are outvoted twenty to 
 one by the small proprietors, who, hav- 
 ing nearly all been enriched by the Re- 
 volution, are attached to its fortunes. 
 89. * ' What clearly proves that there 
 is something fundamentally ^^Tong 
 about the present law is the fact, that, 
 although there are 120,000 electors in 
 France, never more than 80,000 have 
 taken part in any election. This is an 
 evil of the very first magnitude, which 
 loudly calls for a remedy. If in the 
 infancy of our institutions, and when 
 the electoral franchise was by many to 
 
312 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. VI. 
 
 be exercised for the first time, so great 
 a number of electors have not come 
 forward, what may be anticipated in 
 ordmary times ? Is it not evident that 
 the number of electors will constantly 
 diminish ? and as the law provides that, 
 in such an event, the electoral colleges 
 are to meet two or three times in the 
 year, a burden wdll be imposed on the 
 electors exceeding in weight that of 
 their whole contributions to the State, 
 The effect of this will be a progressive 
 diminution in the number of electors, 
 till they become quite illusory, and 
 amenable to every species of influence 
 cr corruption. 
 
 90. " There is another consideration 
 not less important. In the laudable 
 intention of encouraging commerce and 
 industry, patents (franchises derived 
 from income-tax) have been assimi- 
 lated and put on the same footing as 
 those resting on direct taxes from land. 
 But that extension, already sufficiently 
 great, has become altogether mon- 
 strous, from the circumstance that, as 
 this tax is paid monthly, it is held that 
 the payment of one instalment — that 
 is, one-twelfth of three hundred francs 
 — confers the franchise. Thus the right 
 of voting is acquired by the payment 
 once only of a tax of twenty-five francs. 
 Is not this a manifest violation of the 
 act — a departure alike from its letter 
 and its spirit ? The introduction of 
 such a body of disqualified electors into 
 the register of voters, is an act of ma- 
 nifest injustice to the holders of land. 
 The latter, however, in every age and 
 country, have constituted the strength 
 of nations. They it is who are the 
 guardians at once of our morals and 
 institutions. In intrusting to them the 
 enjoyment of political rights, our legis- 
 lators have done no violence to natural 
 justice ; because civilisation renders 
 property always accessible to the per- 
 severing eff'orts of industry, and it is 
 the sure recompense of labour and 
 economy. 
 
 91. •' Finally, there is an important 
 defect in our Electoral Law, which re- 
 quires amendment. The power of nam- 
 ing supplementary members, in the 
 event of those named in the first in- 
 stance failing, has been omitted; al- 
 
 though it was in an especial manner 
 required under the new Electoral Law, 
 which so greatly restricted the number 
 of deputies. As matters at present 
 stand, it is not death or serious disease 
 disqualifying the deput5% which ren- 
 ders necessary a new election ; the same 
 follows from a double return of the 
 same individual for diff'erent places — 
 an event which has very frequently oc- 
 curred in recent times. This renders 
 fresh elections necessary, and perpe- 
 tuates the excitement, turmoil, and 
 intrigue consequent on them. Even 
 now, from this cause, the Chamber is 
 incomplete ; and it has been so ever 
 since the commencement of the session. 
 The necessity of these new elections 
 not only entails a great additional ex- 
 pense and trouble on the electors, but 
 perpetuates an agitation which, in every 
 point of view, it is desirable to avoid." 
 92. On the other hand, it was con- 
 tended by the Marquis Dessoles, the 
 Premier, M. Langninan, and M. de la 
 Rochefoucauld : "To attack the Law 
 of Elections is to attack the Charter — • 
 to menace our liberties — to commence 
 the counter revolution. That in the 
 execution of that law there may be 
 some errors, negligences, and abuses, 
 is very possible, and obtain in this as 
 in all earthly things. The remedy for 
 them, however, is in an ordinance of 
 the King, or a circular of the Minis- 
 ters, not a change of the law. The 
 Law of Election is generally consider- 
 ed as good, and the best guarantee of 
 our liberties. The people are attached 
 to it as the chief safeguard given them 
 by the Charter. To propose to touch 
 it now, is to sow the seeds of alarm ; 
 to attack the majority of the citizens 
 in that which they cherish the most ; 
 to assail immediately the sentiments 
 which are most deeply seated in their 
 afi"ections ; to expose France to the anx- 
 ieties, the passions, and the agitation, 
 which we are all so anxious to avoid ; 
 to cast anew a firebrand into the na- 
 tion ; and God only knows when the 
 conflagration thus raised will be extin- 
 guished. The Law of Election is our 
 second charter ; and the attack on it 
 must be combated by facts rather than 
 arguments. 
 
1819.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 813 
 
 93. "After four years of secret notes 
 addressed to the Allied powers ; after 
 the criminal but still unpunished in- 
 trigue of Aix-la-Chapelle against our 
 Charter ; after the attempt in Decem- 
 ber last to renew the evils which tlie 
 King averted by the ordinance of 5 th 
 September 1816, a nebulous point has 
 again formed in the heavens — the fore- 
 runner of a dreadful tempest — and the 
 cloud has lirst appeared in the House 
 of Peers. That house was instituted 
 to calm the passions, to avert storms, 
 to establish harmony between the pow- 
 ers ; and it is now in its name that 
 vague innovations are proposed — the 
 more alarming, that they are uncer- 
 tain — the more to be deprecated, that 
 they are unnecessary. Let us not de- 
 ceive ourselves : a great faction, now 
 very apparent, without the Chamber 
 ■ — the faction of privileges, of abuses, 
 of sinecures, of prodigalities, of the 
 oligarchy — agitates and disturbs us, 
 in the hope of subverting the Charter, 
 which they have long undermined, or 
 of reducing its effects to unmeaning 
 ceremonies. The object of that league 
 is to overturn the existing Ministry, 
 which enjoys the confidence at once of 
 the King and the nation, and which 
 is distinguished alike by patriotism 
 and unanimity. They would replace 
 them by the most extravagant of the 
 opposite faction, in order by their aid 
 to annihilate the Electoral Law, which 
 has cost two years of labour, and is so 
 dear to the immense majority of French- 
 men. They would re-establish the 
 double steps of election, so favourable 
 to aristocracy, and restore the elec- 
 tions to those little places where their 
 influence is predominant : an abuse so 
 Avisely provided against by the exist- 
 ing law. In a word, this is the first 
 act of the counter revolution against 
 the Charter. 
 
 91. " Already you see the effects of 
 the proposition which has been enter- 
 tained by the Chamber. You see it 
 in the stagnation of industry, the de- 
 cline of confidence, the indignation of 
 the public, Avhich exhales in the thou- 
 sands of petitions which encumber your 
 table, to one of which is attached three 
 thousand signatui-es. If the proposi- 
 
 tion is not withdrawn, the result will 
 be the re-establishment of the peers 
 who were excluded without judgment 
 in 1815 ; a fatal step, but indispensa- 
 ble to bring back the House of Peers 
 into a state of harmony with the other 
 branches of the government. It is 
 already too numerous compared to the 
 limited number of the other Chamber. - 
 Is it in consequence to be dissolved, 
 and a more numerous one convoked ? 
 If this step is not adopted, it will be 
 necessary to change the Ministry, and 
 seek their successors among those who 
 will be Avilling to accept the new mea- 
 sures. What these measures are, it is 
 not difficult to foresee. New elections 
 in the interest of the oligarchy ; the 
 re-establishment of a packed Chamber ; 
 the entire ruin of a representative gov- 
 ernment ; exceptional measures, which, 
 will be first tolerated, then execrated ; 
 universal discontent, national excite- 
 ment, civil war, foreign invasion ; 
 dangers from all sides to the throne, 
 the altar, the public liberty, the dyn- 
 asty, the existing peers, and all other 
 peers ; in fine, an absolute despotism 
 or liberty — a third time, and too dear- 
 ly, purchased. Do you wish to count 
 us ? It is not in this assembly you 
 must do so — it is in the midst of thirty 
 millions of Frenchmen you must com- 
 mence your calculation. There is but 
 one way to avoid these dangers ; it is 
 by rejecting or withdrawing the pro- 
 position submitted to the Chamber. 
 It is the unanimous resolution of the 
 Government to resist any change in 
 the Law of Elections. The results of 
 the proposal, even to make such a 
 change, have been sufficient to prove 
 its danger, and to render it the first 
 duty of the Government firmly to 
 oppose it." 
 
 95. Notwithstanding these denun- 
 ciations, the majority of the peers 
 remained finn in their resolution; 
 and M. Barthelemy's proposition was 
 adopted by a majority of 45 — the num- 
 bers being 98 to 53. So elated were 
 the Royalists with this victory that 
 they proceeded immediately to another 
 demonstration against the Government, 
 of a much more doubtful kind. It had 
 been determined by the Ministers, and 
 
314 
 
 HISTORY OF EUEOPE. 
 
 [chap. VI. 
 
 agreed to by t"he Chamber of Deputies, 
 to make a change in the financial year. 
 To accomplish this, there was but one 
 method that appeared j^racticable, and 
 that was to vote the supplies at once 
 for eighteen months. This, however, 
 was a violation of the Charter, which 
 declared that the suj)plies were to be 
 voted for one year only ; and on this 
 ground it had been strongly opposed 
 in the Chamber of Deputies. " When 
 Buonaparte," said M. de Villele in 
 that Chamber, "came to disperse the 
 National Assembly, they invoked their 
 rights as established by the constitu- 
 tion. He answered, 'You have vio- 
 lated them. ' Dread a similar answer. 
 Dread it whether your blindness brings 
 you to see a triumphant democracy 
 demand the overthrow of the throne, 
 and the dissolution of the Chamber of 
 Peers — or a new soldier tries to conse- 
 crate in this hall a violation of the 
 principle of legitimacy." The expe- 
 dience of the case being on the other 
 side, however, the Chamber of Depu- 
 ties adopted the change ; but it was at 
 once rejected in the House of Peers, 
 by a majority of 39— the numbers be- 
 ing 93 to 54. 
 
 96. These repeated defeats convinced 
 the Government that the time had now 
 arrived when it was necessary to take 
 a decisive step. M. Dessolles laid a 
 memoir before the King, in which the 
 state of the case was clearly set forth, 
 and the courses which might be adopt- 
 ed were pointed out.* It was evident 
 that it had become unavoidable either 
 
 * " Les deux Charabres vont Stre en com- 
 plete dissidence sur une question fondamen- 
 tale, celle qui constitute le corps electoral, 
 principe democratiquede la Constitution. Les 
 Deputes veulent maintenir le systfeme elec- 
 toral, les Pairs veulent le modifier. Dans 
 cette position, le Ministfere de votre Majeste 
 partageant I'opinion de la Chamhre elective, 
 11 ne reste auRoi qu'un parti a prendre, c'est 
 ou de dissoudre la Chambre elective et de 
 composer un Ministfere dans le sein de la ma- 
 jorite de la Pairie, ou de soutenir le Ministre 
 et la Chambre des Deputes et de briser Top- 
 position qui s'est formee dans la Chambre 
 des Pairs. Et je ne dissimule pas a votre 
 Majeste que ce dernier parti est le plus po- 
 pnlaire, et que dans les circonstances actu- 
 elles, c'est le seul qui i)uisse raniener le calme 
 dans les esprits." — Memoire du Marquis Des- 
 solles au Roi, March 2, 1819. Capefigue, 
 Hlstoirc de la Eestauration, vi. 135. 
 
 to dissolve the Chamber of Deputies, 
 and form a new ministry in harmony 
 with the opinions of the majority of 
 the Peers, or to overcome the majority 
 in the Peers by a great creation in that 
 Assembly. It was at first proposed 
 simply to repeal the ordinance of 15th 
 August 1815, which excluded from the 
 House the peers who had taken an 
 active part in favour of ISTapoleon dur- 
 ing the Hundred Days ; but the King 
 objected to this. *' I wish," said Louis, 
 " that they should hold their seats from 
 my single will, and that they should feel 
 grateful for it. " It was agreed, in con- 
 sequence, to make a great creation of 
 peers ; and next morning the columns 
 of the Moniteur revealed to the aston- 
 ished Parisians the names of sixty- 
 three persons, all of the Liberal party, 
 or attached to its banners, who were 
 advanced to the peerage. Among 
 them Avere six of Napoleon's marshals 
 — viz., the Dukes of Albufera, Cor- 
 negliano, and Dantzic, the Prince of 
 Echmuhl, Marshal Jourdan, and the 
 Duke of Treviso; and many names 
 known to fame — in particular, Rapp, 
 Latour-j\Iaubourg, Reille, Dubreton, 
 Maurice Mathieu, Claparede, Admu-al 
 Truguet, and several others. 
 
 97. The victory of the Liberals was 
 now complete. By the cotcj) d'etat of 
 September 5, 1816, they had revolu- 
 tionised the Chamber of Deputies ; by 
 that of March 5, 1819, they had over- 
 come the resistance of the Chamber of 
 Peers. The Kinghad thrown himself in- 
 to their arms; the magistracy was filled 
 with their adherents, the army guided 
 by their generals, the press by their 
 supporters. The whole powers of State 
 were wielded by their adherents. An 
 astonishing revolution ! to have been 
 effected in so short a time, in a coun- 
 try in which the tide had set so vio- 
 lently the other way during the year 
 1815; but by no means without a 
 parallel, both in the previous and sub- 
 sequent history of that volatile and 
 easily excited people, and not without 
 similar instances among their more 
 sober neighbours on this side of the 
 Channel. Nothing remained for the 
 Government to consolidate its power 
 but to demonstrate its ascendancy in 
 
1819.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 315 
 
 the CliamlDer of Deputies; and here 
 the eliects of the decisive blow struck 
 in the Peers at once appeared, for, on 
 a division on the Electoral Law in the 
 Chamber of Deputies, ]\Iinisters were 
 supported by a majority of 56 — the 
 numbers being 150 to 94. 
 
 98. Although not five years had 
 elapsed since the second restoration of 
 the Bourbons, yet decisive events, 
 fraught with the fate of futurity, had 
 during that time taken place both in 
 France and England. It is a mistake 
 to suppose that important changes, 
 pregnant with lasting consequences, 
 produce their effects in every instance 
 immediately. This is, without doubt, 
 sometimes the case ; and of the reality 
 of such sudden results the French Re- 
 volution affords ample evidence. But, 
 in general, the lasting effects of the 
 greatest j)olitical changes are only de- 
 veloped after a considerable period, 
 and when they have had time to work, 
 as it were, through all the strata of 
 society. The great political alterations 
 made in France during this period, the 
 coux> d'etat changing the Electoral Law, 
 the new ordinances for the regulation 
 of the army, the great democratic crea- 
 tion of peers, rendered a revolution in- 
 evitable, but inevitable at a future 
 period. The first fixed the represen- 
 tation upon a uniform and democratic 
 basis of small proprietors and moder- 
 ate intelligence, disfranchising practi- 
 cally the higher education and larger 
 properties of the kingdom, by throw- 
 ing them into a minority ; the second 
 deprived Government of the support, 
 in any crisis which might arise, of a 
 faithful and intrepid army, and ren- 
 dered it next to certain that, in the 
 decisive moment, it would side with 
 the enemies of the monarchy; the 
 third severed from the throne any aid 
 it might receive from a body of peers 
 •whose interests were identified with 
 its preservation. In like manner, the 
 new monetary system adopted in Eng- 
 land, in 1819, had rendered an entire 
 change of Government, and alteration 
 of policy, inevitable at no distant 
 period ; for it had laid the foundation 
 of such a prodigious alteration of 
 prices as could not fail to change the 
 
 ruling class in the countr}'-, and, by 
 the general sufiering with which it 
 must be attended, shake even the sta- 
 bility and loyalty of the British cha- 
 racter. 
 
 99. It is worthy of observation how 
 early the French people, after they 
 had attained the blessing, had shown 
 themselves unfitted, either from cha- 
 racter or circumstances, for the enjoy- 
 ment of constitutional government. 
 Only five years had elapsed since it 
 was, for the first time, established in 
 France, by the overthrow of IS'apoleon, 
 and scarcely a year had passed which, 
 was not marked by some coup cVetaty 
 or violent infringement, by the Sove- 
 reign, of the constitution. The re- 
 storation of the Bourbons in 1815 was 
 immediately attended by the creation 
 of sixty peers on the Royalist side, and 
 the expulsion of as many from the 
 Democratic ; this was followed, A\T[thin 
 four years, by the creation of as many 
 on the Liberal. The whole history of 
 England prior to 1832 could only pre- 
 sent one instance of a similar creation, 
 and that was of txoclve peers only, in 
 1713, to carry through the infamous 
 project of impeaching the Duke of 
 Marlborough. It was threatened to 
 be repeated, indeed, during the heat 
 of the Reform contest; but the wise 
 advice of the Duke of Wellington, by 
 leading to the voluntary withdrawal 
 of the peers in opposition, prevented 
 such an irretrievable wound being in- 
 flicted on the constitution. The French 
 Chamber of Deputies was first entirely 
 remodelled, and 133 new members 
 added to its numbers, by a simple 
 royal ordinance in 1815; and again 
 changed— the added members being 
 taken away, and the suffrage estab- 
 lished on a uniform and highly demo- 
 cratic basis — by another royal ordi- 
 nance, issued, by the sole authority 
 of the King, in the folloAving year. 
 Changes, alternately on the one side 
 or the other, greater than were accom- 
 plished in England by the Avhole legis- 
 lature in two centuries, were carried 
 into execution in France in the veiy 
 outset of its constitutional career, by 
 the sole authority of the King, in two 
 years. 
 
316 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. VI. 
 
 100. What is still more remarkable, 
 and at first sight seems almost unac- 
 countable, every one of those violent 
 stretches of regal power was done in 
 the interest, and to gratify the pas- 
 sions, of the majority at the moment. 
 The Royalist creation of peers in 1815, 
 the Democratic addition of sixty to 
 their numbers in 1819, the addition of 
 133 members to the Chamber of Depu- 
 ties in the first of these years, their 
 withdrawal, and the change of the 
 Electoral Law by the cou}) cCetat of 
 Sept. 5, 1816, were all done to con- 
 cilitate the feelings, and in obedience 
 to the fierce demand, of the majority. 
 That these repeated infringements of 
 the constitution in so short a time, and 
 in obedience to whatever was the pre- 
 vailing cry of the moment, would prove 
 utterly fatal to the stability of the 
 new institutions, and subversive of the 
 growth of anything like real freedom 
 in the land, was indeed certain, and 
 has been abundantly proved by the 
 event. But the remarkable thing is, 
 that, such as they were, and fraught 
 with these consequences, they were 
 all loudly demanded by the demo- 
 cratic majority ; and the power of the 
 Crown was exerted only to pacify de- 
 mands, on the part of its subjects, 
 which in truth it had not the means of 
 resisting. 
 
 101. A little reflection, however, 
 will at once show how it happens that, 
 in periods of crisis and violent public 
 excitement, the people so frequently 
 demand, and the government concede, 
 what is certain in the end to prove 
 fatal to the interests of both. It is 
 that both are governed by present 
 feelings or convenience, and neither 
 is capable of either carrying their 
 views into futurity, or, if they could 
 do so, of incurring present risk or ob- 
 loquy to avert the perils with which 
 these views are fraught. Neither can 
 make '* the past or the future pre- 
 dominate over the present." The one 
 party demand what appears at the 
 time to them to be a most desirable 
 
 object ; the other concedes what they 
 are probably reluctant to grant, but 
 which is yielded to avoid the risk of 
 present collision. Thus the power of 
 the Crown is exerted to forward the 
 advances of democracy ; and the in- 
 fluence of democracy is directed to 
 forward changes which, by destroying 
 all intermediate influences, are in truth 
 paving the way for future despotism. 
 Tranquillity and peace are generally 
 purchased at the moment by such 
 concessions ; but this advantage is 
 gained at the expense of future safety ; 
 the danger is transferred from the 
 streets to the legislature — from the 
 turbulence of mobs to Acts of Par- 
 liament. The danger in such a case 
 is, not so much that the Government 
 will be overturned in a well-concerted 
 urban tumult, as that, with the con- 
 sent of all branches of the legislature, 
 and the cordial support of the majority 
 of the people, measures in the end 
 destructive of the nation, and sub- 
 versive of its liberties, will be adopted. 
 Whoever has attentively considered 
 the situation of a country in which a 
 mere numerical majority has really, 
 and not in form merely, acquired the 
 direction, will see that this is the 
 greatest social danger Avhich threatens 
 society ; and as it arises from the most 
 prevailing weakness of human nature 
 —that of sacrificing the future to the 
 present — it is the one which is least 
 likely to be ob^dated by any eff"orts of 
 human wisdom. Possibly it is one of 
 the appointed means by which com- 
 munities make their exit from the 
 world. And as nations, like single 
 men, were not destined for immor- 
 tality, but intended, at the appointed 
 season, to make way for their succes- 
 sors on this transitory scene, so it is 
 by the gro-niih of popular passions, 
 which tend to shorten their duration, 
 that the way is, in some cases, pre- 
 pared for their removal from the 
 theatre of existence, and the gates of 
 the tomb opened to the most powerful 
 and renowned of human societies. 
 
CHAP. YII.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 S17 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 SPAIN AND ITALY FROM THE PEACE OF 1814 TO THE 
 REVOLUTION OF 1820. 
 
 1. Differing from each other in 
 climate, national character, and de- 
 scent, there is a striking, it may be a 
 portentous, resemblance in their his- 
 tory and political destinies between 
 Spain and Great Britain. Both 
 were inhabited originally by a hardy 
 race, divided into various tribes, which 
 maintained an obstinate conflict with 
 the invaders, and were finally subdued 
 only after nearly a century's harassing 
 warfare with the Legions. Both, on 
 the fall of the Empire, were overrun 
 by successive swarms of barbarians, 
 with whom they kept up for centuries 
 an indomitable warfare, and from 
 whose intermingled blood their de- 
 scendants have now sprung. The 
 Visigoths to Spain were what the 
 Anglo-Saxons were to Britain; and 
 the Danes in the one country came in 
 place of the Moors in the other. The 
 rocks of Asturias in the first were the 
 refuge of independence, as the moun- 
 tains of Wales and the Grampian Hills 
 were in the last. Both were trained, 
 in those long-continued struggles, to 
 the hardihood, daring, and persever- 
 ance requisite for the accomplishment 
 of great things in the scene of trouble. 
 In both the elements of freedom were 
 laid broad and deep in this energetic 
 and intrepid spirit ; and it was hard for 
 long to say which was destined to be 
 the ark of liberty for the world. The 
 ardent disposition of both sought a vent 
 in maritime adventure, the situation 
 of both was eminently favourable for 
 commercial pursuits, and both became 
 great naval powers. Both founded 
 colonial empires in various parts of 
 the world, of surpassing magnitude 
 and splendour, and both found for 
 long in these colonies the surest foun- 
 
 dations of their prosperity, the most 
 prolific sources of their riches. When 
 the colonies revolted from Spain in 
 1810, the trade, both export and import, 
 which she maintained with them, was 
 exactly equal to that which, thirty years 
 afterwards, England carried on with its 
 colonial dependencies. Happy if the 
 parallels shall go no farther, and the 
 future historian shall not have to point 
 to the severance of her colonies as the 
 commencement of ruin to Great Bri- 
 tain, as the revolt of South America, 
 it is to be feared, may prove to the 
 Spanish monarchy. 
 
 2. Historians have repeated to sati- 
 ety that the decline of Spain, which 
 has now continued without interrup- 
 tion for nearly two centuries, is to be 
 ascribed to the drain which these great 
 colonies proved upon the strength of 
 the parent state. They seemed to 
 think that the mother country is like 
 a vast reservoir filled with vigour, 
 health, and strength, and that what- 
 ever of these was communicated to the 
 colonial offshoots, was so much with- 
 drawn from the parent state. There 
 never was a more erroneous opinion. 
 No country ever yet was weakened by 
 colonial dependencies ; their establish- 
 ment, like the swarming of bees, is an 
 indication of overflowing numbers and 
 superabundant activity in the original 
 hive, but no cause of their decline. 
 As their departure springs from past 
 strength, so it averts future weakness. 
 It saves the state from the worst of all 
 evils — a redundant population con- 
 stantly on the verge of sedition from 
 suff"ering — and converts those who 
 would be paupers or criminals at 
 home, into active and useful members 
 of society, who encourage the industry 
 
318 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. vir. 
 
 of the parent state as much by their 
 consumption as they would have op- 
 pressed it by their poverty. 
 
 3. Every indigent emigrant who is 
 now landed on the shores of Australia, 
 converts a pauper, whose maintenance 
 would have cost Great Britain £14 a- 
 year, into a consumer who purchases 
 £12 or £14 worth yearly of its manu- 
 factures. Eome and Athens, so far 
 from being weakened, were immeasur- 
 ably strengthened by their colonies : 
 those flourishing settlements which 
 surrounded the Mediterranean Sea 
 were the brilliant girdle which, as 
 much as the arms of the Legions, con- 
 tributed to the strength of the Empire ; 
 and England would never have emerged 
 ^dctorious from her immortal conflict 
 for European freedom, if she had not 
 found in her colonial trade the means 
 of maintaining the contest, when shut 
 out from the markets of the Continen- 
 tal states. If it were permitted to fol- 
 low fanciful analogies between the body 
 politic and the human frame, it would 
 be safer to say that the prolific parent 
 of many colonies is like the happy 
 mother of a numerous off'spring, who 
 exhibits, even in mature years, no 
 symptoms of decline, and preserves 
 tiie freshness and charms of youth for 
 a much longer jjeriod than she who 
 has never undergone the healthful la- 
 bours of parturition. 
 
 4. There is no reason, in the nature 
 of things, why colonies should exhaust 
 the mother country ; on the contrary, 
 the tendency is just the reverse. They 
 take from the parent what it is an ad- 
 vantage for it to lose, and give it what 
 it is beneficial for it to receive. They 
 take off" its surplus hands and mouths, 
 and thereby lighten the labour market, 
 difl"use general comfort, and give an 
 impulse to the principle of popula- 
 tion ; while they provide the means of 
 subsistence for those who remain at 
 home, by opening a vast and rapidly 
 increasing market for its manufactures. 
 A colony at first is always agricultural 
 or mining only. Manufactures, at 
 least of tlie finer sort, can never 
 spring up in it for a very long period. 
 An old state, in which manufactures 
 and the arts have long flourished, will 
 
 nowhere find such a certain and grow- 
 ing vent for its fabrics as in its co- 
 lonial settlements; while they will 
 never find so sure and steady a market 
 for their rude produce as in the wants 
 of its inhabitants. Similarity of tastes 
 and habits renders the fabrics and pro- 
 ductions of the parent state more ac- 
 ceptable to the young one than those 
 of foreign lands. The certaint}* of not 
 having its supplies of necessaries in- 
 terrupted, is an inappreciable advan- 
 tage to the mother country. Their 
 identity of interest perpetuates the 
 union which absolute dependence on 
 one part had at first commenced. The 
 connection between a parent state 
 liberally and wisely governed, and its 
 colonies, is founded on the surest of 
 all foundations — a real reciprocity'- of 
 advantages; and, as such, may long 
 prove durable to the great benefit of 
 both, and retain the infant state in the 
 bonds of allegiance, after the time has 
 arrived when it might aspire to the 
 honours, and be qualified for the 
 duties, of separate dominion. 
 
 5. To preserve, however, this con- 
 nection between the mother country 
 and her robust colonies, a wise and 
 liberal system of government is indis- 
 pensable. If such be not adopted, 
 they will, when they have attained 
 majority, inevitably break off on the 
 first serious difiiculties of the parent 
 state. Nothing can permanently re- 
 tain them in their allegiance but a 
 real reciprocity of advantages, and the 
 practical enjoyment of the powers of 
 self-government by the colonies. The 
 reason is, that the nile of the distant 
 old state, if unaided by colonial repre- 
 sentation, direct or indirect, never can 
 be founded upon an adequate know- 
 ledge of the necessities, or attention to 
 the interests, of the youthful settle- 
 ment. It will always be directed by 
 the ideas, and calculated for the ad- 
 vantage of the society with which it is 
 surrounded — generally the very re- 
 verse, in the first instance at least, of 
 what the young state requires. The 
 true colonial policy, which can alone 
 insure a lasting connection between 
 the mother country and her trans- 
 marine descendants, requires the most 
 
1S14.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 319 
 
 difficult of all sacrifices on the part of 
 the former — that of her established 
 prejudices and selfish interests. Yet 
 It is the sacrifice of her immediate ad- 
 vantages only ; for never will the in- 
 terests of the old state, in the end, be 
 so promoted as by the most liberal 
 and enlarged policy towards its distant 
 off"sj)ring. What that policy should 
 he, has been written in characters of 
 fire on the tablets of history. It 
 should be the exact reverse of that 
 which lost England ISTorth, and Spain, 
 South America. It should be the gov- 
 ernment of the colonies, not for the in- 
 terest of the mother country, but for 
 the advantage of themselves — an ad- 
 ministration which should make them 
 feel that they would lose rather than 
 gain by a severance of the connection. 
 Rule the colonies as you would wish 
 them to rule you, if the seat of govern- 
 ment were in the colony, and you were 
 the distant settlement, and it will be 
 long indeed before they will desire to 
 become mdependent. This is, per- 
 haps, the last lesson of wisdom which 
 will be learned by the rulers of man- 
 kind ; yet it is the very first precept 
 of the religion which they all profess ; 
 and the whole secret of colonial, as in- 
 deed of all other governments, is to do 
 to others as we would they should do 
 unto us. 
 
 6. There is no idea more erroneous 
 than that which is entertained by 
 many in this country, that it is for 
 the interest of the old state to sever 
 the connection with the colonies when 
 they have arrived at a certain degree 
 of strength; because by so doing, as 
 it is said, you retain the advantages of 
 mercantile intercourse, and get quit of 
 the burden of providing for defence. 
 
 Experience has proved that this opin- 
 ion is, of all others, the most fallacious ; 
 because the very first thing which a 
 colony does when it becomes indepen- 
 dent, is to levy heavy import duties 
 on the manufactures of the mother 
 country, in order to encourage its own, 
 and thus the benefit of its rising mar- 
 ket is at first abridged, and at length 
 lost to the parent state. The United 
 States of America, accordingly, have 
 imposed an import duty of 30 per cent 
 on all imj)orts Avhatever ; and the con- 
 seq.uence is, that our average exports 
 to them are not now so great as they 
 Avere forty years ago, when their in- 
 habitants were little more than a 
 fourth of what they now are; and 
 while our colonies consume, some £2, 
 10s., some £2, some £8 or even £12 
 or £14 worth a-head of our manufac- 
 tures, our emancipated offspring in 
 North America do not, on an average 
 of years, consume 12s. worth.* To 
 the shipping of the parent state the 
 change is still more disastrous, for, in- 
 stead of being all on the side of one 
 country, it becomes divided into two, 
 of which the younger rapidly gi'ows on 
 its older rival. Witness the British 
 trade to her Xorth American colonies, 
 with 2,600,000 of inhabitants, which 
 employs 1,200,000 tons of British 
 shipping ; while that with the United 
 States, with their 24,000,000, employs 
 only 1,400,000, the remainder, about 
 double that amount, having passed 
 into tlie hands of the Americans them- 
 selves, f And while Spain, while she 
 possessed her colonies, carried on a 
 traffic with them equal to what Eng- 
 land has since attained with her settle- 
 ments in all parts of the world, and 
 fleets capable for long of maintaining 
 
 * Exports from Great Britain in 1831 to 
 
 Australia, . . . £2,807,356 
 
 British North America, . 3,813,707 
 
 West Indies, . . 2,201,032 
 
 South Africa, . . 752,000 
 
 United States of America, . 14,362,000 
 -Parliamentary Paper, Nov. 29, 1852. 
 
 t Shipping of Great Britain with 
 
 Population. 
 
 500,000 
 
 2,600,000 
 
 ■ 970,000 
 
 450,000 
 
 24,000,000 
 
 British North America — 1849, 
 United States, 
 
 ropulation. 
 
 2,400,000 
 23,000,000 
 
 Kate per Head. 
 £5 16 
 
 1 10 
 
 2 10 
 1 15 
 12 
 
 Foreign Tons, 
 
 British Tons. 
 1,280,000 
 
 1,482,707 23,000,000 2,658,326 
 
 —Porter's Progress of the Nation, 1851, p. 392. 
 The great amount of the British tonnage to the United States of late years has been 
 
320 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. vir. 
 
 a doubtful conflict with the mistress 
 of the seas, since she lost them, her 
 foreign trade has sunk to nothing, and 
 her fleet, the successor of the invin- 
 cible Armada, has dwindled to two 
 ships of the line and three frigates.* 
 
 7. Although the prosperity of the 
 Spanish colonies had oecome such that 
 they contained, when the Revolution 
 severed them from old Spain, nineteen 
 millions of inhabitants, and carried on 
 an export and import trade with it of 
 above £16,000,000 sterling in all, yet 
 this had arisen chiefly from the bounty 
 of nature and the resources of wealth 
 which they themselves enjoyed, and 
 in no degree from the government of 
 the parent state. Its administration 
 had been illiberal, selfish, and oppres- 
 sive in the very highest degree. It 
 was founded mainly on three bases — 
 1. The establishment of the Romish 
 faith in its most bigoted form, and the 
 absolute exclusion and refusal even of 
 toleration to every other species of 
 worship ; 2. The exclusive enjoy- 
 ment of all offices of trust and emolu- 
 ment in the colonies, and especially 
 the working and direction of the mines 
 of gold and silver, by persons appoint- 
 ed by the Spanish government at Ma- 
 drid ; 3. The entire monopoly of the 
 whole trade Avith the colonies to the 
 merchants and shipping of the mother 
 country, especially those of Cadiz and 
 Corunna, Avhom its immense profits 
 had long elevated to the rank of mer- 
 chant princes. Here the radical sel- 
 fishness and short -sighted views of 
 
 human nature appeared in their full 
 deformity ; and accordingly, as these 
 were the evils which depressed the en- 
 ergies and cramped the efforts of the 
 colonies, the prevailing feeling which 
 produced the revolution, and the war- 
 cry which animated its supporters, 
 were for the opposite set of immuni- 
 ties. Liberation from Romish tyranny, 
 self-government, and free trade with 
 all the world, were inscribed on the 
 banners of Bolivar and San Martin, 
 and in the end proved victorious in 
 the conflict. Happy if they had known, 
 to improve their victory by modera- 
 tion, and exercise the powers it had 
 won with judgment ; and if the liber- 
 ated states had not fallen under a suc- 
 cession of tyrants of their own crea- 
 tion, so numerous that history has not 
 attempted to record their succession, 
 and so savage that it recoils from the 
 portrait of their deeds. 
 
 8. Although, too, the trade which 
 Spain carried on with her colonies was 
 so innuense anterior to the revolution 
 in Spanish America, yet we should 
 widely err if we imagined that it con- 
 sisted of the manufactures raised or 
 worked up in Spain itself ; on the 
 contrary, it consisted almost entirely 
 of manufactured articles produced in 
 Holland, Flanders, Germany, and Eng- 
 land, brought by their merchants to 
 the vast warehouses of Cadiz and Co- 
 runna, and transported thence beyond 
 the Atlantic. The government of Ma- 
 drid was entirely swayed in such 
 matters by the merchants of these 
 
 mainly owing to the prodigious emigration — on an average, 250,000 souls — from Great Bri- 
 tain to that country. Before this began, our tonnage with America stood thus : — 
 
 Tears. 
 
 British to 
 United States. 
 
 British to 
 N. Am. Colonies. 
 
 America, 
 Tons. 
 
 Exports to 
 United States. 
 
 Exports to 
 Canada. 
 
 1842 
 1843 
 1844 
 1845 
 
 152,833 
 200,781 
 206,183 
 223,676 
 
 541,451 
 
 771,905 
 
 789,410 
 
 1,090,224 
 
 319,524 
 396,189 
 338,781 
 444,442 
 
 £3,528,807 
 6,013,510 
 7,938,079 
 7,142,839 
 
 £2,333,525 
 1,751,211 
 3,070,861 
 3,555,950 
 
 —Porter's Pari. Tables, vi. 43; vli. 43; iiL 50, 52, 518— yeacrs 1839, 1840, 1841. 
 * Imports and Exports of Spain to her colonies in 1809 : 
 
 Exports, 59,200,000 piastres, or £15,200,000 
 
 Imports, 68,500,000 piastres, or £17,150,000 
 
 —Humboldt, Nouvelle Espagne, iv. 153, 154. See also ante, c. iv. 107, where the details 
 are given. 
 Exports of Great Britain to her whole colonies in 
 
 -^ 1850, . . . £18,517,000 
 
 1851, . . 19,496,000 
 
 -Pari. Returns of these years. 
 
 1847, 
 
 . £14,912,000 
 
 1848, 
 
 12,833,000 
 
 1849, 
 
 . . 15,690,000 
 
1814.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 321 
 
 great seaport towns ; and their inter- 
 est was wound up with the preser- 
 vation of the monopoly of the trade, 
 and by no means extended to the pro- 
 duction of the manufactures. On the 
 contrary, they were rather interested 
 in keeping up the purchase of the 
 articles which the colonies required 
 from foreign states, for they enjoyed 
 in that way in some degree a double 
 transit, first from the seat of the 
 manufjictures in Britain or Belgium 
 to Cadiz and Corunna, and again from 
 thence to the American shores. Spain, 
 notwithstanding the efforts of the Gov- 
 ernment to encourage them, had never 
 possessed any considerable manufac- 
 tures ; and even if the merchants en- 
 gaged in the colonial trade had wished 
 it, they could not have found in their 
 own country the articles of which 
 their colonies stood in need. Thus 
 the traffic with those colonies, great 
 as it was, did little to enrich the 
 country in general. It created colos- 
 sal fortunes in the merchants of Cadiz 
 and Corunna, of the Havanna or Bu- 
 enos Ayres, but nothing more — like 
 the railway traffic from London to 
 Liverpool and Manchester, which does 
 much for the wealth of these great 
 towns at either end of the line, but 
 comparatively little for the inter- 
 mediate country along the sides of 
 the communication between them. 
 The causes of this peculiarity ara to 
 be fourl in the peculiarities of its 
 physical circumstances, national char- 
 acter, and long - established policy, 
 which have deprived old Spain of 
 nearly all the advantages of her mag- 
 nificent colonies, and afford the true, 
 thoiigh hitherto unobsei-ved, key to 
 her long decline. 
 
 9. (1.) The first of these is to be 
 found in the national character and 
 temperament, the real source from 
 which, here as everywhere else, more 
 even than its physical or political cir- 
 cumstances, its fortunes and destiny 
 have flowed. The races whose mingled 
 blood have formed the heterogeneous 
 population of old Spain, have none of 
 them, excepting the Moors, been re- 
 markable for their industrial habits. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 Tenacious of custom, persevering in 
 inclination, repugnant to change, the 
 original inhabitants of the country, 
 with whom the legions maintained so 
 long and doubtful a conflict, were, like 
 all the other families of the Celtic 
 race, formidable enemies, indomitable 
 guerillas, but by no means either 
 laborious husbandmen or industrious 
 artisans. The Visigoths, who poured 
 through the passes of the Pyrenees, 
 and overspread the country to the 
 Pillars of Hercules, added nothing to 
 their industrious habits, but much to 
 their warlike propensities: from them 
 sprang Pelayo and the gallant defenders 
 of the Asturian hills, but not either 
 the cultivators of the fields or the 
 manufacturers of the towns ; from them 
 sprang Pizarro and Cortes, and the 
 conquerors of the ISTew World ; but 
 neither a Penn or a Franklin, nor 
 the hardy pioneers of civilisation in its 
 wastes. The Moors alone, who at one 
 time had nearly wrested all Spain from, 
 the Christians, and established them- 
 selves for a very long period on the 
 banks of the Guadalquivir, were ani- 
 mated by the real spirit of industry, 
 and great was the wealth and prosperity 
 of their provinces to the south of the 
 Sierra Morena. But religious bigotry 
 tore up from the state this source of 
 wealth ; and the banishment, three 
 hundred years ago, of nearly a million 
 of its most industrious and orderly 
 citizens, deprived Spain— as a similar 
 measure, at a later period, did France 
 — of the most useful and valuable 
 portion of its inhabitants, and with 
 them of the most important advan- 
 tages she could have derived from her 
 colonial settlements. 
 
 10. (2.) The physical circumstances 
 and peculiarities of Spain, and the pur- 
 suits to which its inhabitants were for 
 the most part of necessity driven, were 
 such as favoured nautical and com- 
 mercial, as much as they obstnicted 
 manufacturing pursuits. Placed mid- 
 way between the Old and the New 
 World, with one front washed by the 
 waves of the Atlantic, and another by 
 the ripple of the ^Mediterranean, with 
 noble and defensible harbours forming 
 
322 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 the access to Loth, she enjoyed the 
 greatest possible advantages for foreign 
 commerce; and accordingly, even in 
 the da3^s of Solomon, the merchants of 
 Tarshish rivalled those of Tyre in con- 
 ducting the traffic of the then known 
 world. But she had little natural ad- 
 vantages for interior traffic or manu- 
 factures. The mountainous nature of 
 the greater part of the country ren- 
 dered internal intercourse difficult ; the 
 entire want of roads, save the great 
 chaussees from Madrid to Bayonne, 
 Cadiz, Barcelona, Badajos, and Va- 
 lencia, made it impossible. What 
 little traffic there was off these roads, 
 was all carried on on the backs of 
 mules. Having little or no coal, and 
 few of the forests which in France sup- 
 ply in some degree its want, she had 
 none of the advantages for manufac- 
 turing industry which that invaluable 
 mineral has furnished to Northern 
 Europe, enabling the inhabitants of 
 Great Britain to reap the whole advan- 
 tages of their own colonies, and great 
 part of those of Spain, by supplying 
 the former directly, and the latter by 
 the merchants of Cadiz and Corunna, 
 or the contraband trade in the West 
 Indies, with the greater part of the 
 manufactured articles which they re- 
 quired. Hence it was that the Si)anish 
 merchants sought the materials of their 
 traffic in Belgium or Lancashire, and 
 that the manufacturers of Flanders and 
 England, not Spain, reaped the princi- 
 pal advantages arising from the growth 
 of its colonial dominion. 
 
 11. (3.) If the physical circumstances 
 of Spain were such as almost to pre- 
 clude the possibility of manufacturing 
 industry arising among its inhabitants, 
 its history had still more clearly marked 
 their character and occupations. Their 
 annals for live centuries recorded no- 
 thing but a continual conflict with the 
 Moors. These ruthless invaders, as 
 formidable and devastating in war as 
 they were industrious and orderly in 
 peace, spread gradually from the rock 
 of Gibraltar to the foot of the Pyrenees. 
 They were at last expelled, but it was 
 only after five hundred years of almost 
 incessant combats. These combats 
 were not, for a very long period, the 
 
 [chap. vir. 
 
 battles of great armies against each 
 other, but the ceaseless conflicts of 
 small forces or guerilla bands, among 
 whom success and defeat alternated, 
 and to whom at length the predomi- 
 nance was given to Spain only by the 
 perseverance and energ}' of the Spanish 
 character. It was tlie wars of the 
 Heptarchy or of the Anglo-Saxons with 
 the Danes, continued, not till the 
 reign of Alfred, but to that of Henry 
 VII. Incalculable was the effect of 
 this long-continued and absorbing hos- 
 tility upon the bent and disposition of 
 the Spanish mind. As much as eight 
 centuries of unbroken peace, during 
 which the southern counties of Eng- 
 land have never seen the fires of an 
 enemy's camp, have formed the Eng- 
 lish, have the five centuries of Moorish 
 warfare stamped their impress on the 
 Spanish character. Engrossing every 
 thought, animating every desire, di- 
 recting every passion in the country ; 
 uniting the fervour of the Crusader to 
 the ardour of chivalry, the glow of 
 patriotism to the thirst for conquest ; 
 penetrating every valley, ascending 
 every mountain in the Peninsula, they 
 have stamped a durable and indelible 
 character on the Spanish nation. They 
 made it a race of shepherds and war- 
 riors, but not of husbandmen and arti- 
 sans. In the Cid we may discern the 
 perfection of this character, when it 
 was directed to the highest objects and 
 refined by the most generous senti- 
 ments ; in the indolent hidalgo, who 
 spent his life in lounging under the 
 arcades of Saragossa or in the coffee- 
 houses of Madrid, the opposite ex- 
 ti-eme, when it had become debased by 
 the inactivity and degraded by the 
 selfishness of pacific life. 
 
 12. (4.) These circumstances would 
 have rendered it a very difficult matter, 
 if not an impossibility, for the manu- 
 facturers of Spain, had any such sj)rung 
 up, to have maintained their ground 
 against those of Northern Europe, even 
 in the supply of its own colonies. But, 
 in addition to this, there was a very- 
 curious and decisive circumstance, 
 which must at once have proved fatal 
 to the manufacturers of Spain, even if 
 they had begun to arise. This was the 
 
1814.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 823 
 
 possession of the mines of Mexico and 
 Potosi by the Government, and the 
 policy, in regard to the precious metals, 
 pursued with determined perseverance 
 by the cabinet of Madrid. That policy 
 consisted in favouring the importation 
 and prohibiting the exportation of the 
 precious metals, in the belief that it 
 "was the only way to keep their wealth 
 to themselves. The effect of this 
 l")olicy is thus described by the father 
 of political economy : " That degrada- 
 tion in the value of gold or silver, 
 which is the effect of the increased fer- 
 tility of the mines which produce those 
 metals, or the discovery of new ones, 
 operates equally, or nearly so, over the 
 whole commercial world ; but that 
 which, being the effect either of the 
 peculiar situation or political institu- 
 tions of a particular countr}'', takes 
 place only in that coimtry, is a matter 
 of very great consequence, which, far 
 from tending to make anybody really 
 richer, tends to make everybody really 
 poorer. The rise in the money- price 
 of all commodities, which is in this 
 case peculiar to that country, tends to 
 discourage, more or less, every sort of 
 industry which is carried on within it, 
 and to enable foreign nations, by fur- 
 nishing almost all sorts of goods for a 
 smaller quantity of silver than its 
 Avorkmen can afford to do, to undersell 
 them not only in the foreign, but even 
 in the home market. Spain by taxing, 
 and Portugal by prohibiting, the ex- 
 portation of gold and silver, load that 
 exportation with the price of smug- 
 gling, and raise the value of those 
 metals in those countries much above 
 •what it is in other countries. The 
 cheapness of gold and silver, or, what 
 is the same thing, the dearness of all 
 commoditips, discourages both the agri- 
 culture and manufactures of Spain and 
 Portugal, and enables foreign nations 
 to supply them \d\h. many sorts of rude, 
 and with almost all sorts of manufac- 
 tured produce, for a smaller quantity of 
 gold and silver than they themselves 
 can either raise or make them for at 
 home. " The Spaniards, by retaining 
 by every possible means the precious 
 metals which came from their colonies 
 in their own country, necessarily ruined 
 
 its industry, because they enabled 
 every other country to produce cheaper 
 than they could do. They turned the 
 whole encouragement to industry from 
 the colonial market to foreign lands. 
 
 13. (5.) The religion which obtains 
 a lasting place in a country is often to 
 be regarded as an effect rather than a 
 cause. It is the consequence of a pre- 
 disposition in the general mind, Avhich 
 leads to the embracing of doctrines or 
 forms which fall in with its propensi- 
 ties. "We are apt to say that the Scotch 
 are energetic and persevering because 
 they are Protestants, the Irish volatile 
 and indolent because they are Roman 
 Catholic; forgetting that the adoption 
 of these different creeds by these dif- 
 ferent nations was with both a volun- 
 tary act, and that it bespoke rather 
 than created the national character. 
 Had the English been of the turn of 
 mind of the Spaniards, they never 
 would have become Protestants ; had 
 the Spaniards been of the English, 
 they never would have remained Ca- 
 tholic. But admitting that it is in the 
 distinctive character of Race that we 
 are to look for the remote cause of the 
 peculiar modification of faith which is 
 to be durably prevalent in a nation, it 
 is not the less certain that the reac- 
 tion which it exerts upon its character 
 and destiny is great and lasting. The 
 fires of the Inquisition Avere not fed 
 with human victims for three centuries 
 in Spain, without producing durable 
 and indelible effects upon the national 
 character and destiny. Independence 
 of mind, vigour of thought, emancipa- 
 tion from superstition, were impossible 
 in a people thus shackled in opinion ; 
 adherence to the faith which imposed 
 the fetters was not to be expected 
 among the educated few, who had 
 emei'ged from its restraints. Thus the 
 Spanish nation, like eveiy other old 
 state in which the Romish faith is 
 established, was divided in matters of 
 religion into two classes, widely diffe- 
 rent in point of numbers, but more 
 nearly balanced in point of political 
 influence and power. On the one side 
 were a few hundred thousand citizens 
 in Madrid, Cadiz, Corunna, and Bar- 
 celona, rich, comparatively educated, 
 
S24 
 
 HISTORY OF EUEOPE. 
 
 [chap. vir. 
 
 free-tliinking, and engaged in the pur- 
 suit of pleasure ; on the other, twelve 
 millions of peasants in the country, 
 hardy, intrepid, and abstemious, in- 
 different to political privileges, but 
 devotedly attached to the faith of their 
 fathers, and blindly following the in- 
 junctions of their priests, and the man- 
 dates of the See of Rome. 
 
 14. (6.) From these circumstances 
 arose an important difference between 
 the views of the citizens of the towns 
 and the inhabitants of the country in 
 political thought and desires. The 
 former, placed within reach of politi- 
 cal advancement, were animated, for 
 the most part, by an ardent desire 
 for freedom, and an emancipation from 
 the fetters on thought and expression, 
 which had so long been imposed by 
 the tyranny of the priests and the tor- 
 tures of the Inquisition; the latter, 
 living in the seclusion of the country, 
 and having nothing to gain by political 
 change, were enthusiastically attached 
 to the throne, and devotedly submis- 
 sive to the mandates of the clergy. In 
 the Basque Provinces alone, where im- 
 portant political privileges had from 
 time immemorial been enjoyed by the 
 peasantry, their loyal feelings were 
 mingled, as in England, with attach- 
 ment to their constitutional rights; 
 in the other provinces of Spain, they 
 were founded on their entire abandon- 
 ment. "Viva el Rey apostolico!" 
 was the cry which expressed at once 
 their feelings and their wishes. From 
 the small number of considerable towns 
 in the Peninsula, the largest of which 
 had not two hundred thousand inha- 
 bitants, while the generality had not 
 more than thirty or forty thousand, 
 the democratic section of the com- 
 munity was not a twentieth part of the 
 immense mass of the rural population. 
 But from their position in the great 
 towms and fortresses of the kingdom, 
 and their being in possession of nearly 
 the whole of its available wealth and 
 energetic talent, they had great ad- 
 vantages in the event of a serious con- 
 flict arising ; and it w^as not easy to 
 say, in the event of civil w^ar, to which 
 side victory would incline. 
 
 15. (7.) The apparent inequality of 
 
 parties, from the immense preponder- 
 ance of numbers on the country side, 
 was more than compensated by the 
 temper and feelings of the Army. 
 This body, formidable and important 
 in all countries, was more especially 
 so from the peculiar circumstances of 
 Spain, which had just emerged, on the 
 accession of Ferdinand, from a despe- 
 rate war of six years' duration, in the 
 course of which nearly all the active 
 energy of the country had been en- 
 rolled in the military ranks, and the 
 troops had at last, under the guidance 
 of Wellington, acquired a tolerable de- 
 gree of consistency. These men, and 
 still more their officers, were for the 
 most part democratic. During the 
 long contest in the provinces, the ge- 
 nerals had enjoyed nearly unlimited 
 power in their separate commands, and 
 they did not relish the thought of re- 
 turning from the rank of independent 
 princes to subordinate command. All 
 of them had been brought in contact 
 with the English, numbers of them, 
 in a friendly way as prisoners, with the, 
 French troops; and from both they 
 had imbibed the free spirit and inde- 
 pendent thoughts by which both were 
 characterised. Great, indeed, was the 
 contrast between their extensive infor- 
 mation and general knowledge of the 
 world, and the narrow ideas of the 
 spiritual militia who had hitherto been 
 their sole instructors. The contrast 
 was rendered the more striking, from 
 the brilliant career which had attended 
 at first the arms of France, then those 
 of England, when compared with the 
 almost uniform defeats which their 
 own had sustained. Hence the armies 
 of Spain, as indeed those of all the 
 Continental monarchies, retired from 
 the conflict deeply imbued with demo- 
 cratic principles ; and the officers, espe- 
 cially, were generally impressed with 
 the belief that nothing but the estab- 
 lishment of these was wanting to open 
 a boundless career of prosperity to their 
 country, of promotion and elevation to 
 themselves. 
 
 16. (8.) But if the army was an im- 
 portant, it might be a decisive ally to 
 the democratic party in the towns, the 
 royalists in the country had a force for 
 
1814.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 325 
 
 their support equally numerous, equal- 
 ly zealous, and still better disciplined 
 and docile to their chiefs. The CiiuncH 
 was unanimous in favour of the Crown 
 and the establishment of arbitrary 
 power : an unerring instinct told them 
 that freedom of thought would inevi- 
 tably lead to freedom of action, and the 
 termination of their long-established 
 dominion. Their numbers were im- 
 mense, their possessions extensive. A 
 hundred thousand ])riests, doomed to 
 celibacy in a country suffering under 
 the want of hands, and capable of main- 
 taining, with ease and comfort, at least 
 double its number of inhabitants, were 
 diffused over its whole extent, and in 
 all the rural distiicts, at least, exercised 
 an unlimited sway over the minds of 
 their flocks. Essentially obedient to 
 the voice of their spiritual chiefs, which 
 was everywhere governed by the com- 
 mands issuing from the conclave of the 
 Vatican, the efforts of this immense 
 body of spiritual militia were entirely 
 devoted to one object — the re-establish- 
 ment of despotic power, in its most un- 
 mitigated form, over the whole Penin- 
 sula. The policy of the court of Rome 
 was directed to this object in Spain and 
 Portugal from the same motive which 
 led it to support the democratic pro- 
 pensities of the Romish Church in Ire- 
 land. In both cases, regardless of the 
 real welfare of the people of their per- 
 suasion, they were governed by one 
 motive — the furtherance of the power 
 and extension of the influence of their 
 own establishment. In the Peninsula, 
 this was to be done by aiding despotic 
 power against democratic infidelity ; 
 in the British Islands, by supporting 
 democratic ambition against heretical 
 power. But when the vast influence 
 and widespread possessions of the clergy 
 are taken into consideration, and the 
 absolute direction which they had of 
 the minds and opinions of their fol- 
 lowers in all the rural districts and 
 many of the towns, it was a most for- 
 midable enemy with which the repub- 
 licans had to contend, and it was doubt- 
 ful whether, in a protracted struggle, 
 victory might not incline to the side 
 which it espoused. 
 
 17. (9.) This influence and import- 
 
 ance in a political point of view, of the 
 clergy, was the more important, from, 
 generally sjieaking, the comfortable 
 and prosperous condition of the peas- 
 antry, and their entire submission to 
 the voice of their pastors. If the 
 clergy were a zealous and admirably 
 trained phalanx of officers for the 
 church militant, the peasantry com- 
 posed an incomparable body of private 
 soldiers. Sober, abstemious, regular, 
 and yet ardent and capable of great 
 things, the Spanish peasant is the one 
 in Europe, with the exception, per- 
 haps, of the Polish, who, under good 
 oflicers, most readily forms a good 
 soldier, and is most easily induced to 
 undertake his duties. The five cen- 
 turies of incessant warfare with the 
 Moors had nurtured this tendency ; 
 the benignit}^ of the climate, and ab- 
 sence of artificial wants among the 
 peasantry, have rendered it easy of 
 retention. The Castilian or Catalon- 
 ian loses little by leaving his home and 
 joining a guerilla band in the moun- 
 tains ; his fare remains the same, his 
 habits are little different, the sphere 
 of his achievements is much extended. 
 The roving adventurous life of par- 
 tisan warfare, with its hair-breadth es- 
 capes and occasional triumphs, suits his 
 tastes and rouses his ambition. Un- 
 like the peasant of Northern Europe, 
 the Spanish cultivator is never worn 
 down by the labours, or depressed by 
 the limited ideas, of daily toil. Bless- 
 ed with a benignant climate, tilling a 
 fruitful soil, or wandering over vast 
 downs after immense flocks, he can 
 satisfy his few wants with a compara- 
 tively small amount of actual labour. 
 The greater part of his life is spent 
 in doing nothing, or in such exercises 
 as nourish rather than depress his war- 
 like disposition. "The Spaniards," 
 says Chateaubriand, " are Christian 
 Arabs : they unite the savage and 
 the religious character. The mingled 
 blood of the Cantabrian, the Cartha- 
 ginian, the Roman, the Vandal, and 
 the Moor, which flows in their veins, 
 flows not as other blood. They are 
 at once active, indolent, and grave." 
 "Every grave nation," says Montes- 
 quieu, in discoursing of them, " is in- 
 
326 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 dolent ; for those who do not labour 
 consider themselves as masters of those 
 ■who do. In that country liberty is 
 injured by independence. Of what 
 value are civil privileges to a man 
 who, like the Bedouin, armed with 
 the lance and followed by his sheep, 
 has no need of food beyond a few 
 acorns, figs, or olives ? " The dolce 
 far 7iiente is as dear to the Spaniard 
 as to the inhabitant of the Ausonian 
 fields ; but the precious hours of rest 
 are not spent in listless inactivity : 
 they are cheered by the recital of the 
 ballads, or the recounting of the stories 
 which recall the glories, the dangers, 
 the adventures of war. There was 
 scarcely one at this time who had not 
 his musket suspended over his hearth, 
 which had been used in the guerilla 
 warfare with the French, and his tale 
 to recount of the indignities endured, 
 or the vengeance taken, or the sur- 
 prises achieved, in the conflict with 
 those ruthless invaders. JMutual bene- 
 fits and dependence, and a long series 
 of kind actions and good deeds, per- 
 formed by the parochial clergy to their 
 flocks, had endeared them to the whole 
 rural popula,tion ; and it was easy to 
 see that if any civil warfare ensued, they 
 would take the side, whichever it was, 
 •which was espoused by their spiritual 
 directors. 
 
 18. (10.) So great was the influence 
 of the clerg}", and so loyal the feelings 
 of the peasantry, that they would in 
 all probability have enabled the king 
 to resist all the eff"orts of the malcon- 
 tents, had there been any body of effi- 
 cient and united landed proprietors in 
 the country. But none such existed in 
 Spain. Generally speaking, the clergy 
 were the sole leaders of the people. 
 There were many nobles in Spain, and 
 they were inferior to none in the world 
 iu pride and aristocratic pretension; 
 but they had neither political power 
 nor rural influence. Nearly all absen- 
 tees, residing the whole year round in 
 Madrid, they had none of that sway 
 over the minds of their tenantry which 
 is enjoyed by landed proprietors who 
 have attached them by a series of kind 
 acts during many generations : intrust- 
 ed with no political power, they had 
 
 [chap. VII. 
 
 little weight in national deliberations, 
 or authority in the aff"airs of Govern- 
 ment. The grandees of Spain, who 
 cherished the purity of their descent 
 as carefully as the Arabs do the pedi- 
 gree of their steeds, and who would 
 admit of, and indeed could contract, 
 no marriage where sixteen quarterings 
 could not be counted on both sides, 
 had incurred the penalty prescribed b}' 
 nature for such overweening pride and 
 selfishness. They had become a Avoni- 
 out and degenerate race, considerably 
 below the usual stature of the human 
 frame, and lamentably inferior in vi- 
 gour, courage, and intelligence. Not 
 one great man arose during the whole of 
 the protracted Peninsular war : few of 
 the generals who did distinguish them- 
 selves belonged to the class of grandees. 
 Nevertheless, this selfish /af/ie«?i< race 
 possessed a great part of the landed 
 property in the kingdom, and by the 
 operation of the strict entails under 
 which it was nearly all held, and the 
 constant intermarriage of the nobility 
 among each other, it was every day 
 running more and more into a few 
 hands. The greater part of the re- 
 maining landed property was in the 
 hands of incorporations, municipali- 
 ties, or the Church ; so that there was 
 perhaps no country in the world which, 
 from its political situation, stood so 
 much in need of an efficient body of 
 rural proprietors, and yet was so en- 
 tirely destitute of it. 
 
 19. (11.) It was scarcely possible that 
 a monarchy so situated, disti-acted by 
 such passions, and divided by so many 
 opposite interests, could long escape 
 the convulsions of civil war ; but it 
 was accelerated, and the means of 
 averting it were taken away, by the 
 peculiar circumstances in which, on 
 the restoration of Ferdinand in 1814: 
 to the thi-one of his ancestors, the Fi- 
 nances of the country stood. From 
 the causes which have been mentioned, 
 the industry and resources of old Spain 
 had declined to such a degree, that 
 little revenue was to be derived from 
 taxation at home ; while, on the other 
 hand, the gold and silver mines in the 
 hands of Government in the colonies 
 had become so prolific that the chief 
 
1814.] 
 
 HISTOEY OF EUROPE. 
 
 327 
 
 revenue of the state had long been de- 
 rived from its transmarine possessions, 
 and the principal attention of Govern- 
 ment was fixed on their maintenance. 
 The income derived by Spain from her 
 colonies, anterior to the Revolution, 
 amounted to 38,000,000 piastres, or 
 £9,500,000— fully a half of the whole 
 revenue, at that period, of the Spanish 
 crown. It is true, about £7, 500, 000 of 
 this sum was absorbed in expenses con- 
 nected with the colonies themselves, 
 leaving only £2,000,000 available to 
 the royal treasury at Madrid ; but still 
 it was by this vast colonial expendi- 
 ture, and the establishment it enabled 
 the King to keep up, that nearly the 
 whole power and influence of Govern- 
 ment was maintained. It was the gold 
 of Mexico and Peru that paid the 
 armies and ci\'il servants, and upheld 
 nearly the entire sway of the Court of 
 Madrid. Now, however, this source 
 of influence was gone. The revolution 
 in South America had cut off" fully a 
 half of the whole revenue of Spain ; 
 and how was revolution to be combated 
 without armies, themselves the crea- 
 tures of the wealth which had been lost ? 
 This is the true cause of the ceaseless 
 embarrassments of finance, which have 
 ever since distinguished the Spanish 
 government ; which induced them, as 
 will appear in the sequel, to hazard re- 
 volution at home, in the desperate at- 
 tempt to extinguish it in the colonies, 
 and has since led them into so many 
 acts alien to the old Castilian honour, 
 and discreditable to present govern- 
 ments. 
 
 20. (12.) While so many circum- 
 stances tended to prognosticate future 
 end fierce dissension in the Spanish 
 peninsula, the enormous defects of the 
 Constitution of 1812, Avhich was the 
 ruling form of government at the time 
 of the restoration, rendered it immi- 
 nent and unavoidable. The circum- 
 stances under which that constitution 
 was framed have been already explained, 
 and the calamitous influence they exer- 
 cised on the deliberations and temper 
 of the Spanish Constituent Assembly. 
 That Assembly — convoked in 1811, at 
 the most disastrous period of the con- 
 test with France, and when the Impe- 
 
 rial armies occupied the whole country 
 except a few mountain provinces and 
 fortresses on the sea-coast — so far from 
 presenting a faithful representation of 
 the feelings of the majority of the na- 
 tion, presented the very reverse. Ga- 
 licia and Asturias alone — evacuated by 
 Ney at the time of the advance of Wel- 
 lington to Talavera — with the seaport 
 towns of Valencia, Cadiz, and Alicante, 
 alone were in the hands of the Span- 
 iards ; the whole remainder of the 
 country was occupied by the French ; 
 and, of course, the election of members 
 for the Cortes was impossible from the 
 provinces they were masters of Thus 
 the Cortes was returned only by the 
 seaports of Cadiz, Valencia, and Ali- 
 cante, and the mountaineers of Galicia 
 and Asturias ; and as they were not a 
 tenth part of the entire inhabitants of 
 the country, the remaining members 
 were all selected by the 'perrple of those 
 provinces then in Cadiz — that is, by the 
 most democratic portion of the com- 
 munity. In this extraordinary and un- 
 constitutional device, perhaps unavoid- 
 able under the circumstances, the real 
 germ of the whole subsequent calami- 
 ties of Spain, and of the south of Europe, 
 is to be found. 
 
 21. As might have been expected, 
 from its construction by the represen- 
 tatives of little more than the demo- 
 cratic rabble of three seaport towns, 
 the Constitution of 1812, formed by 
 the Cortes at Cadiz, was republican in 
 the extreme. It preserved the shadoAV 
 of monarchy, but nothing more. It did 
 not establish a "throne surrounded 
 with republican institutions," but a 
 republic surrounded by the ghost of 
 monarchical institutions. The Legis- 
 lature consisted of a single Chamber, 
 elected by universal suffrage ; there was 
 to be a representative for every 70,000 
 inhabitants in old Spain ; and the 
 American colonies were also admitted 
 on similar terms to a considerable share 
 in the representation. Every man, aged 
 twenty-five, and who had resided seven 
 years in the province, had a vote for 
 the representation of his department 
 in the Cortes. The king had a veto 
 only twice on any legislative measure : 
 if proposed to birn a third time by the 
 
823 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. VII. 
 
 legislature, lie was constrained to pass 
 the measure, whatever it was. There 
 was no House of Peers, or check of 
 any kind on the single chamber of the 
 Cortes, elected, as it was, by universal 
 suffrage ; and the king's ministers, by 
 becoming such, ipso facto lost their 
 seats in the National Assembly. The 
 Cortes was to be re-elected every two 
 years ; and no member who had once 
 sat could be again returned to its bosom. 
 The king had the appointment of civil 
 and military officers, but only out of a 
 list furnished to him by the Cortes, who 
 could alone make regulations for the 
 government of the army. The judges 
 in all the civil courts were to be ap- 
 pointed by the Cortes. The king could 
 declare peace or war, and conclude trea- 
 ties in the first instance ; but his mea- 
 sures in those particulars required, for 
 their validity, the ratification of the 
 Cortes. Finally, to aid him in the 
 government of the kingdom, he was 
 empowered to appoint a privy council 
 of forty members, but only out of a list 
 of a hundred and twenty furnished to 
 him by the Cortes. In like manner 
 all diplomatic, ministerial, and eccle- 
 siastical appointments were to be made 
 out of a list of three, presented to him 
 by the same body ; and, to perpetuate 
 its power, a permanent committee was 
 appointed, which exercised, during the 
 intervals of its sessions, nearly the whole 
 powers of the administration intrusted 
 to the entire body. 
 
 22. This constitution was so tho- 
 roughly democratic in all its parts, 
 that it could not by possibility coexist 
 with a monarchical government in any 
 country of the earth. Biennial par- 
 liaments, universal suffrage, the exclu- 
 sion of the king's ministers from the 
 legislature, a single chamber, the prac- 
 tical appointment to all offices, civil 
 and military, by a Cortes thus popu- 
 larly elected, and the eternal succes- 
 sion of new and inexperienced persons 
 into the legislature, by the self-denying 
 ordinances which they had passed, were 
 amp]}^ sufficient to have overturned 
 society in Great Britain — long as its 
 people had been trained to popular 
 institutions — in six months. What, 
 then, was to be expected, when such a 
 
 constitution was suddenly imposed on 
 a country inured to political nullity by 
 centuries of absolute government — by 
 a so-styled National Assembly, elected, 
 during the whirl of the French war, al«» 
 most entirely by tlie populace of Cadiz, 
 when crowded to suftbcation by all the 
 most ardent spirits in the Peninsula 
 refluent within its walls from the effects 
 of the French invasion? It was im- 
 possible to imagine a constitution 
 more at variance \\'ith the ancient in- 
 stitutions, or repugnant to the present 
 feelings of nineteen-twentieths of the 
 Spanish people. It was like a consti- 
 tution for Great Britain formed by a 
 parliament elected by the inhabitants 
 of the Tower Hamlets, Marylebone, 
 and Manchester, with a few returned 
 from the mountains of Cumberland 
 and Wales. But, unfortunately, in 
 proportion to its utter unsuitableness 
 for the entire inhabitants of the Pen- 
 insula, and the abhorrence of the vast 
 majority of the people to its provisions, 
 it was the object of impassioned at- 
 tachment on the part of the democratic 
 populace in the capital and a few sea- 
 port towns. It was so for a very ob- 
 vious reason : it promised, if estab- 
 lished in a lasting way, to put the 
 whole power and patronage of the 
 State at their disposal. Therein the 
 seeds of a lasting di\'ision of opinion, 
 and of a frightful civil war at no dis- 
 tant period in the Peninsula, in which 
 it might be expected that 12,000,000 
 bold, hardy, and loyal peasants, scat- 
 tered over the whole country, would 
 be arrayed on one side ; while 500,000 
 ardent and enthusiastic democrats, con- 
 centrated in the capital and chief for- 
 tresses, and having the command of the 
 army, were in arms on the other. 
 
 23. The proceedings of the Cortes, 
 and the democratic character of the 
 measures they were pursuing, was well 
 known to the Duke of Wellington, and 
 discerned by him with his wonted sa- 
 gacity. He repeatedly warned the Go*. 
 vernment of Great Britain, that whilo 
 the spirit of the nation was anti-Galli- 
 can, not democratic, that of the Cortes 
 and its narrow body of constituents was 
 democratic, not anti-Gallican ; and 
 that it would be their wisdom, without 
 
1814.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUEOrE. 
 
 329 
 
 sanctioning in any shape, or interfer- 
 ing at all with the proceedings at Cadiz, 
 to turn their attention exclusively to 
 the expulsion of the French from the 
 Peninsula.* They did so, and with 
 what eliect need be told to none ; but 
 though Spain marched under his guid- 
 ance in the career of conquest, and, to 
 external appearance, was enveloped in 
 a halo of glory, the working of the de- 
 mocratic constitution was not the less 
 felt, and it had become beyond measure 
 repugnant to the vast majority of the 
 inhabitants of the Peninsula. What 
 chiefly excited their indignation was 
 the selfishness and rapacity of the half- 
 starving employes, who, issuing fi'om 
 Cadiz, overspread the country in every 
 direction, like an army of locusts, and 
 ate up the fruits of their industry, by 
 exactions of every description, from 
 the suffering inhabitants. The general 
 abhorrence in which these rapacious 
 employes were held, recalls the similar 
 indignation excited in Flanders by the 
 
 * "The natural course of all popular assem- 
 blies — of the Spanish Cortes among others — 
 is to adopt democratic principles, and to vest 
 all the powers of the State in their own body; 
 apd this Assembly must take care that they 
 do not run in this tempting course, as the 
 wishes of the nation are decidedly for a mon- 
 archy. By a monarchy alone it can be go- 
 verned ; and their inclination to any other 
 form of government, and their assumption of 
 the power and patronage of the State into 
 their own hands, would immediately deprive 
 them of the confidence of the people, and 
 render them a worse government, and more 
 impotent, because more numerous, than the 
 Central Junta."— Wellington to H. Wel- 
 LESLEY, Nov. 4, ISIO; GuRWooD, iv. 559. 
 
 " The Cortes are unpopular everywhere, 
 and, in my opinion, deservedly so. Nothing 
 can be more cruel, absurd, and impolitic than 
 those decrees respecting the persons who 
 have served the enemy. It is extraordinary 
 that the revolution has not produced one man 
 with any knowledge of the real situation of 
 the country. It appears as if they were all 
 drunk, thinking and speaking of any other 
 subject than Spain." — Wellington to H. 
 Wellesley, Nov. 1, 1812 ; Gurwood, ix. 
 524. 
 
 " It is impossible to describe the state of 
 confusion in which affairs are at Cadiz. The 
 greatest objection I have to the new consti- 
 tution is, that in a country in which almost 
 the whole property consists in land— and 
 these are the largest landed proprietors which 
 exist in Europe — no measure has been adopt- 
 ed, and no barrier provided, to guard landed 
 property from the encroachments, injustice, 
 and violence to which it is at all times liable, 
 
 Jacobin commissioners sent down there 
 by Dan ton, when the country was 
 overrun by the republican armies in 
 1792. It will be so to the end of the 
 world, in all governments, monarchical 
 and republican, where the executive 
 and legislative functions are united in 
 one person or assembly ; for then there 
 is no possible check upon the misdeeds 
 of either. The only .security which can 
 be relied upon is to be found in their 
 separation and mutual jealou.sy, for 
 then they act as a restraint upon each, 
 other. 
 
 24. The proceedings of the Cortes, 
 and the republican spirit with which 
 they were animated, acted in a still 
 more important way upon the destinies 
 of the New World than those of the 
 Old. The deputies from the Transat- 
 lantic provinces, to whom, in a liberal 
 and worthy spirit, the gates of the na- 
 tional rejiresentation at Cadiz had been 
 opened, came to the hall of the Cortes, 
 in the Isle of Leon, with feelings 
 
 particularly in the progress of revolutions. 
 Such a guard can only be afforded by the 
 establishment of an assembly of the great 
 landed proprietors— like our House of Lords, 
 having concurrent power with the Cortes ; 
 and you may depend upon it there is no man 
 In Spam, be his property ever so small, who 
 is not interested in the establishment of such 
 an assembly. Unhappily, in legislative 
 assemblies, the most tyrannical and unjust 
 measures are the most popular. I tremble 
 for a country such as Spain, in which there 
 is no barrier for the preservation of private 
 property, excepting the justice of a legisla- 
 tive assembly possessing supreme power. It 
 is impossible to calculate upon the plans of 
 such an assembly: they have no check what- 
 ever, and they are governed by the most igno- 
 rant and licentious of all licentious presses— 
 that of Cadiz. I believe they mean to attack 
 the royal and feudal tenths, the tlties of the 
 Cliurch, under pretence of encouraging agri- 
 culture ; and finding the supplies from these 
 .sources not so extensive as they expected, 
 they will seize the estates of the grandees. 
 Our character Is involved in a greater degree 
 than we are aware of in the democratical 
 transactions of the Cortes, in the opinion of 
 all moderate, well-thinking Spaniards, and, I 
 am afraid, with the rest of Europe. It is quite 
 impossible such a system can last : what I 
 regret is, that I am the person who maintains 
 it. If the king should return, he will over- 
 turn the whole fabric, if he has any spirit; 
 but the gentlemen at Cadiz are so completely 
 masters, that I fear there must be another 
 convulsion."— Wellington to Don Diego dk 
 LA Vega, Jan. 29, 1813 ; GURWOOD, x. 64, 65, 
 247; xi. 91, 
 
330 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. VII. 
 
 ■wound up to the highest pitch, from the 
 wrongs they had so long endured from 
 the selfish and monopolising policy of 
 the mother counby, and the free and 
 independent spirit which the breaking 
 out of the revolution in the Caraccas 
 and elsewhere had excited in her trans- 
 marine possessions. They found them- 
 selves in a highly democratic and vehe- 
 mently excited assembly, in which the 
 noble name of liberty was continually 
 heard, in which the sovereignty of 
 the people was openly announced, the 
 whole fabric of the new constitution 
 was made to rest on that foundation, 
 and in which the most enthusiastic 
 predictions were constantly uttered as 
 to the future regeneration and happi- 
 ness of mankind from the influence of 
 these principles. They returned to 
 South America, under the restriction 
 which had been adopted of each Cortes 
 to two years' sitting, before these flat- 
 tering predictions had been brought to 
 the test of experience, or anything had 
 occurred to reveal their fallacious char- 
 acter. They instantly spread among 
 their constituents the seducing doc- 
 trines and hopes -w-ith which the halls 
 of the Cortes had resounded in Europe. 
 Incalculable was the influence of this 
 circumstance upon the future destinies 
 of South America, and, through it, of 
 the whole civilised world. To this, in 
 a great degree, is to be ascribed the 
 Avidespread and desperate resolution of 
 the vast majority of the inhabitants in 
 the revolutionary contest in those mag- 
 nificent settlements ; their frightful de- 
 solation by the horrors of a war worse 
 than civil ; and their final severance, 
 by the insidious aid of Great Britain, 
 from the Spanish crown, 
 
 25. In all the particulars which have 
 been mentioned, Portugal was in the 
 same situation as Spain ; but in two 
 respects the situation of that country 
 was more favourable for innovation, 
 and her people were more ripe for re- 
 volt, than in the Spanish provinces. 
 The royal family having, during the 
 first alarm of the French invasion, 
 migrated to Brazil, and dread of the 
 terrors of a sea voyage having prevent- 
 ed the aged monarch from returning, 
 lie had come to fix his permanent resi- 
 
 dence on the beautiful shores of Rio 
 Janeiro. A separation of the two 
 countries had thus taken place ; and 
 the government at Lisbon, during the 
 whole war, had been conducted by 
 means of a council of regency, the 
 members of Avhich were by no means 
 men either of vigour or capacity, and 
 which was far from commanding the 
 respect, or having acquired the afl"ec- 
 tions, of the country. "While the 
 \Aeight and influence of Government 
 had been thus sensibly weakened, the 
 political circumstances of Portugal, and 
 the events of the war, had in an extra- 
 ordinary manner diflused liberal ideas 
 and the spirit of independence through 
 a considerable part of the people. 
 
 26. Closely united, both b}!- political 
 treaties and commercial intercourse, 
 with Great Britain, for above a cen- 
 tury, Portugal had become, in its mari- 
 time districts at least, almost an Eng- 
 lish colony. English influence was 
 predominant at Lisbon : English com- 
 merce had enriched Oporto : the Eng- 
 lish market for port-wine had covered 
 the slopes of Tras-os-Montes with smil- 
 ing vineyards. In addition to this, the 
 events of the late war had spread, in an 
 extraordinary degree, both admiration 
 of the English institutions, and confi- 
 dence in the English character, through 
 the entire population. Thirty thou- 
 sand Portuguese troops had been taken 
 into British pay : they had felt the in- 
 tegrity of British administration : they 
 had been led to victory by British offi- 
 cers. Unlike the native nobles who 
 had held the same situations, they had 
 seen them ever the first in the enemy's 
 fire — the last in acts of domestic cor- 
 ruption. Immense had been the influ- 
 ence of this juxtaposition. Standing 
 side by side yriih. him in battle, they 
 had learned to respect the English 
 soldier in war, to admire the institu- 
 tions which had trained him in peace. 
 Even the hatred in which they had 
 been bred of the heretic, yielded to the 
 evidence of their senses, which had 
 taught them his virtues. In daily 
 intercourse with the British soldiers, 
 they had learned to appreciate the li- 
 berty which had nurtured them ; they 
 had come to envy their independence 
 
1814.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 831 
 
 of thought, and imitate their freedom 
 of language. The mercantile classes 
 in Lisbon and Oporto, almost entirely 
 supported by British capital, and fed 
 by British commerce, were still more 
 strongly impressed with the merits of 
 the political institutions, from inter- 
 course with a nation governed by Avhicli 
 they had derived such signal benefits. 
 Thus a free spirit, and the thirst for 
 liberal institutions, Avas both stronger 
 and more widespread in Portugal than 
 in the adjoining provinces of Spain ; 
 and it Avas easy to foresee that, if any 
 circumstances impelled the latter coun- 
 try into the career of revolution, the 
 former would be the first to follow the 
 example. 
 
 27. Ferdinand VII., whom the 
 battle of Leipsic and conquest of France 
 had restored to the throne of his an- 
 cestors, was not by nature a bad, or by 
 disposition a cruel man ; and yet he 
 did many wicked and unpardonable 
 deeds, and has, beyond almost any 
 other of his contemporaiy princes, 
 been the object of impassioned invec- 
 tive on the part of the Liberal press in 
 Europe. Placed in the very front rank 
 of the league of princes, ruling a coun- 
 try in which the vast majority were 
 decidedly monarchical — a small mino- 
 rity vehemently democratic, — brought, 
 the first of all the monarchs of Europe, 
 in contact with the revolutionary spirit 
 by which they were all destined to be 
 so violently shaken, it was scarcely 
 possible it could be otherwise. But 
 the character of Ferdinand was, per- 
 haps, the most unfortunate that could 
 have been found to tread the path en- 
 vironed with dangers which lay before 
 him. He had neither the courage and 
 energy requisite for a despotic, nor the 
 prudence and foresight essential in a 
 constitutional sovereign : he had not 
 the courage which commands respect, 
 the generosity which wins affection, 
 nor the wisdom which averts catas- 
 trophe. Indolence was his great char- 
 acteristic ; a facility of being led, his 
 chief defect. Incapable of taking a 
 decided line for himself, he yielded 
 easily and willingly to the represen- 
 tations of those around him, and exhi- 
 bited in his conduct those vacillations 
 
 of policy which indicated the alternate 
 ascendancy of the opposite parties by 
 which he was surrounded. His incli- 
 nation, without doubt, was strongly in 
 favour of despotic power ; but he had 
 great powers of dissimulation, and 
 succeeded in deceiving Talleyrand 
 himself, as well as the Liberal min- 
 isters subsequently imposed upon him 
 by the Cortes, as to his real intentions. 
 Supple, accommodating, and irreso- 
 lute, he had learnt hypocrisy in the 
 same school as the modern Greek has 
 learned it from the Turk — the school 
 of suffering. 
 
 28. The ti'eaty of Valengay, as nar- 
 rated in a former work,* restored Fer- 
 dinand VII. to liberty, and he re-en- 
 tered the kingdom of his fathers on. 
 the 20th March 1814, just ten days 
 before the Allies entered Paris, This 
 treaty had been concluded with Napo- 
 leon while the monarch was still in 
 captivity, and it was a fundamental 
 condition of it that he should cause the 
 English to evacuate Spain. The sub- 
 sequent fall of the Emperor, however, 
 rendered this stipulation of no effect ; 
 and, after having been received with 
 royal honours by the garrisons, botli 
 French and Spanish, in Catalonia, the 
 monarch proceeded by easy journeys to 
 Valencia, where he resided during the 
 whole of April. The reason of this 
 long sojourn in a provincial town was 
 soon apparent. He was there joined 
 by the Duke del lufantado, and the 
 leading grandees of the kingdom, as 
 well as many of the chief prelates. 
 Meamvhile the Cortes, who had testi- 
 fied the greatest joy at the deliverance 
 of the king, refused to ratify the treaty 
 of Valengay, as having been concluded 
 Avithout their consent — continued resi- 
 dent at Madrid, without advancing to 
 meet their sovereign — and soon began 
 to evince their imperious disposition, 
 and to show in whom they understood 
 the real sovereignty to reside. At the 
 moment when Ferdinand re-entered his 
 kingdom, they published of their own 
 authority a decree, in which they en- 
 joined him to adopt, without delay, 
 the Constitution of 1812, and to take 
 
 * History of Europe, 17S9-1815, chap, 
 boxvii. § 71. 
 
S52 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. VII. 
 
 the oath of fidelity towards it. Until 
 he did so, he was enjoined not to adopt 
 the title, or exercise the power of King 
 of Spain ; and they even went so far 
 as to prescribe the itinerary he was to 
 follow on his route to the capital, the 
 towns he was to pass through, and the 
 expressions he was to use in answer to 
 the addresses he was expected to re- 
 ceive. It is not surprising that he 
 turned aside from such taskmasters. 
 
 29. Scarcely had the monarch set 
 his foot in Spain when he received the 
 most unequivocal proofs of the detes- 
 tation in which the constitution was 
 generally held, and the universal hatred 
 at the subordinate agents to whom the 
 Cortes had intnisted the practical ad- 
 ministration of government. From 
 the frontier of Catalonia to Valencia — 
 in the fortresses, the towns, the vil- 
 lages, the fields — it was one continual 
 clamour against the Cortes : " Viva el 
 Rey Assoluto," was the universal cry. 
 The king was literall}'- besieged with 
 petitions, addresses, and memorials, in 
 which he was supplicated, in the most 
 earnest terms, to annul all that had 
 been done during his captivity, and 
 to reign as his ancestors had done be- 
 fore him. The constitution was re- 
 presented — and with truth — as the 
 woi'k of a mere revolutionary junta in 
 Cadiz, in a great measure self-elected, 
 and never convoked either from the 
 whole country or according to the 
 ancient constitution of the kingdom. 
 There was not a municipality which 
 did not hold this language as he passed 
 through their walls ; not a village 
 which did not present to him a peti- 
 tion, signed by the most respectable 
 inhabitants, to the same effect. The 
 generals, the army, the garrisons, be- 
 sieged him with addresses of the same 
 description. The minority of the 
 Cortes, consisting of sixt}''-nine mem- 
 bers, presented a supplication, be- 
 seeching the king to annul the whole 
 proceedings of their body, and to reign 
 as his fathers had done. From one end 
 of the kingdom to the other but one 
 voice was heard — that of reprobation 
 of the Cortes and the constitution, and 
 prayers to the king to resume the un- 
 fettered functions of royalty. 
 
 30. Impelled in this manner by the 
 unanimous voice of the nation, not 
 less than his own secret inclination, 
 to overturn the constitution, and grasp 
 anew the sceptre of his ancestors, Fer- 
 dinand ventured on the decisive act. 
 On the 4th May 1814 appeared the fa- 
 mous decree of Valencia, which at once 
 annulled the whole acts of the Cortes, 
 and restored absolute government over 
 the whole of Spain. In it the king, 
 after recapitulating briefly the princi- 
 pal events which had occurred in the 
 Peninsula since his treacherous seizure 
 and captivity by Napoleon in 1808, 
 declared that he had, by a decree of 
 5th May in that year, convoked the 
 Cortes ; but the French invasion pre- 
 vented it from being assembled, and 
 compelled the several provinces to 
 elect juntas, and severally provide 
 for their own defence. "An extra- 
 ordinary Cortes," said the monarch, 
 "was subsequently convoked in the 
 Island of Leon, when nearly the whole 
 country was in the hands of the French, 
 consisting of 57 proprietors, 104 de- 
 puties, and 47 supplementary mera- 
 tjers,* without either the nobles or the 
 clergy being summoned to their deli- 
 berations, and convoked in a manner 
 wholly illegal and without a precedent, 
 even in the most critical and stormy 
 days of the monarchy. The first step 
 of this illegal assembly was to usurp 
 the whole powers of sovereignty on the 
 very first day of their installation, and 
 to strip me of nearly my whole prero- 
 gatives ; and their next, to impose on 
 Spain the most arbitrary laws, and 
 compel it to receive a new constitu- 
 tion, unsanctioned either by the pro- 
 vinces, the provincial juntas, or the 
 Indies. By this constitution was estab- 
 lished, not anything resembling the 
 ancient constitution, but a republican 
 form of government, presided over by 
 a chief magistrate, deprived alike of 
 consideration and power, and framed 
 entirely on the principle and form of 
 the democratic French constitution of 
 1791. Force alone compelled the mem- 
 bers to swear to the constitution : the 
 
 * Members chosen in the Isle of Leon, to 
 represent the provinces in the hands of the 
 French. 
 
1814.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 333 
 
 Bishop of Orense refused to take the 
 oath, and Spain knows what was the 
 fate of that respectable prelate. 
 
 31. "Nothing has consoled me 
 amidst so many calamities but the 
 innumerable proofs of the loyalty of 
 my faithful subjects, who longed for 
 my arrival, in the hope that it might 
 terminate the oppression under which 
 they groaned, and restore the true hap- 
 piness of the country. I promise — I 
 swear to you, true and loyal Spaniards 
 — that your hopes shall not be deceived. 
 Your sovereign places his chief glory 
 in being the chief of a heroic nation, 
 which, by its immortal exploits, lias 
 won the admiration of the whole world, 
 and at the same time preserved its own 
 liberty and honour. / detest, I abhor 
 despotism: it can never be reconciled 
 either with civilisation or the lights 
 of the other nations in Europe. The 
 kings never have been despots in Spain ; 
 neither the sovereign nor the constitu- 
 tion of the country have ever autho- 
 rised despotism, although unhappily it 
 has sometimes been practised, as it has 
 been in all ages by fallible mortals. 
 Abuses have existed in Spain, not be- 
 cause it had no constitution, but from 
 the fault of persons or circumstances. 
 To guard against such abuses in future, 
 so far as human prudence can go, Avhile 
 preserving the honour and rights of 
 royalty (for it has its own, as well as the 
 people have theirs, which are equally 
 inviolable), / will treat ivith the dejm- 
 ties of Sjjain and the Indies in a Cortes 
 legally assembled, composed of the one 
 and the other, as soon as I can con- 
 voke them, after having re-established 
 the wise customs of the nation, estab- 
 lished wdth the consent of the kings 
 our august predecessors. Thus shall 
 be established, in a solid and legiti- 
 mate manner, all that can tend to the 
 good of my kingdoms, in order that my 
 subjects may live happy and tranquil 
 under the protection of our religion and 
 our sovereign, the only foundation for 
 the happiness of a king and a kingdom 
 •which are rightly styled Catholic. No 
 time shall be lost in taking the proper 
 vneasures for the assembhj of the Cortes, 
 which I trust will insure the happiness 
 of my subjects in both hemispheres." 
 
 The decree concluded with declaring 
 the resolution of the king not to acce])t 
 the constitution ; to annul all the acts 
 of the Cortes ; and declaring all per- 
 sons guilty of high treason, and punisli- 
 able with death, who should attempt, 
 by word, deed, or incitement, to estab- 
 lish the constitution, or resist the exe- 
 cution of the present decree. 
 
 32. No words can descril)e the uni- 
 versal transport with which this decree 
 was received, or the loyal enthusiasm 
 which the prospect of the re-establish- 
 ment of the ancient constitution and 
 customs of the monarchy excited in 
 the nation. The joy was universal : 
 it resembled that of the English when 
 they awoke from the tyranny of the 
 Long Parliament and Cromwell to tho 
 bright morning of the Restoration. 
 The journey of Ferdinand from Valen- 
 cia to Madrid was the exact counter- 
 part of that of Charles II. from Dover 
 10 London, a hundred and fifty-three 
 years before. It was a continual 
 triumph. In vain the Cortes assumed 
 a menacing aspect, and, in a tumultu- 
 ous and stormy meeting, adopted the 
 most violent resolutions to resist the 
 royal authority, and to declare traitors, 
 and punish as such, all who should 
 aid the king in his criminal designs. 
 Physical force was awanting to sup- 
 port their resistance. The troops 
 which they sent out to withstand the 
 royal cortege were the first to array 
 themselves in its ranks, amidst loud 
 cheers and cries of " Viva el Rey As- 
 soluto!" Everywhere the pillar of 
 the constitution was overthrown and 
 broken : enthusiastic crowds, wherever 
 he passed on the journey to Madrid, 
 saluted the returning monarch; and 
 the Cortes, deserted by all, even their 
 own ushers, in utter dismay fled across 
 New Castile toAvards Cadiz. Some re- 
 mained and were thrown into prison. 
 It was on the 13th May that the king, 
 surrounded by a loyal and enthusiastic 
 crowd, which, as he approached the 
 capital, was swelled to above a hun- 
 dred thousand persons, and amidst the 
 universal and heartfelt acclamations of 
 his subjects, entered Madrid, and re- 
 ascended the throne of his fathers. 
 
 33. Thus fell the work of the Cortes 
 
334 
 
 HISTORY OF EUEOPE. 
 
 [chap. VII. 
 
 — the Constitution of 1812, the victim 
 of its own violence, folly, and injus- 
 tice. Happy if it had never been re- 
 vived, and become, in consequence of 
 that very violence and injustice, the 
 Avatchword of the revolutionary x^3,rty 
 all over the world ! Hitherto the pro- 
 ceedings of the king had been entirely 
 justifiable, and such as must command 
 the assent of all the friends, not only 
 of order, but of freedom, throughout 
 the world. The constitution which 
 had been overthrown was not only an 
 object of horror to the vast majority 
 of the nation, but had been imposed 
 upon it by a small minority, whose 
 ideas and designs Avere not less threat- 
 ening to the interests than repugnant 
 to the habits of the people. It was 
 the work of a self-elected knot of re- 
 volutionists at Cadiz, Avhose object was 
 to secure to themselves the real govern- 
 ment of the country, strip the Crown 
 of all its prerogatives, and divide the 
 whole offices and patronage of the coun- 
 try among themselves. The king had 
 pledged his royal word that he would, 
 without delay, assemble the Cortes, 
 convoked according to the ancient 
 laws and customs of the country, and 
 with their aid commence the formation 
 of laws and the reformation of abuses, 
 which might secure the happiness of 
 his subjects in both hemispheres. It 
 was a matter of little difficulty in 
 Spain, whatever it might be else- 
 where, to effect such a reformation ; 
 for its ancient constitutions contained 
 all the elements of real freedom, and 
 its inhabitants could tread the path of 
 improvement in the securest of all 
 ways, without deviating into that of 
 innovation.* 
 
 * It is a curious and instructive circum- 
 stance liow it was that the ancient elements 
 of freedom were lost in Spain ; Chateaubriand 
 thus explains it : " Les premieres auxquelles 
 les deputes du Tiers assistferent, f iirent celles 
 de L^on en 11S8 : cette date prouve que les 
 Espagnols marchaient a la tete des peuples 
 libres. Peu a peu les bourgeois iatigues 
 laissaient le souverain payer leurs manda- 
 taires, et designer lesvilles aptes li la deputa- 
 tion. Douze f'it^s seulement en obtinrent le 
 droit. Charles V. tyran, naturellement ligue 
 avec son coUfegue cet autre tyran, le peuple, 
 eleva les villes representees a vingt; mais en 
 meme temps, dans la reunion de Tolfede, en 
 1535, il retrancha pour toujours des Cortds le 
 
 34. But Ferdinand did not do this, 
 and thence has arisen boundless ca- 
 lamities to his countr}", lasting oppro- 
 brium to himself. He resumed the 
 sceptre of his ancestors, and reigned as 
 an absolute monarch ; but he forgot all 
 the promises, so solemnly made, to 
 reign with the aid of a Cortes assembled 
 according to the ancient laws and cus- 
 toms of the realm. He fell immedi- 
 ately under the direction of a camarilla 
 composed of priests and nobles, who 
 incessantly represented to him that 
 there could in Spain be no constitu- 
 tional government, and that the only 
 way to secure either the stability of 
 tlie throne or the welfare of the king- 
 dom, was to restore everj-thing to the 
 condition in which it was betbre the 
 Revolution. He was not slow in fol- 
 lowing their advice. Disregarding a 
 patriotic and moderate address from 
 the University of Salamanca, in which 
 he was prayed to follow up the graci- 
 ous intentions professed in the declar- 
 ation from Valencia, of convoking a 
 Cortes, and restoring with their con- 
 currence the laws Avhich were to govern 
 the kingdom, he re-established by a 
 decree from ]\Iadrid the Inquisition, 
 and, as a natural consequence, recalled 
 the Pope's nuncio, who had left the 
 country on its abolition by the Cortes. 
 The use of torture, however, in aU the 
 civil tribunals, was prohibited by a de- 
 cree soon after ; and in a memorial to 
 the Pope by the Spanish Government 
 it was proposed to abolish it also in 
 the dungeons of the Inquisition, and 
 various regulations were submitted for 
 mitigating the severity of that terrible 
 tribunal. These proposals were carried 
 into effect ; and thereafter its proceed- 
 ings were confined to a species of 
 police surveillance over opinions, to 
 check the progress of heresy, but with- 
 out the frightful tortures which had 
 characterised its secret, or the Autos- 
 da-fe which had for ever disgraced its 
 public proceedings. 
 
 Clerge et la Noblesse. Les rois, d^arrass^s 
 du .ioug des Cortes, furent contraints de s'en 
 imposer d'autres. Des conseils ou des con- 
 seillers dirigeaient la monarchie." — Chateau- 
 BR(AND, Congres de Vcroae, torn. 19. See 
 also Historia d'Espana, viii. 471; Madrid, 
 1851. 
 
1814.] 
 
 HISTOHY OF EUROPE. 
 
 535 
 
 35. The open assumption of abso- 
 lute power by the Government, the 
 delay in convoking the Cortes, and, 
 above all, the re-establishment of the 
 Inquisition even in a mitigated form, 
 excited the utmost alarm in the Libe- 
 ral party throughout Spain, and spread 
 great dissatisfaction even among the 
 officers of the army, by whose support 
 alone they could be carried into efi'ect. 
 Symptoms of disturbance soon appear- 
 ed in various quarters ; for in Spain 
 the habits of the people are so in- 
 dependent, and danger or life is so 
 little regarded, that from dissatisfac- 
 tion to hostility, as with the Bedouins, 
 is but a step. The roads in the whole 
 of Estremadura, the Castiles, Andaki- 
 sia, Aragon, and Catalonia, were so 
 infested by bauds of guerillas, who, 
 long inured to violence and rapine, 
 had now become mere robbers and 
 bandits, that the captains-general of 
 those provinces were enjoined to take 
 the most effectual measures for their 
 suppression ; but they had no ade- 
 quate armed force at their disposal 
 to effect that object. A proclamation 
 by the governor of Andalusia revealed 
 the existence of more serious disturb- 
 ances, having a decided political ten- 
 dency, and threatened every person 
 who should be found either speaking 
 or acting against Ferdinand VII. with 
 death, within three days, by the sen- 
 tence of a court-martial. A great num- 
 ber of arrests took place soon after in 
 Madrid — ninety persons wei-e appre- 
 hended in a single night ; and so nu- 
 merous did the prisoners soon become, 
 that the ordinary places of confinement 
 would not contain them, and the spa- 
 cious convent of San Francisco was 
 converted into a vast state prison, to 
 embrace the increasing multitude. 
 
 36. These proceedings excited the 
 greatest consternation among the Lib- 
 erals, and numbers of persons who 
 deemed themselves compromised fled 
 across the Pyrenees into France. 
 Among the rest, the famous Espoz y 
 MiNA, who had gained such great cele- 
 brity as a partisan chief in Navarre in 
 the war with Napoleon, fell under the 
 suspicion of the Government, who sent 
 him an order, on 16th September, to 
 
 fix his residence at Pampeluna, and 
 place the troops he had formerly com- 
 manded under the orders of the Cap- 
 tain -general of Aragon. Regardhig 
 this injunction, as it certainly was, as 
 a decided measure of hostility, this 
 daring chief, at the head of the 1st 
 Eegiment of Volunteers, approached 
 that fortress in the night of the 26th. 
 They were provided with scaling- 
 ladders, and acted in concert with 
 the 4th Regiment, tlien in garrison 
 in the city, by whom JVIina Avas ad- 
 mitted into the fortress, and with the 
 officers of which he spent a part of the 
 night on the ramparts, expecting a 
 movement in his favour. Although 
 the greater part of the officers, how- 
 ever, had been engaged in the con- 
 spiracy, the private soldiers nearly 
 all remained faithful ; and in Mina's 
 own regiment of volunteers they sent 
 information to the governor of Aragon 
 of what was in agitation, and warned 
 him to be on his guard. Tlie conse- 
 quence was, that the attempt proved 
 abortive ; ]\lina himself with difficulty 
 made his escape, his ti'oops nearly all 
 deserted him, and he deemed himself 
 fortunate in being able to retire to 
 France by Puente la Reyna — thus 
 seeking refuge among the enemies 
 whom he had so strenuously combated, 
 from the king he had so powerfully 
 aided in puting on the throne. 
 
 37. This abortive insurrection, as 
 is ever the case in such circumstances, 
 strengthened the hands and increased 
 the rigour of the monarch. It soon 
 appeared that the restoration of the 
 absolute government, and the chief 
 privileges of the nobles, had been re- 
 solved on by the camarilla which ruled 
 the State. Already, on 15th Septem- 
 ber, a decree had been issued restoring 
 the feudal and seignorial privileges of 
 the nobles, which had been abolish- 
 ed by a decree of the Cortes on 6tli 
 August 1811 ; and this was soon fol- 
 lowed up by the still more decisive 
 step of reinvesting the council of the 
 Mesta with its old and ruinous right 
 of permitting its flocks to pasture at 
 will over the downs in Leon, Estre- 
 madura, and the two Castiles, thus 
 rendering the enclosure of the land or 
 
336 
 
 HISTOEY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. vrr. 
 
 the improvement of the soil impracti- 
 cable. On 14th October, on occasion 
 of the king's going to the theatre of 
 Madrid, an amnesty for state offenders 
 was published, which professed to be 
 general, but contained so many excep- 
 tions that it in reality was little more 
 than nominal ; and the resolution of 
 the Government to extinguish any- 
 thing like free discussion in the king- 
 dom was evinced by tlie king in person 
 arresting and committing to prison M. 
 de Macanay, the Minister of Justice and 
 of the Interior. Soon after, the state 
 prisoners at Madrid were sentenced, 
 some to ten, some to six, and some 
 to two years of the galleys, or of impri- 
 sonment in strong castles ; and they in- 
 cluded the editors of, or contributors 
 to, the Rcdacta General, ami principal 
 Liberal journals published at Madrid. 
 38. Open war was now proclaimed 
 by the Spanish Government against 
 the Liberals of all grades, and, un- 
 happily, the violence of the Govern- 
 ment kept pace with the increasing 
 desire of the inhabitants of the great 
 towns for constitutional privileges. 
 As it had now become a matter of im- 
 minent danger to hazard such opinions 
 in public, the Liberal leaders had re- 
 course to the usual resource of a zeal- 
 ous and determined party under such 
 circumstances. Secret societies were 
 formed under the direction of the chiefs 
 of their party, and the ancient and 
 venerable order of freemasons was laid 
 hold of as a cover for designs against 
 the Government. The Inquisition, in 
 consequence, issued a proclamation 
 denouncing these societies ; and ere 
 long it appeared that there was too 
 much foundation for their apprehen- 
 sions. On 18th September, General 
 Porlier, who had greatly signalised 
 himself in the Peninsula, assembled 
 the troops stationed at St Lucia with- 
 out the gates of Corunna at night, and 
 suddenly entering the city, the senti- 
 nels of which had been gained, put 
 the Captain -general of Galicia, the 
 governor of the town, and a few other 
 persons, under arrest. No sooner was 
 this done than he issued a proclama- 
 tion, in which he proposed the reas- 
 sembling of the Cortes, and dismissal 
 
 of the Ministers ; and another, pur- 
 porting to be from the Provincial Junta 
 of Galicia, under the "presidency of 
 General Porlier, General-commandant 
 of the Interior of the Kingdom." 
 
 39. In taking these bold steps, which 
 at once committed him with the Gov- 
 ernment, the principal reliance of Por- 
 lier was on a body of grenadiers and 
 light infantry stationed at St lago, 
 wliich he had reason to believe would 
 join him. Being informed, however, 
 that they hesitated, and that his pres- 
 ence might probably determine them, 
 he set out in haste from Corunna at 
 the head of eight hundred men and 
 four guns, and arrived at a village 
 within four leagues of St lago, where 
 he halted to rest his men, who were 
 much fatigued by their march. AVhile 
 there, some emissaries from the con- 
 vent of St lago introduced themselves 
 in disguise among his men, and urged 
 them to arrest their general by the 
 promises of ample rewards in case of 
 success. These promises proved suc- 
 cessful : Porlier and his officers were 
 suddenly surrounded and seized by 
 their own men, while reposing in a 
 cabaret in the heat of the day after 
 their march ; and the general, being 
 taken back to Corunna, was condemn- 
 ed by a court-martial to be hanged, 
 which sentence was immediately car- 
 ried into execution. He sent, on the 
 eve of his death, a pathetic letter to 
 his wife, with a handkerchief steeped 
 in his tears, in which he exhorted her 
 not to afflict herself on account of the 
 species of death to which he was sen- 
 tenced, since it was dishonourable only 
 to the wicked, but glorious to the vir- 
 tuous. He met his fate with dignity 
 and resolution. Then began the days 
 of tragedy in Spain, wdiich ere long 
 led to such frightful reprisals on both 
 sides, and for many long years deluged 
 the Peninsula with blood : the unhap- 
 py bequest of the insane Liberals, who 
 established a constitution utterly re- 
 pugnant to the vast majority of the 
 people, but eminently attractive to the 
 ardent and generous among the edu- 
 cated classes. 
 
 40. In the end of August, one Span- 
 ish armv, under Castafios, crossed the 
 
1815.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 337 
 
 frontier near Perpignan ; and another, 
 under the Conde d'Abisbal, the Bid- 
 assoa, with the professed design of 
 aiding Louis XVIII. in his contest with 
 the partisans of Napoleon. As that 
 contest had been ah-eady decided by 
 the battle of Waterloo and the pres- 
 ence of a million of the Allied troops 
 in France, it may readily be imagined 
 that the presence of the Spanish aux- 
 iliaries was anything but desirable, 
 and accordingly the Duke d'Angou- 
 leme, as already mentioned, hastened 
 to the Spanish headquarters, where he 
 had an interview with Castafios, Avhom 
 he prevailed on to retire ; and his re- 
 treat on the eastern was soon after fol- 
 lowed by that of the Conde d'Abisbal 
 on the western frontier. The people 
 both in Pampeluna and Corunna had 
 taken no part in the attempts of Mina 
 and Porlier ; the latter had been pub- 
 licly thanked by the king for their 
 conduct on the occasion. It was hojied, 
 therefore, that no measures of severity 
 would follow the suppression of these 
 insurrections ; and the dismissal, soon 
 after the death of Porlier, of several of 
 the ministei-s most inclined to arbitrary 
 measures, led to a general hope that 
 a more moderate system was about to 
 be adopted, and that possibly a Cortes 
 convoked according to the ancient cus- 
 toms might be assembled. But these 
 hopes were soon blasted ; and before 
 the end of the year the determination 
 of the king to act upon the most arbi- 
 trary principles was evinced in the 
 most unequivocal manner. The trial 
 of the Liberals who had been arrested 
 in Madrid, among whom were includ- 
 ed several of the ministers of state, 
 and most distinguished members of 
 the late Cortes, began in November ; 
 but after long proceedings, and a trans- 
 ference of the cases from one tribunal 
 to another, which it was thought might 
 be more subservient to the royal will, 
 the judges of the last reported that the 
 evidence against the accused was not 
 such as to bring them within the laws 
 against traitors or persons exciting 
 tumults and disturbances, which alone 
 authorised severe punishments. Upon 
 receiving this report, the king ordered 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 the proceedings to be brought to him, 
 and pronounced sentences of the sever- 
 est kind, and entirely illegal, on thirty- 
 two of the leading Liberals in Spain, 
 which he signed with his own hand. 
 Among these was one of ten years' 
 service, as a common soldier, in a regi- 
 ment stationed at Ceuta, on the cele- 
 brated Seiior Arguelles, whose elo- 
 quence had so often resounded through 
 the halls of the Cortes ; and one of 
 eight years of service in chains, in a 
 regiment stationed at Gomera, on Se- 
 fior Garcia Herreros, formerly Minister 
 of Grace and Justice ! 
 
 41. Notwithstanding these severi- 
 ties, the situation of the king was very 
 hazardous at JMadrid, and secret infor- 
 mation soon after reached him, which 
 convinced him that a change in the 
 system of government had become in- 
 dispensable. The extreme penury of 
 the treasury, from the loss of nearly 
 all the resources derived from South 
 America, and the distracted state of 
 society in Spain after the six years* 
 dreadful war of which the Peninsula 
 had been the theatre, rendered it im- 
 possible to maintain the national arma- 
 ments on anything like an adequate 
 scale ; and if it had been practicable, 
 it was doubtful whether the danger of 
 convulsion would not be thereby in- 
 creased, since the whole revolts came 
 from the anny, and had been organised 
 by its leading officers. The precarious 
 condition of the royal authority was 
 the more strongly felt, that the clergy, 
 though possessed of unbounded influ- 
 ence over their flocks, and invaluable 
 allies in a protracted Struggle, had no 
 armed force at their command to meet 
 the rebellious bands of the soldiery, 
 whom the Liberal leaders had shown 
 they could so easily array against the 
 Government. The weight of these 
 considerations ere long appeared in a 
 partial change of the ministry. To 
 the surprise of all, there appeared in 
 the Madrid Gazette of 26th January 
 1816, a decree appointing the celebrat- 
 ed and enlightened Don Pedro de 
 Cevallos to his fomier office of First 
 Secretary of State, and admitting that 
 his dismissal, on the resumption by 
 
338 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. vir. 
 
 the king of the royal authority, had 
 been founded on erroneous informa- 
 tion.* By the same decree, the cognis- 
 ance of state oftences was taken from 
 the extraordinary tiibunals by which 
 they had hitherto been tried, and re- 
 iviitted to the ordinary tribunals. This 
 was a great step towards a more just 
 system of administration ; and the 
 changed policy of the Court was at the 
 same time evinced by the conferring 
 of honours and offices on the ministers 
 who had formed the cabinet of Don 
 PecU'o de Cevallos, though they were 
 not reinstated in the ministry. These 
 advances towards a Liberal govern- 
 ment, however, had no effect in check- 
 ing the conspiracies, for one was soon 
 after discovei'ed at Madrid, chiefly a- 
 niong half-pay officers, who had flocked 
 there in great numbers— which, how- 
 ever, was suppressed without any com- 
 motion. 
 
 42. It soon appeared, also, that if 
 the Liberals were determined on con- 
 tinuing their conspiracies, the king was 
 not less set on rushing headlong into 
 the most arbitrary measures. A severe 
 decree against all persons bearing arms 
 after nightfall was issued on 20th March, 
 and another on 4th December. The 
 discovery of the conspiracy at Madrid 
 was made the pretence for innumerable 
 arrests in every town, and almost every 
 village, in the kingdom, of persons who 
 were found meeting after ten at night ; 
 and the utmost terror waj struck into 
 the persons apprehended, and their re- 
 lations, by the information that, on the 
 19th July, the state prisoners at Ceuta, 
 who embraced most of the members of 
 the late Cortes, had been removed at 
 dead of night, put in irons, and hurried 
 on board a zebecque, which set sail with 
 them on an unknown destination. In 
 fact, they were conveyed to Port Mahon 
 in ]\linorca, where it was thought they 
 
 * "Considering as unfounded the motives 
 •which induced me to order your discharge 
 from tlie office of my First Secretaiy of State 
 and of the Cabinet, and being highly satisfied 
 with the zeal, exactitude, and affection wit'.i 
 which, in the cruellest times, you have served 
 myself and the State, I reinstate you in the 
 use and exercise of your office, of which you 
 will immediately take charge "—Decree, 26th 
 January 1816.— Madrid Gcuette. 
 
 would be more secure. And about the 
 same time a decree appeared which re- 
 vealed, in a still more decisive manner, 
 the determination of Governuient per- 
 manently to destroy freedom of thought. 
 Xot content with enthralling the pre- 
 sent, they aimed at thro\\T.ng their 
 chains over the future ; and a decree 
 issued in July, re-establishing the order 
 of the Jesuits, restoring to them their 
 possessions in so far as they had uot 
 been alienated, and intrusting them 
 with the entire direction of education, 
 both male and female, threatened to 
 throw the same chains permanently 
 over the souls of the people. 
 
 43. An event occurred in the autumn 
 of this year, which was fondly looked 
 forward to by the persecuted Liberals 
 as a harbinger of rest, and that was a 
 double union of the royal families of 
 Spain and Portugal. Ferdinand, who, 
 since the loss of his young and capti- 
 vating consort in 1S08, had been a 
 widower, now resolved to afl'ord a 
 chance for the continuance of the direct 
 line of succession, by entering into a 
 second marriage, and, by the advice of 
 his Council, he determined on making 
 proj^osals to his niece, the Infanta Ma- 
 ria Isabel Francisea, second daughter 
 of the King of Portugal. At the same 
 time, proposals were made for an al- 
 liance between Don Caklos, the king's 
 younger brother, and the heir-presump- 
 tive to the throne, for whom so adven- 
 turous a fate was reserved, and the 
 Infanta Maria Francisea de Acis, third 
 daughter of the same sovereign. Both 
 proposals were accepted ; and as the 
 princesses were at Rio Janeiro, where 
 the royal family of Portugal had been 
 since their flight thither in ISOS, when 
 Portugal was first overrun by the 
 French, the Duke del Infantado was 
 sent with a splendid retinue to Cadiz, 
 to receive the princesses on their land- 
 ing from Brazil. The marriages were 
 both celebrated with great pomp at 
 Madrid on the 2Sth September; and 
 on this occasion, an amnesty, which 
 professed to be general, was published. 
 It contained, however, so many excep- 
 tions as practically left it in the power 
 of Government to continue, with scarce 
 any limitation, the oppression of the 
 
1816.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 Liberals, for it excluded all persons 
 charged with the following crimes — 
 ' ' Lese majesty, divine and human trea- 
 son, homicide of priests, blasphemy, 
 coining false money, exporting prohi- 
 bited articles, resisting the officers of 
 justice, and maladministration in the 
 exercise of the royal powers." There 
 were few crimes connected with the 
 State which might not, with the aid 
 of a little straining, be Isrought within 
 some one of these exceptions. 
 
 44. An event connected with the Pen- 
 insula occurred in the close of the pre- 
 ceding year, and was heard of in Europe 
 in this, strongly illustrative of the vast 
 consequences which were to follow to 
 the most distant parts of the earth from 
 the events following on the French Re- 
 volution. On December 28, 1815, the 
 Prince-Regent of Portugal, Avho had 
 never, since the migration of the royal 
 family, quitted the shores of Brazil, 
 issued a decree, in which, after enu- 
 merating the vast extent and boundless 
 capabilities of his dominions in the 
 ISTew World, and the benefits which 
 would result from the entire imion of 
 the dominions of the House of Portugal 
 in both hemispheres, he declared that 
 the colony of Brazil should thencefor- 
 ward be elevated to the eaxk of a 
 KINGDOM ; and directed that, in future, 
 Portugal, the two Algarves, and Brazil, 
 shall form one united kingdom, under 
 the title of the " United Kingdom of 
 Portugal, Brazil, and the two Algarves." 
 Thus was monarchy, for the first time, 
 erected by the European race in the 
 New World — an event of the more im- 
 portance that the immense territories 
 of the house of Braganza in the New 
 World, embracing above four times the 
 area of old France, were placed along- 
 side of the newly emancipated repub- 
 lics, broken off from the dominions of 
 Spain in the same hemisphere ; and 
 thus an opportunity was afforded of 
 demonstrating, by actual experiment, 
 the comparative influence of the mo- 
 narchical and republican forms of gov- 
 ernment on the welfare of the species 
 under the climate of South America, 
 and with the Iberian or Celtic family 
 of mankind. 
 
 45. The year 1817 commenced with 
 
 an insurrection of a more serious 
 character than had yet occuiTed in 
 the Peninsula. Unlike the preceding, 
 it began not with the soldiers, but 
 the citizens. A trifling tax on coals 
 excited a tumult in Valencia on the 
 1 7th January, which ere long assumed 
 the character of an insurrection. At 
 first the populace were successful ; and 
 during the whole of the l7th the city 
 was, with the exception of the bar- 
 racks, in their possession. They im- 
 mediately proclaimed the Constitution 
 of 1812 ; but their trimnph was of short 
 duration. General Elio, a sturdy ve- 
 teran of fame in the wars with Napo- 
 leon, who commanded the garrison, 
 concentrated his forces ; the troops 
 continued faithful ; the respectable in- 
 habitants remained in their houses, 
 and took no part in the insurrection ; 
 and the populace, meeting with no 
 other support than what they could 
 derive from their own numbers, were 
 at length defeated, but not before much 
 blood had been shed, and General Elio 
 himself wounded. He immediately 
 published a severe decree, denouncing 
 the penalty of death against all per- 
 sons, except those privileged as cava- 
 liers to carry arms, found with Aveapons 
 in the dark, and autliorising the patrol 
 to fire upon them. This was soon fol- 
 lowed by a decree prohibiting the im- 
 portation of a great variety of books 
 into Spain, among which the works of 
 Voltaire, Gibbon, and Robertson, Ben- 
 jamin Constant, and a great many 
 others, are specially mentioned as "false 
 in politics, and to the hierarchical or- 
 der, subversive of the power of the 
 Church, and tending to schism and re- 
 ligious toleration, and pernicious to the 
 State." It was easy to see what influ- 
 ence had been predominant in the pre- 
 paration of this decree. 
 
 46. Ere long another conspiracy broke 
 out in Barcelona of a very extensive 
 character, in which Generals Lacy and 
 JMilans, who had distinguished them- 
 selves so much in the late war, were 
 implicated. The object of the conspi- 
 rators, as of all the preceding ones, was 
 the re-establishment of the Constitu- 
 tion of 1812, and the convoking of the 
 Cortes. It was to have broken out on 
 
SiO 
 
 HISTORY OF EUEOPE. 
 
 [chap. vir. 
 
 the night of April 5, and a great num- 
 lier of officers, besides a considerable 
 part of the battalion of the light in- 
 fantry of Tarragona, were engaged on 
 the side of the conspirators. Castauos, 
 the captain -general of the province, 
 however, received intelligence of the 
 plot, and arrested Lacy and three hun- 
 dred officers who were implicated in his 
 designs. He was immediately tried by 
 a court-martial, and sentenced to be 
 shot. Being sent over, however, to 
 Minorca, to have the sentence carried 
 into execution, as it was deemed unsafe 
 to attempt it in Spain, he attempted, 
 when on the beach of that island, and 
 attended only by a slender escort of 
 prisoners, to make his escape. The 
 soldiers pursued him, and in endea- 
 vouring to defend himself he was, fortu- 
 nately for himself, accidentally killed. 
 47. A very important papal bull was 
 issued in the same month, regarding 
 the property of the Church in Spain. 
 Such had become the penury of the 
 royal treasury, in consequence of the 
 loss of the South American colonies, 
 and the cessation of industry in Spain 
 during the dreadful war of which, for 
 six years, it had been the theatre, that 
 it had become absolutely necessary to 
 have recourse to some extraordinary 
 resources, and the Church, as the body 
 which was most tractable and capable 
 of bearing such a burden, Avas selected 
 to make up the deficiency. A nego- 
 tiation in consequence was opened with 
 the court of Rome, to which the neces- 
 sity of the case was fully represented, 
 and the consequence was, that on the 
 16th April, a papal bull was issued, 
 which, on the narrative of the "enor- 
 mous expenses at which we have had 
 the satisfaction of seeing an extremely 
 glorious victory gained, as well for 
 religion as the monarchy, authorised 
 Ferdinand to exact annually, during 
 six years, the sum of 30,000,000 reals 
 (£300,000) from the estates of the 
 Church, as well regular as secular." 
 This was an immense relief to the 
 treasury, but, great as it appears, it 
 was not more than sufficient to fill up 
 the annual deficit which had been con- 
 stantly increasing since the restoration. 
 Such as it was, however, it led to in- 
 
 calculable calamities, both to the nation 
 and the monarchy. 
 
 48. The King of Spain had certain 
 claims on the part of the Infanta, 
 Queen of Etruria, on the states of 
 Parma, Placentia, Guastalla, which 
 had been made the subject of anxious 
 claim and negotiation at the Congress 
 of Vienna in 1815, and subsequently 
 with the Allied powers. Such were 
 the difficulties with which the ques- 
 tion was involved, that it led to a very 
 protracted negotiation, which was not 
 brought to a conclusion till this year, 
 when a ti'eaty was concluded, by which, 
 on the one hand, Spain was admitted 
 into the European alliance, and the 
 treaties signed at the Congress of 
 Vienna ; and, on the other, the re- 
 version of the duchies of Parma, Pla- 
 centia, and Guastalla was secured to 
 the Infant Don Carlos Louis, the In- 
 fanta's son ; and until that reversion 
 opened, the states of Lucca were as- 
 signed to her majesty the Queen of 
 Etruria. It is in virtue of this treaty 
 that the present Duke of Parma, who 
 married the daughter of the Duke de 
 Berri, afterwards succeeded to the 
 duchy of Parma. 
 
 49. In the close of this year the 
 negotiations, so long and anxiously 
 conducted on the part of the British 
 Government, for the suppression of the 
 slave trade, were brought to a success- 
 ful issue with Spain. By it the King 
 of Spain prohibited, absolutely and 
 immediately, all purchase of negroes 
 in Africa north of the line, and de- 
 nounced ten years' transportation 
 against whoever should infringe the 
 present decree. Leave was to be 
 given, however, to purchase slaves 
 south of the line, to such as might 
 apply for a licence to that eff'ect, until 
 the 30th May 1820, when it was to 
 cease absolutely and for ever in the 
 Spanish dominions in eveiy part of 
 the world. Foreign vessels trading to 
 Spianish ports were to be subject to the 
 same regulations, in every respect, as 
 the Spanish. This decree was only ex- 
 torted from Spain with great difficulty 
 by the British Government, by the en- 
 gagement, as already mentioned, on 
 their part, to pay to Spain £400,000 
 
131S." 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 341 
 
 for the abolition, on 20tli Feb. 1818, 
 which Avas punctually done. It is a 
 singular circumstance, as creditable to 
 the English as it was discreditable to 
 the Spanish Government, that the one 
 consented to give, and the other to re- 
 ceive, so considerable a sum for an act 
 called for by every consideration of 
 humanity and justice. It will appear 
 in the sequel how entirely both parties 
 to this treaty departed from the object 
 it had in view, and how the one, by its 
 fiscal policy, restored the slave trade 
 to a frightful extent, and the other, by 
 repeated evasions, continued to prac- 
 tise it until it arose to the enormous 
 amount of from fifty to seventy thou- 
 sand slaves annually sent into Cuba 
 alone. 
 
 50. The internal situation of Spain 
 had not sensibly ameliorated during 
 the years the transactions of which 
 have been now briefly enumerated. 
 The Inquisition had spread its leaden 
 arms over the kingdom, and crushed 
 any approach to independent thought : 
 the severance of South America had 
 dried up the principal sources of its 
 material industry. The army, in great 
 part without pay, always long in ar- 
 rears, was ■with difficulty held to its 
 standards, and the effective strength 
 of the regiments exhibited a very dif- 
 ferent return from the rolls on paper. 
 So great had the dilapidation of the 
 military force of the kingdom become, 
 from the penury of the exchequer, and 
 discontent and desertion of the troops, 
 that, by a decree on June 1, its organi- 
 sation was entirely changed, and they 
 were divided into forty-seven regiments 
 of common and light infantiy, twenty- 
 two regiments of cavalry, five thou- 
 sand artillery, two regiments of guards : 
 in all, seventy thousand men, to which 
 were to be added forty-three regiments 
 of provincial militia, which mustered 
 about thirty thousand combatants. 
 As to the navy, it had fallen into such 
 a state of decay, that the power which, 
 two hundred and thirty years before, 
 had fitted out the invincible Armada, 
 and planted such magnificent colonies 
 in the Indies, and even in later times 
 had all but rivalled the power of Eng- 
 land upon the seas, was unable to fit 
 
 out a fleet to transport the military 
 succours which were so loudly called 
 for to the New World. In this ex- 
 tremity the Government, with the 
 money extorted the preceding year 
 from the priests, bought a squadron 
 of old worn-out line-of-battle ships 
 from Russia, to wliich Alexander, out 
 of i)\\YQ generosity, added three frigates 
 in a present. Such, however, was their 
 state of decay that they took five 
 months to make the voyage from 
 Cronstadt 'to Cadiz, and had to put 
 into Plymouth to refit. At length 
 the squadron anived at Cadiz, on 21st 
 February, and two thousand men were 
 embarked on boai'd of it for Lima. 
 
 51. The extreme penury of the 
 finances, in consequence of the loss 
 of the mines of South America to the 
 Government, and its commerce to the 
 country, was the cause of this woeful 
 state of decrepitude — a memorable 
 proof of the straits to which even the 
 greatest naval power may be reduced 
 by the severance of its colonies. The 
 Government was overwhelmed with 
 demands for payment of debts by fo- 
 reign countries, when by no possible 
 contrivance could they raise money to 
 pay their own armaments. The most 
 pressing part of the debt consisted 
 of 1,500,000,000 reals (£14,500,000), 
 composed of vales, a species of as- 
 signats issued in former times by the 
 treasury. The Cortes had provided 
 for the payment of the interest of this 
 debt by assignation of tlie property of 
 the Inquisition ; but as the restoration 
 of the property of that body left no- 
 thing for the creditors, the minister of 
 finance, by a decree on 3d April, re- 
 duced the debts to a third of their 
 amount, and made provision for the 
 interest of that third from the estates 
 of the Church. By another decree, 
 Corunna, Santander, Cadiz, and Ali- 
 cante were declared free ports — a vain 
 attempt to restore the commerce to 
 which the loss of the colonies had 
 brought total ruin. A manifesto was 
 prepared, and submitted in the end 
 of the year to the Congress of Aix-la- 
 Chapelle to be addressed to the revolt- 
 ed colonies, which promised them an 
 amnesty for the past, reformation of 
 
342 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. VII. 
 
 abuses, and a certain degree of free- 
 dom of commerce. It was approved of 
 and published, but proved of no avail 
 with men resolutely set upon asserting 
 their independence. 
 
 52. An event occurred in the close 
 of this year, which, in its final results, 
 was attended with most important 
 effects upon both kingdoms of the 
 Peninsula. On 26th December, the 
 young Queen Maria Isabella, who had 
 arrived from Brazil in the autumn of 
 1817, to share the fortunes of the King 
 of Spain, and who was very near her 
 time, was suddenly seized with con- 
 vulsions, and expired in twenty mi- 
 nutes. The infant was delivered after 
 the mother's death by the Caesarean 
 operation, but it expired, after being 
 baptised, in a few minutes after its 
 mother. Being a female, it could not 
 have succeeded by the existing law, 
 sanctioned by all the powers of Europe 
 at the treaty of Utrecht, to the crown 
 of Spain ; but this bereavement, by 
 leaving the king to marry again, 
 which, as will appear in the sequel, 
 he actually did, was attended with 
 consequences of the last moment to 
 the Peninsula, and of general interest 
 to the whole of Europe. This death 
 was almost immediately followed by 
 that of the old king, Charles IV., who 
 had been forced to resign the crown at 
 Bayonne in 1808. He expired at Na- 
 ples on 20th January 1819, a few weeks 
 after his Queen, Louisa Maria Theresa 
 of Parma, who died on the road to that 
 place. 
 
 53. Meanwhile the preparations for 
 the grand expedition to South Ame- 
 rica, which had been so long in prepa- 
 ration, went on without intermission ; 
 although the fate which befell the ad- 
 vanced guard of two frigates, with two 
 thousand men, despatched in the pre- 
 ceding year, was not such as to afibrd 
 very encouraging hopes of its ultimate 
 success. The soldiers and crew on 
 board one of the frigates mutinied, 
 threw the officers overboard, and sailed 
 into Buenos A}Tes, where they were 
 received with open arms by the insur- 
 gents, whom they immediately joined. 
 The other was captured off the coast of 
 Peru by the insurgent squadron, and 
 
 eight thousand muskets which it had 
 on board were immediately appropri- 
 ated to their use. Undeterred by these 
 disasters, however, the Government 
 continued their preparations for the 
 grand expedition with the utmost ac- 
 tivity ; and by the middle of January 
 fifteen thousand men were collected in 
 the Isle of Leon, and six ships of the 
 line, in a tolerable state of equipment 
 for the voyage. 
 
 54. The disorganised state of all parts 
 of Spain, however, still continued, and 
 the repeated revolts which broke out, 
 especially among the soldiery, might 
 have warned the Government that a 
 serious disaster was impending over 
 the monarchy, and that the great ar- 
 mament in the Isle of Leon was not 
 likely to sail without making its 
 strength felt by the Government. On 
 the 21st January a fresh conspiracy 
 was discovered by General Elio in Va- 
 lencia, the object of which was to 
 assassinate him and his principal of- 
 ficers, and immediately proclaim the 
 Constitution of 1812. At its head was 
 Colonel Vidal, who made a vigorous 
 defence against the soldiers sent to ar- 
 rest him, and was only made prisoner 
 after he had been run through the 
 body. He himself was hanged, and his 
 associates, to the number of twelve, 
 shot from behind, the punishment re- 
 served for traitors. This event had a 
 melancholy effect upon the fate of the 
 prisoners at Barcelona, who had been 
 implicated in General Lacy's revolt in 
 the preceding year. They were con- 
 demned to death to the number of se- 
 venteen, and executed Avithout mercy. 
 Disturbances at the same time broke 
 out in N'ew Castile, Estremadura, and 
 Andalusia, the roads of which were 
 infested by bands of old guerillas, who 
 formed themselves into troops of rob- 
 bers, amounting to three hundred men. 
 But all these disorders were ere long 
 thrown into the shade by the great re- 
 volt which broke out among the troops 
 in the Isle of Leon, which was attended 
 with the most important consequences 
 on both hemispheres. 
 
 55. Such had been the penury of the 
 exchequer, and the state of dilapidation 
 into which the once magnificent ar- 
 
1819.] 
 
 senals and dockyards of Cadiz had 
 fallen, that the fitting out of the expe- 
 dition, after two years' incessant pre- 
 paration, Avas still incomplete. Two 
 ships of the line and a frigate were 
 despatched on 11th May to clear the 
 coasts of America of the insurgent cor- 
 sairs Avho infested tlieni ; — but one of 
 these — the Alexander— was obliged, a 
 few days after, to return to Cadiz to 
 refit. During the long delay occa- 
 sioned by these difficultie.s, the troops 
 collected for the expedition, which by 
 the end of May amounted to twenty- 
 two thousand men — a force perfectly 
 capable of effecting the subjugation of 
 South America, had it arrived in safety 
 at its destination — were left concen- 
 trated and inactive in the island of 
 Leon. During the leisure and mono- 
 tony of a barrack life, they had oppor- 
 tunities to confer together, to compare 
 the past and present condition of their 
 country, and ruminate on the probable 
 fate which awaited themselves if they 
 engaged in the Transatlantic warfare 
 which was before them. A large num- 
 ber of veterans, who had served under 
 ^lurillo in those disastrous campaigns, 
 not a few of whom were in the public 
 hospitals suffering under severe muti- 
 lations, gave the most dismal accounts 
 of the dreadful nature of the contest 
 on which they were about to be sent, 
 the ferocious enemies with which they 
 had to contend — the English veterans 
 trained under Wellington, who formed 
 so large a part of the insurgent forces 
 — the interminable deserts they had to 
 cross, the pestilential gales, so fatal to 
 European constitutions, with which the 
 country was infested, and the frightful 
 warfare, where quarter was neither 
 asked nor given on either side, which 
 might be expected on their arrival. 
 A proclamation of the king, issued 
 on 4th Januarj^, in which it was an- 
 nounced that no quarter would be given 
 to any soldiers of foreign nations found 
 combating in the insurgent ranks, 
 rather increased than diminished these 
 alarms, by proving the reality of one 
 of the many, and not the least formid- 
 able, of the dangers which were repre- 
 sented as awaiting them. 
 
 56. To these considerations, already 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 343 
 
 sufficiently powerful, were added the 
 efforts of the merchants and revolu- 
 tionists of Cadiz, who spared neither 
 their talents nor their riches to induce 
 the assembled troops to abandon their 
 duty and revolt against the Govern- 
 ment. They painted to them in the 
 most gloomy colours the disastrous 
 state of the country, with its colonies 
 lost, its trade ruined, its exchec|uer 
 bankrupt, its noblest patriots in cap- 
 tivity or in chains, its bravest generals 
 shot, its liberties destroyed, the Inc[ui- 
 sition restored, the public education 
 in the hands of the Jesuits, an incon- 
 sistent camarilla, fluctuating in every- 
 thing except evil, ruling alike the 
 monarch and the country. They pro- 
 fessed the utmost respect for the king, 
 and the firmest determination to protect 
 his person and jiist authority : the only 
 object was to displace a ministry, the 
 worst enemy he had in his dominions, 
 and restore the Cortes, the only secu- 
 rity for their prosperity and just admi- 
 nistration. To these considerations, in 
 themselves sufficiently just and pow- 
 erful,.was added the gold of the Cadiz 
 merchants, who hoped, by frustrating 
 the expedition, to succeed in re-estab- 
 lishing peace with the colonies, and 
 regaining the lucrative commerce they 
 had so long enjoyed with them. The 
 result was, that before the time arrived 
 Avhen the expedition could by possibi- 
 lity set sail, the whole army was im- 
 bued with revolutionary ideas, and 
 only awaited the signal of a leader to 
 declare openly against the Government, 
 and avert the much dreaded departure 
 for South America. 
 
 57. The CoNDE d' Abisbal, formerly 
 General O'Donnell, of Irish extraction, 
 who had distinguished himself in Ca- 
 talonia during the late war, Avas at the 
 head of the expedition. He Avas a man 
 of a bold and enterprising character, 
 and possessed of such poAvers of dissi- 
 mulation that those most entirely, as 
 they thought, in his confidence, Avere 
 not in the slightest degree aAA'are of 
 Avhat he really intended. He had at 
 first entered cordially into the designs 
 of the conspirators, and their principal 
 hopes of success Avere founded on his 
 heading the enterprise. For a long 
 
Ui 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [CEAP. VII. 
 
 time he adopted the views of the disaf- ' 
 fected, and from the knowledge which 
 they had of this, he gained unlimited 
 influence over the » minds of the sol- 
 diers. But when the decisive moment 
 arrived, the deep dissimulation of the 
 man became apparent. In the night 
 of the 7th July, when the conspiracy 
 was on the point of breaking out, the 
 Conde d' Abisbal assembled the garrison 
 of Cadiz, six thousand strong, which 
 was entirely at his devotion, and, with- 
 out revealing to them what he intended 
 to do, informed them that he was about 
 to lead them on a short expedition, 
 of which the success was certain, and 
 which would entitle them to the highest 
 rewards from their sovereign and coun- 
 try ; but he required them to bind 
 themselves by an oath to obey his or- 
 ders, whatever they were. The soldiers, 
 ignorant of his design, but having con- 
 fidence in his intention, at once took 
 the oath, and as soon as this was done 
 he led them into the camp " des Vic- 
 toires," where seven thousand men, 
 destined to be first embarked, were as- 
 sembled. 
 
 58. These troops were ordered to as- 
 semble in parade order, and no sooner 
 was this done than D' Abisbal stationed 
 his men round them in such positions 
 as to render escape impossible, and 
 then, ordering the soldiers to load 
 their muskets, and the artillerjmieu 
 their pieces, he summoned the men to 
 lay down their arms, and deliver up 
 the officers contained in a list which 
 he had prepared. Eesistance was im- 
 possible, as the men who were sur- 
 rounded had no ammunition, and they 
 were compelled to submit. A hundred 
 and twent\^-three officers, comprising 
 the chiefs of the army, were put under 
 arrest, a part of the troops sent out of 
 the camp, and dispersed through vil- 
 lages of Andalusia, and three thousand 
 compelled to embark and set sail the}^ 
 knew not whither. In fact, their des- 
 tination was the Havannah, where they 
 arrived in safety six weeks afterwards. 
 Ha-sdng by these extraordinary means 
 gained this great success, succeeded in 
 arresting his comrades, and crushing 
 a conspiracy of which he himself had 
 been the chief, D'Abisbal hastened to 
 
 Madrid, where he took credit to him- 
 self for having at once defeated a dan- 
 gerous insurrection, and compelled a 
 mutinous body of soldiers to obey 
 orders, and proceed on their desti- 
 nation. He was received with the 
 greatest distinction at Court, deco- 
 rated with the great ribbon of the 
 order of Charles III. ; and his second 
 in command. General Saarsfield, who 
 had powerfully seconded him in his 
 enterprise, promoted to the rank of 
 lieutenant-general. 
 
 59. But these flattering appearances 
 were of short duration, and the disco- 
 very of the conspiracy proved entii'ely 
 fatal to the expedition, with the ex- 
 ception of the three thousand who, in 
 the first stupor of astonishment, had 
 been hurried on board, and sent oflf to 
 the Havannah. The Government had 
 become, with reason, so distrustful of 
 the troops, that they no longer ven- 
 tured to keep them together, or in the 
 neighbourhood of Cadiz ; and sinister 
 rumours ere long reached ]\Iadrid as 
 to the share which the Conde d' Abis- 
 bal himself had had, as well as his 
 second in command, in the conspiracy. 
 The consequence was, that the}'- were 
 both called to the capital, under pre- 
 tence of giving personal information 
 on so dangerous an aff"air ; and while 
 there they Avere deprived of their com- 
 mands, and the direction of the expe- 
 dition intrusted to the Conde de Cal- 
 deron, a veteran of seventy years of 
 age. D'Abisbal was too powerful a 
 man, however, to be brought to judg- 
 ment ; and, to the surprise of every 
 one, this scene of dissunulation and 
 hypocrisy on both sides Avas brought 
 to a close by a decree, which, after re- 
 citing the great services he had ren- 
 dered to his country, appointed him 
 Captain-general of Andalusia, Presi- 
 dent of the Audience of Seville, and 
 Governor of Cadiz. 
 
 60. But although ever}i;hing was 
 thus smooth on the surface, D'Abisbal 
 was far from haWng really regained the 
 confidence of the king ; and they were 
 daily thrown into greater consterna- 
 tion by the discoveries made as to the 
 extent of the cons]nracy, and the share 
 which the new captain-general had had 
 
1819.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUEOPE. 
 
 345 
 
 in fomenting it. Great numbers of 
 officers were arrested ; but the Govern- 
 ment (lid not venture on the hazardous 
 step of bringing them to justice. They 
 took the opportunity, however, of act- 
 ing with extreme severity in other 
 quarters. Ten officers wlio had been 
 arrested for their accession to Porlier's 
 conspiracy in Galicia in 1815, and had 
 remained in prison ever since, were 
 ordered to be executed par contumacc ; 
 twenty were sent to the galleys ; and 
 twenty -five imprisoned for various 
 periods. Additional levies of troops 
 were ordered in Galicia and Catalonia, 
 tlie mountaineers of which provinces 
 were deemed attached to the royal 
 cause. General Elio adopted the most 
 rigorous measures, and even made use 
 of torture, to discover the traces of a 
 conspiracy which was suspected to exist 
 in Valencia, and to implicate a large 
 n^^mber of the most respectable citi- 
 zens ; and every eff'ort was made to pre- 
 vent the introduction of French books 
 across the Pyrenees, by which it was 
 suspected the minds of the soldiers and 
 people had been chiefly corrupted. But 
 these measui'es of precaution proved in- 
 eff"ectual : the importation of foreign 
 revolutionary books continued, and tlie 
 concentration of tlie troops in the great 
 towns, where the principal danger was 
 apprehended, left the provinces open to 
 the incursions of armed bands which 
 infested the roads, and, in some in- 
 stances, openly proclaimed the con- 
 stitution. 
 
 61. Still, however, the preparations 
 for the expedition continued at Cadiz ; 
 but in the course of the autumn a fresh 
 difficulty arose, which proved insur- 
 mountable. In the end of July a 
 dangerous epidemic broke out at Cadiz, 
 which soon spread from the hospitals 
 to the crews of the ships and the troops 
 in garrison, or in the adjoining camps 
 in the Isle of Leon ; and though the 
 punishment of the galleys was, in the 
 first instance, threatened to the phy- 
 sician who gave it its true appellation, 
 on the 20tli of August a proclamation 
 of the commander ad interim of the 
 expedition, Don Blaise - Foumas, an- 
 nounced the true character of the 
 disease, which was the yellow fever, 
 
 though it was disguised under the 
 name of the typhus itcrodis. In spite 
 of all the precautions which could be 
 taken, the progress of the malady was 
 very rapid, especially among the in- 
 digent and crowded population of that 
 great seaport. Ten thousand were soon 
 seized with the disorder — the hospitals 
 were full — the deaths rose to a hun- 
 dred a day; and the soldiers, seized 
 with a sudden panic, mutinied against 
 their officers, burst through the bar- 
 riers of the qi;arantine which had been 
 established round the island of Leon, 
 and, spreading to the number of nine 
 thousand over the adjoining villages 
 of Andalusia, carried the seeds of real 
 contagion and the terrors of imaginary 
 danger wherever they went. So far 
 did the ala.nn spread, that the most 
 rigorous measures were adopted to 
 prevent any communication between. 
 Andalusia and New Castile ; a sani- 
 tary junta of eighty persons was estab- 
 lished at Madrid to prevent the con- 
 tagion spreading to the capital ; and a 
 decree published, denouncing the pun- 
 ishment of death against any person 
 who should enter the capital, without a 
 certificate of health, from the infected 
 province. 
 
 62. While these events, fraught witli 
 incalculable, and then unforeseen, con- 
 sequences to both hemispheres, were in 
 progress in Spain, its Government was 
 actively engaged in diplomatic negotia- 
 tions of the most important character. 
 The extreme penury of the exchequer 
 compelled them to have recourse to 
 every imaginable device to ]-eplenisli 
 it : one thought of was the sale of the 
 Floridas to the Americans, which was 
 eff"ected, under colour of determining 
 the limits of the two countries, by a 
 treaty signed at Washington on 22d 
 February. By this treaty the Ameri- 
 cans ac([uired the whole territories 
 known by the name of the Floridas, 
 between the Mississippi and the Gulf 
 of Mexico — a territory of vast extent, 
 and in great part of surpassing fertility. 
 The price, disguised under the name of 
 discharging claims on the Spanish Gov- 
 ernment, was to be 5,000,000 dollars 
 (£1,250,000). Some difficulties arose 
 about the ratification of this treaty by 
 
346 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. VII. 
 
 the Spanisli Government, on the ground 
 of a predatory expedition, alleged by 
 the Spaniards to have been connived 
 at by the American Government, into 
 the province of Texas. At length, 
 however, these difficulties were adjust- 
 ed, and the cession took place. Thus 
 while Sj^ain, in the last stage of decre- 
 pitude, was losing some of its colonies 
 by domestic revolt, and others by sales 
 to foreign states, the great and rising 
 republic of America was acquiring the 
 fragments of its once boundless domi- 
 nions, and spreading its mighty arms 
 into farther pro\unces, the scene of war 
 and appropriation in future times. One 
 of the most interesting things in his- 
 tory is the unbroken succession of 
 events which obtains in human affairs, 
 and the manner in which the occur- 
 rences, apparently trivial, of one age, 
 are linked in indissoluble connection 
 with changes the most important in 
 another. 
 
 63. Anxious, if possible, to continue 
 the direct line of succession, the king, 
 after the death of his former q;ieen, 
 did not long remain a widower. On 
 12th August a proclamation announced 
 to the astonished inhabitants of Madrid 
 that the king had solicited in marriage 
 the hand of the Princess Maria Joseph- 
 ine Amelia, niece of the Elector of 
 Saxony, and been accepted. The mar- 
 riage was solemnised by proxy at Dres- 
 den on the same day, and the young 
 queen set out immediately for Spain. 
 She arrived at the Bidassoa on 2d Oc- 
 tober, and at Madrid on the 19th of 
 the same month, when she made her 
 public entry into Madrid on the day 
 following, amidst the discharges of 
 artillery, rolling of drums, clang of 
 trurapets, and every demonstration of 
 public joy. But it was of bad augury 
 for the married couple that the very 
 day before an edict had been published, 
 denouncing the penalty of death against 
 anj'^ one coming in from the infected 
 districts in the south. An amnesty 
 was published on occasion of the mar- 
 riage : but as, like the former, it ex- 
 cluded all persons charged with poli- 
 tical offences, it had no effect in allay- 
 ing the anxiety of the public mind. 
 
 64. But the time had now arrived 
 
 when an entire revolution was to take 
 place in the affairs of the Peninsula, 
 and those changes were to commence 
 which have changed the dynasty on the 
 throne, altered the constitution of the 
 country, and finalh' severed her Amer- 
 ican colonies from Spain.- The mal- 
 contents in the army, so far from be- 
 ing deterred by the manner in which 
 the former conspiracy had been baffled 
 by the double and treacherous dealing 
 of the Conde d'Abisbal, continued 
 their designs, and, distrusting now the 
 chiefs of the army, chose their leaders 
 among the subordinate officers. Every- 
 thing was speedily arranged, and with 
 the concurrence of nearly the whole 
 officers of the army. The day of rising 
 was repeatedly adjourned, and at length 
 definitivel}'- fixed for the 1st January 
 1820. At its head was Riego, whose 
 great achievements and melancholy 
 fate have rendered his name imperish- 
 able in history.* On that day he as- 
 sembled a battalion in the village of 
 Las Cabezas where it was quartered, 
 harangued it, proclaimed amidst loud 
 shouts the Constitution of 1812, and 
 marching on Arcos, where the head- 
 quarters were established, disarmed 
 and made prisoners General Calderon 
 and his whole staff; and then, moving 
 upon San Fernando, effected a junction 
 with QuiROGA, who was at the head 
 of another battalion also in revolt. 
 
 * " Raphael y Nunez del Riego was bom 
 in 1785 at Tuna, a \illage of Asturias. His 
 father, a Hidalgo without fortune, placed 
 him in the Gardes -du- Corps, which, ever 
 since the scandalous elevation of the Prince 
 of Peace, by the favour of the Queen, fi-om 
 its ranks, had been considered as tlie surest 
 road to fortune in Spain. He was in that corps 
 on occasion of the French invasion of that 
 country in 1808 ; and when it was disbanded 
 by the seizure of the royal family, he entered 
 a guerilla band, and was afterwards promoted 
 to the rank of an officer in the regiment of 
 Asturias. He was ere long made prisoner, and 
 employed the years of his captivity in France 
 in completing his education, which he did 
 chiefly by reading the works of a liberal ten- 
 dency in that country. On the peace of 1814 
 he was liberated, returned to Madrid, and re- 
 ceived the appointment of Lieut. -Colonel in 
 the 2d battalion of the regiment of Asturias. 
 That regiment formed part of the army under 
 the Conde d'Abisbal, destined to act against 
 South America ; and it was thus that Riego 
 was brought to destruction and ruin." — Bio- 
 graphic Univenclle, Ixxix. 114, 115 (RiEGo). 
 
1820.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 347 
 
 The two chiefs, emboldened by their 
 success, and having hitherto experi- 
 enced no resistance, advanced to the 
 gates of Cadiz, within the walls of 
 which they had numerous partisans, 
 upon whom they reckoned for co-oper- 
 ation and admission within it. But 
 here they experienced a check. The 
 gates remained closed against them— 
 the governor of the fortress denounced 
 them as rebels — the expected co-ope- 
 ration from within did not make its 
 appearance, and the two chiefs were 
 obliged to remain encamped outside, 
 surrounded with all the precautions of 
 a hostile enemy. 
 
 65. The intelligence of this revolt 
 excited the greatest alarm at Madrid, 
 and the Government at first deemed 
 their cause hopeless. The next day, 
 however, brought more consoling ac- 
 counts — that Cadiz remained faithful, 
 and a majority of the troops might 
 still be relied on to act against the in- 
 surgents. Recovering from their panic, 
 the Cabinet took the most vigorous 
 measures to crush the insurrection. 
 General Freyre was despatched from 
 Madrid at the head of thirteen thou- 
 sand men hastily collected from all 
 quarters, upon whom it was thought 
 reliance could be placed, and he ra- 
 pidly reached the Isle of Leon, where 
 the insurgent troops, to the number of 
 ten thousand, lay intrenched. A part 
 of them, however, joined the insur- 
 gents, the force of whom was thus 
 raised to ten thousand men. By the 
 approach of the royalist army, how- 
 ever, they found themselves in a very 
 critical situation, placed between the 
 fortress of Cadiz on the one side and 
 the troops from Madrid on the other, 
 and in a manner besieged themselves 
 in the lines of the besiegers. They 
 published proclamations and addresses 
 in profusion,* but without obtaining 
 
 * "Notre Espagne touchait a sa destruc- 
 tion, et votre mine aurait entraine celle de la 
 Patrie : vous etiez destines a la mort, plutot 
 pour delivrer le Gouvemement de I'effroi que 
 votre courage lui impose, que pour faire la 
 conquete des colonies, devenue impossible. 
 En attendant vos families restaient dans I'es- 
 clavage le plus honteux, sous un Gouveme- 
 ment arbitraire et tyrannique, qui dispose k 
 son gre des proprietes, de I'existence, et de 
 la liberie des mallieureux Espagnols. Ce 
 
 any material accession of strength be- 
 yond what had at first joined them ; 
 and the defection and disquietude be- 
 gan to creep over them which invari- 
 ably pervade an insurgent array Avhen 
 decisive success does not at once crown 
 their efforts. 
 
 66. Unable to endure this protracted 
 state of suspense, and fearful of its ef- 
 fect on the minds of the soldiers, Riego 
 directed an attack on the arsenal of the 
 Caraccas, an important station on an 
 island in the Bay of Cadiz, which was 
 taken by a detachment under the com- 
 mand of Quiroga. By this success, a 
 large quantity of arms and ammuni- 
 tion fell into their hands, as well as a 
 seventy-four gun ship laden with jiow- 
 der ; and they rescued from the dun- 
 geons of that place a number of Liber- 
 als in confinement. Several attacks 
 were afterwards made on the dykes 
 which led from the opposite sides of 
 the Bay to Cadiz, but they all failed 
 before the formidable fortifications by 
 Avhicli they were defended ; and though 
 several emeutes were attempted in 
 the fortress, they all likewise failed. 
 Meanwhile Freyre's troops were drawn 
 round them on the outside, and effec- 
 tually cut them off' from all communi- 
 cation with the mainland of Andalu- 
 sia; and the insurgents became dis- 
 couraged from a perception of their 
 isolated position, and the long inactiv- 
 ity to which they had been exposed. 
 To relieve it, and endeavour to rouse 
 the population in their rear, Quiroga, 
 
 Gouvemement devait detraire la nation, et 
 tinir par se d^truire lui-meme; il n'est pas 
 possible de la souffrir plus longtemps. — Vio- 
 lent et faible a la fois, il ne peut inspirer que 
 I'indignation ou le mepris ; et pour que la 
 Patrie soit heureuse, le Gouvemement doit 
 insjjirer la confiance, I'amour, et le respect. 
 Soldats ! nous allons employer pour notre 
 bien, et pour celui de nos freres, les amies qui 
 ont assure I'independance de la nation centre 
 le pouvoir de Buonaparte: I'entreprise est 
 facile, et glorieuse ! Existe-t-il un soldat Es- 
 pagnol qui puisse s'y ojiposer? Non ! Dans 
 les rangs meme de ceux que le Gouvemement 
 s'efforce de rassembler, vous trouverez des 
 frferes qui s'uniront h vous ; et si quelques- 
 uns assez ■vils osaient toumer leurs armes 
 contre vous, qu'ils perissent comme des satel- 
 lites de la tyrannic, in digues du nom d'Es- 
 pagnols."— Antonio Quiroga, General-en-chef 
 de VArmee Nationale, 5 Jan. 1820. Annuaire 
 Historioue, iii. 390, 391. 
 
84S 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 vrho had been invested ^vitll the su- 
 preme command, detached Eiego with 
 a movable cokimn of fifteen hundred 
 men into the interior of the province. 
 They set out on 27th January, and 
 without difficulty passed the straits 
 near Cliielana, and reached Algesiraz 
 in safety, where they proclaimed the 
 constitution amidst "the loud acclama- 
 tions of a prodigious concourse of in- 
 habitants. After remaining five days, 
 however, in that town, lie found that 
 .shouts and huzzas were all that the in- 
 habitants were disposed to afford ; and 
 leaving their inhospitable streets, he 
 directed his march to j\Ialaga, which 
 ho reached, after several combats, and 
 entered on tlie 18th February, and im- 
 mediatel}^ proclaimed the constitution. 
 But although his little corps had been 
 received with acclamations wherever 
 he went, it had met with no real as- 
 sistance ; the people cheered, but did 
 not join them ; and, to use the Avords 
 of Riego's aide-de-camp, "All ap- 
 plauded: none followed them." 
 
 67. Sleanwhile his associate Quiroga 
 was the victim of the most cruel anxie- 
 ties. Weakened by the detachment of 
 tlie force under Riego, and besieged in 
 his intrenched camp before Cadiz, he 
 daily found his situation more critical, 
 and his soldiers evinced unequivocal 
 symptoms of discouragement from the 
 inactivity in which they had been re- 
 tained since their revolt, and tlie want 
 of any succour from the troops with 
 which they Avere surrounded. He sent, 
 in consequence, orders to Riego to re- 
 turn to the lines in the island of Leon, 
 but it had become no longer possible 
 for him to do so. He Avas closely fol- 
 lowed by a light column under the 
 orders of O'Donnell ; and finding that 
 the population of the country Avero not 
 inclined to join him, and that his corps 
 Avas daily diminishing by desertion, 
 he CA'acuated Malaga, and bent his 
 steps towards the Cordilleras, with a 
 view to throAA'ing himself into the 
 Sierra j\Iorena. He crossed the Guad- 
 alquiver by the bridge of CordoA^a, and, 
 directing his steps towards the hills, 
 at length reached Bien-Venida on the 
 11th March AA'ith only three hundred 
 followers, destitute of everything, and 
 
 [chap. VII. 
 
 in the last stage of exhaustion and dis- 
 couragement. 
 
 68. The intelligence of the disasters 
 of Riego, which reached the Isle of 
 Leon in spite of all the precautions 
 AAdiich the generals of the rcA'olutionary 
 army there could take to intercept it, 
 completed the discouragement of the 
 troops of the revolutionary army there 
 assembled. ^lutually fearful of de- 
 fection, Quiroga and General Freyre 
 had long ceased to combat each other, 
 but by proclamations and invitations 
 to the soldiers on either side to aban- 
 don their colours aud range themselves 
 under the banners of their opponents. 
 But in this Avordy Avarfare the loyalist.'^; 
 had the adA^antage ; the Avords of hon- 
 our and loyalty did not resound in vain 
 in Spanish ears, and, although defec- 
 tion Avas experienced on both sides, it 
 Avas soon apparent that the balance Avas 
 decidedly against the Liberal host. 
 Their numbers Avere at last reduced 
 to four thousand men ; Avhile their 
 opponents, under Freyi'e, independent 
 of the garrison of Cadiz, were three 
 times that number ; and this little 
 band AA-as so discouraged as to be incap- 
 able of attempting any of those bold 
 steps Avhich alone, in a protracted war of 
 rebellion, can reinstate a falling cause. 
 
 69. But Avhile the cause of the revo- 
 lution seemed to be thus sinking, and 
 to liaA-e become Avellnigh hopeless in 
 the south, the flame burst forth simul- 
 taneously in several other quarters, 
 and at length inA'oh'ed the whole Pen- 
 insula in conflagi'ation. The blow 
 struck at Cadiz resounded through the 
 AA'hole of Spain. EA^ery where the iiioA^e- 
 ment Avas confined to the officers of the 
 army and a feAV citizens in the seaport 
 toAvns ; but in them it took place so 
 simultaneously as to reveal the exist- 
 ence of a A'ast conspiracy, directed by 
 a central authority which embraced 
 the whole Peninsula. On the 21st 
 February, the day after Yanegaz, the 
 ncAv Captain - General of Galicia, had 
 arrived at Corunna, an insurrection 
 broke out among the officers of that 
 fortress, who surprised that general, 
 Avlien disarmed aud incapable of mak- 
 ing any resistance ; and on his refusal 
 to place himself at the head of the 
 
1820.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 349 
 
 movement, made him a prisoner, and 
 conducted liim with all his staff to 
 the Fort of St Antonio, where they 
 were placed in confinement. The Con- 
 stitution of 1812 was immediately 
 proclaimed, the gates closed, the draw- 
 bridges raised, and the revolution 
 effected in an hour, Avithout any resist- 
 ance. A provisional junta was estab- 
 lished ; the prisons were broken o])en, 
 and their inmates liberated ; a sergeant 
 named Chacon, who had denounced 
 Porlier, massacred, and his widow, 
 sobbing with grief, carried in triumph 
 amidst revolutionary shouts through 
 the streets. The insurrection spread 
 to FeiTol, where the military revolted 
 and proclaimed the constitution on the 
 23d ; Vigo declared on the 24th ; Pon- 
 tevedra on the 26th ; and at the end of 
 a week, with the exception of St lago, 
 Avliere the troops remained steady, the 
 whole of Galicia had hoisted the stand- 
 ard of the constitution. Saragossa 
 shortly after followed the example, 
 and there the insurrection assumed a 
 more serious aspect by being under the 
 direction of Don Martin de Garay, 
 the former Finance Minister, who had 
 been disgraced. ]\Iina, at the same 
 time, reappeared on the frontiers of 
 Navarre, Avhich he entered with a few 
 followers. He immediately proclaim- 
 ed the constitution, and being joined 
 by some soldiers, made himself master 
 of the important cannon foundry at 
 Aizzabal, and lent to the cause of in- 
 surrection the aid of a name which still 
 spoke to the hearts of the patriotic 
 throughout Spain. 
 
 70. The intelligence of these repeat- 
 ed and general defections excited the 
 utmost consternation in the Court of 
 Madrid ; and the conduct of the King 
 and Cabinet evinced that vacillation 
 which, as it is the invariable mark of 
 weakness in presence of danger, so it 
 is the usual precursor of the greatest 
 public calamities. At first the most 
 vigorous measures were resolved on. 
 General Elio was recalled from Val- 
 encia to organise the means of defence 
 in the capital, and a corps hastily 
 assembled to move against the insurg- 
 ents in Galicia, of which the Conde 
 d'Abisbal was appointed commander. 
 
 But vain are all attempts of govern- 
 ment to make head against treason 
 when their own officers and soldiers 
 are the traitors. Unknown to them, 
 the Conde d'Abisbal had already con- 
 certed with the chiefs of the conspiracy 
 at Madrid, and with his brother Alex- 
 ander O'Donnell, who commanded a 
 regiment stationed at Ocaua, the plan 
 of a general insuiTection, which was 
 to embrace all the troops in Old 
 and New Castile, and compel the king 
 to accept the constitution. In pursu- 
 ance of this plan, the Conde left Ma- 
 drid on tlie 3d March, to take the com- 
 mand of the troops destined to act 
 against Galicia ; but, like Neyin 1815, 
 instead of doing so, he no sooner arriv- 
 ed at Ocaiia, nine leagues from Ma- 
 drid, where his brother's regiment was 
 stationed, which had been pi'cpared 
 for the outbreak, than he harangued 
 the troops, proclaimed the constitu- 
 tion, tlirew the magistrates into prison, 
 and formed a Provisional Junta. The 
 news of this defection at once brought 
 matters to a crisis in Madrid. A gen- 
 eral disquietude, Avhich the police were 
 no longer able to restrain, appeared 
 among the lower orders in the capital. 
 ]\Iany attempts were made to raise 
 again the pillar of the constitution ; 
 the regular troops deserted by com- 
 panies to the side of the populace, and 
 the barracks became the scene of mu- 
 tinous transport and revolutionary en- 
 thusiasm. The Puerto del JSoI, since 
 so famous in revolution, was filled with 
 tumultuous mobs loudly demanding 
 the constitution. Symptoms of dis- 
 affection even appeared among the 
 Guards, and the officers of that chosen 
 corps were among the fir.st to attempt 
 the raising the pillar of the constitu- 
 tion. In this extremity the Cabinet 
 sat permanently ; and at length, see- 
 ing that no means of resistance remain- 
 ed, they resolved, on the advice of 
 General Ballasteros, who was inclined 
 to Liberal opinions, to yield. On the 
 7th March the !Madrid Gazette con- 
 tained a decree convoking the Cortes, 
 and declaring the king's resolution to 
 do everything which the good and 
 wishes of his people demanded, "who 
 have given me so mony proofs of their 
 
850 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. VII. 
 
 loyalty." This was followed the next 
 day by a decree declaring that, "to 
 avoid the delays which niiglit arise in 
 the execution of the decree pronounced 
 yesterday for the immediate convoca- 
 tion of the Cortes, and the general will 
 of the people {la volitntad general del 
 piu'blo) being pronounced, I have re- 
 solved to swear to the constitution pro- 
 mulgated by the general and extraor- 
 dina'ry Cortes in 1812." 
 
 71. Thus fell the despotic govern- 
 ment of Ferdinand VII. in Spain, the 
 Avork of the nobles and the priests 
 overthrown by the army and the popu- 
 lace. If little was to be expected of a 
 government framed by the first, still 
 less was to be augured of its overthrow 
 by the last. Stained in its origin with 
 treachery in the army, and treason by 
 the officers even in the highest com- 
 mands, the movement was brought 
 about, and rendered for the time inevi- 
 table, by the revolt of the soldiery, and 
 their abandonment of the oaths they 
 had taken, and the sovereign under 
 whose banners they were enrolled. 
 History can find no apolog)'- for such 
 conduct. The first duty of all persons 
 in authority, whether ci\al or military, 
 is to discharge the functions intrasted 
 to them, and defend their sovereign 
 with the powers which he has commit- 
 ted to their administration. If that 
 sovereign has become despotic, and 
 violated the rights of his subjects, that 
 may be a good reason for throwing 
 up their offices, and in extreme cases, 
 where no other remedy is practicable, 
 joining the ranks of the insurgents; 
 but it is never an excuse for deserting 
 a trust while still holding it. Even 
 the splendid abilities of Marlborough, 
 and the glorious career of Ney, have 
 not been able to wdpe out the stain 
 affixed by such treachery on their me- 
 mory. Many honourable and noble 
 men have suffered death for high trea- 
 son, and their descendants have glo- 
 ried, and shall glory, in their fate ; 
 but none ever pointed with exultation 
 to success gained by breach of trust. 
 "We might well despair of the fortunes 
 of the human race if the fan- fabric of 
 freedom was to be reared on. such a 
 loundation. 
 
 72. Such as it was, however, the over- 
 throw of the Spanish monarchy was 
 too important an event not to rouse 
 to the very highest degree the spirit 
 of revolutionary ambition, not only in 
 Spain, but over all Europe. Its effects 
 are still felt in both hemispheres. Be- 
 ing the first instance in which demo- 
 cracy had gained a decided \Tictory 
 since its terrible overthrow in 1814 
 and 1815, it made a prodigious sensa- 
 tion, and everywhere excited the hopes 
 and revived the expectations Avhich had 
 ushered in the French Revolution. The 
 march of events at Madrid was as rapid 
 as the most ardent partisans of innova- 
 tion could desire. A Supreme Junta 
 was immediately formed, to whom the 
 king, two days after his proclamation, 
 of the 7tli, took the oath to observe the 
 constitution. The nobles and magis- 
 trates, obedient to the ro5^al will, fol- 
 lowed his example. In the midst of the 
 ringing of bells, the discharge of artil- 
 lery, and the cheers of the multitude, 
 the Guards, the soldiers, and all the 
 civic authorities, took the oath, in the 
 square of the Pardo, to the constitu- 
 tion. The whole prisoners confined 
 for state offences were liberated, and 
 paraded through the streets amidst the 
 shouts of the populace ; many of them 
 soon passed from their cells to the Ca- 
 binet. In the evening a general illu- 
 mination terminated the first day of the 
 revolution, which hitherto had been 
 one of unmingled jo5^ 
 
 73. But the march of such convul- 
 sions is not always on flowers ; the 
 thorns soon began to show themselves. 
 Some days before the constitution was 
 accepted at Madrid by the king, it had 
 been proclaimed at Saragossa and at 
 Pampeluna, where Mina had already 
 of his own authority supplanted Espe- 
 lata, the royal governor. At Barcelona 
 the garrison compelled Castanos to do 
 the same, and soon removed that sturdy 
 veteran to make way for General Villa - 
 Campa, then in exile at Arons. He 
 returned ere long, liberated all the poli- 
 tical prisoners, and burnt the office of 
 the Inquisition amidst general trans- 
 ports. At Valencia, General Elio, who 
 had taken so decided a part against the 
 former attempts at revolution, was only 
 
1820.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 351 
 
 saved from deatli at the hands of the 
 populace by being humanely thrown 
 into prison ; at Granada General Eguia 
 was displaced by the students, and 
 Campo-Verde installed in his stead. 
 The revolution at Madrid was an un- 
 expected godsend to Riego, who re- 
 ceived it Avlien wandering alone, and 
 destitute of everything, in the solitudes 
 of the Sierra Morena. From the depths 
 of misery and despair he was sudden- 
 ly elevated to fame and fortune, and 
 brought back to Cordova, where he 
 joined in proclaiming the constitution 
 with General O'Donnell, and those who 
 had lately pursued him with such un- 
 relenting severity, and soon after made 
 a triumphant entry into Seville. 
 
 74. A deplorable catastrophe at Cadiz 
 first interrupted these transports, and 
 revealed an alarming division of opin- 
 ion even among the military, by whom 
 the revolution had been effected. On 
 the 9th March the people in Cadiz, ac- 
 companied by a part of the military, 
 flocked to the square of San Antonio, 
 and General Freyre, seeing no other 
 way of extricating himself from his 
 difficulties, published a proclamation, 
 in which he engaged, on the following 
 day, at ten o'clock, in the same place, 
 to announce the acceptance of the con- 
 stitution. The people, who looked upon 
 this as a certain step to the pacification 
 of the colonies, and the recovery of the 
 lucrative commerce they had so long 
 enjoyed with South America, were in 
 transports, and flocked on the day fol- 
 lowing, at the appointed hour, to the 
 Place San Antonio. But a dreadful 
 fate awaited them. In the midst of 
 the general joy, when the square was 
 crowded with joyous multitudes, when 
 every window was hung with tapestry, 
 or filled with elegantly dressed females, 
 and flags waved in every direction, 
 bearing Liberal devices, a discharge of 
 musketry was suddenly heard in one of 
 the adjoining streets, and immediately 
 a disordered crowd, Avith haggard coun- 
 tenances and cries of horror, were seen 
 flying into the square, closely pursued 
 by the military. It was the soldiers 
 of the regiments of the Guides and del 
 Lealtad (of Fidelity), which, issuing 
 from their barracks, had, without any 
 
 orders, and by a spontaneous move- 
 ment, commenced a fire on the people. 
 Instantly, as if by magic, the square 
 was deserted ; the multitude, in the ut- 
 most consternation, dispersed on every 
 side, and took refuge in houses or the 
 casements of the fortifications, closely 
 pursued by the soldiers, who massacred 
 them without mercy, and abandoned 
 themselves to all the atrocities usual in 
 a town taken by assault. The deputies 
 of the Isle of Leon, who were in an 
 especial manner the object of indigna- 
 tion to the soldiers, were only saved 
 from destruction by being transported 
 to Fort Saint Sebastian, where they 
 were kept 'during three days, crowded 
 in the casements, and almost starving. 
 On the following day the same scenes 
 of disorder were renewed ; the soldiers 
 issued from their barracks, and syste- 
 matically began the work of plunder 
 and extortion ; and before order was 
 restored, the killed amounted to four 
 hundred and sixty, includmg thirty- 
 six women and seventeen children, and 
 the Avounded to above a thousand. 
 
 75. While these frightful scenes 
 were inaugurating the revolution at 
 Cadiz, the new ministry was formed, 
 and entered upon its functions at Ma- 
 drid. It was composed, as might be 
 expected, of the leadiiig men of the Li- 
 beral party, several of whom passed 
 from a dungeon to the palace of the 
 Government. It contained, however, 
 many eminent names, which have ac- 
 quired a lasting place in the rolls of 
 fame. Seilor Arguelles, Avhose elo- 
 quence in the former Cortes had ac- 
 quired for him the surname of "the 
 Divine," was Minister of the Interior ; 
 Don Garcias HeiTcras, one of the most 
 violent orators on the Liberal side, was 
 appointed Minister of Justice ; Canga 
 Arguelles was Minister of the Finances; 
 the Marquis Las Amarillas, of War; 
 Perez de Castro and Don Juan Jubat, 
 were nominated to the Exterior and the 
 Marine. Though the new ministers 
 had all been leading orators on the Li- 
 beral side in the Cortes, and many of 
 them had suffered persecution and im- 
 prisonment from the king, yet, with 
 the acquisition of office, "they felt, as 
 is generally the case, its difficulties 
 
852 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 and responsibilities. They endea- 
 voured, so far as in their power, to 
 moderate the general fervour which 
 liad elevated themselves to office ; but 
 their ^dews Avere by no means shared 
 by their impatient followers, and it was 
 soon apparent that their reign was not 
 destined to be of very long dui'ation. 
 
 76. The first measures of the new Go- 
 vernment betrayed the external pres- 
 sure to which they were subjected, and 
 the extreme division of opinion which 
 prevailed in the country on the recent 
 changes. A decree was issued on 26th 
 March, declaring that every Spaniard 
 who should refuse to swear to the new 
 constitution, or who, in taking it, 
 should qualify it with mental reserva- 
 tion, should, if a layman, be deprived 
 of all honours, distinctions, and offices; 
 if an ecclesiastic, his property was to 
 be sequestrated. Another decree al- 
 lowed the Juramcntados or Afrance- 
 sados, as they were called, or Spaniards 
 who had sworn fealty to Joseph Buo- 
 naparte, and who were estimated at 
 six thousand, to return to Spain ; but 
 another, after they had in great part 
 returned, compelled them to remain 
 in Biscay or Navarre, provinces under 
 the government of Mina, their impla- 
 cable enemy. A third placed the sixty- 
 nine members of the former Cortes, 
 who had signed tlie petition to the 
 king to resume the powers of an abso- 
 lute monarch, under surveillance of 
 the police in certain convents, till the 
 pleasure of the new Cortes was taken 
 on their fate. It augured ill of the 
 cause of freedom when its inaugum- 
 tion was signalised by measures of 
 such oppressive character or revengeful 
 severity. 
 
 77. The Cortes was convoked for the 
 9th July ; but in the mean time the 
 real powers of government resided, not 
 in the King's Ministers, but in the 
 Supreme Junta which sat alongside of 
 them in Madrid. That body, elected 
 by the populace in the first fervour of 
 the revolution, was composed of per- 
 sons of the most violent character, and 
 as they foresaw that tlieir tenure of 
 power would be of short duration, as 
 it would be superseded by the meeting 
 of the Cortes, their principal care was 
 
 [chap. vir. 
 
 to organise the means of controlling 
 that body, and subjecting it to the 
 domination of the democrats iu the 
 capital. It was under the influence of 
 this body that the severe decrees which 
 have been mentioned had been passed. 
 Nothing could be done Avithout their 
 sanction — nothing could withstand 
 their control. In imitation of the 
 Jacobins and the Girondists at Paris, 
 they established clubs in the capital 
 and in the jjrincipal towns throughout 
 the provinces, in which the measures 
 of Government were daily canvassed, 
 and the most violent language con- 
 stantly used to keep up the fervour of 
 the public mind. Many of them ac- 
 quired a fatal celebrity in tlie future 
 history of the revolution. At the same 
 time, all restrictions on the press being 
 removed, a host of journals sprang up 
 in the capital, which vied with each 
 other in the propagation of the most 
 violent revolutionary sentiments. 
 
 78. The measures of the Government 
 soon gave tokens of their influence. 
 Swift as had, in 1789, been the march 
 of revolution in France, swifter still 
 was now its advance in Spain. Before 
 the Cortes had even assembled, the 
 junta and clubs of Madrid had dictated 
 decrees to the nominal Government, 
 Avliich had eff'ectually secured the su- 
 premacy of the democratic party. 
 Some of them were Avorthy of unquali- 
 fied admiration ; otliers Avere of the 
 most perilous tendency. Among the 
 first AA-ere decrees abolishing the Je- 
 suits and the Inquisition, and all 
 monuments and emblems which bore 
 reference to them, and establishing an 
 entire freedom of the press. In the 
 last category must be placed the de- 
 crees Avhich folloAved, abolishing all 
 exclusive privileges, and investing in 
 the nation all seignorial jurisdictions ; 
 the institution of national guards, with 
 their officers chosen by the election of 
 tlie priA^ates, agreeably to the Consti- 
 tution of 1812 ; and one, declaring 
 that the taking of all monastic voavs 
 should be suspended until the meeting 
 of the Cortes, and that, in the mean 
 time, no alienation ofanyixirt ofthemo- 
 nastic 'property should he valid. The 
 last enactment Avas of the most sinister 
 
1820.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 3531 
 
 augury, the more especially as the 
 necessities of the exchequer had been 
 noways diminished by the recent con- 
 vulsions, and the property of the 
 church in Spain was estimated at 
 eighteen thousand millions of reals. 
 Meanwhile, honours, gratuities, and 
 pensions were showered on the gene- 
 rals and officers of the army in the 
 island of Leon, which had made the 
 revolution ; and all idea of prosecuting 
 the expedition to South America hav- 
 ing been abandoned, an invitation was 
 sent to the in.surgent states to forward 
 deputies, in terms of the constitution, 
 to the Cortes ; and in the mean time 
 thirty Suppliants, or substitutes, were 
 chosen among the South Americans 
 resident in the Peninsula. 
 
 79. The elections were conducted 
 with great regularity, and the Cortes 
 met on the 9th July. Elected by uni- 
 versal suffrage during the first fervour 
 of the revolution, its members pre- 
 sented that strange assemblage, and 
 exclusion of various important classes, 
 which invariably result from a uniform 
 and single system of suffrage. ISTot a 
 single grandee of Spain was elected ; 
 very few of the noblesse or landholders ; 
 only three bishops. Advocates, attor- 
 neys, factors, merchants, generals and 
 military officers, who had risen to emi- 
 nence by the revolution, and were 
 ardently attached to its fortunes, con- 
 stituted a decided majority. Generals 
 Quiroga and O'Daly, and the other 
 chiefs of the army of Leon, were 
 amongst its ranks : Riego was only ab- 
 sent, because, having been appointed 
 to the command of the army in the 
 ]sle of Leon, he could not be spared 
 from its ranks. The conservative 
 party, or the one attached to old in- 
 stitutions, was almost unrepresented. 
 Navarre, and a few remote and ob- 
 scure parts of New Castile, had alone 
 returned members in that interest, 
 and their number was so small that 
 they had no weight in the assembly, 
 and from the very outset were stigma- 
 tised by the* name of Serviles. Uni- 
 versal suffrage had done its work : it 
 had established, as it invariably does, 
 class government of the very worst 
 
 kind, that of an ignorant and irrespon- 
 sible majority. 
 
 80. Disorders meanwhile had broken 
 out in the provinces, which sufficiently 
 demonstrated that, however popular in 
 the great and seaport towns, the re- 
 volutionary regime was anything but 
 agi-eeable to the inhabitants of the 
 country. At Saragossa a disturbance 
 arose, in the attempt of fiive or six 
 hundred peasants to throw down the 
 pillar of the constitution, which was 
 only quelled by General Haxo, with 
 two regiments of infantry and caval- 
 ry, and a battery of artillery, with 
 the loss of twenty lives, and triple 
 that number wounded. The cons 3- 
 quences were serious. The Llarquis 
 Alazan, governor of the province, bro- 
 ther of the famous Palafox, was de- 
 prived of his command, which was 
 bestowed on Riego, his wife was ar- 
 rested, and sixty monks were thrown 
 into prison to await their ti'ial before 
 a military commission. Shortly af- 
 ter an insurrection broke out in the 
 mountains of Galicia, near the confines 
 of the Portuguese province of Entre 
 Douro-e-Minho. A junta, styled "the 
 apostolical," was elected, with the 
 device " Religion and the King." 
 Crowds of peasants flocked round the 
 sacred standard. The royalists passed 
 the Minho, and advanced towards St 
 lago, where they hoped to be joined 
 by numerous partisans. Their number 
 soon amounted to three thousand ; but 
 they were worsted in several encoun- 
 ters wdth the regulars near Tuy on the 
 Minho, and at length dispersed. Among 
 the papers of their chiefs, which were 
 seized, were letters which proved that 
 they were in correspondence with secret 
 royalist committees in Aragon, Andalu- 
 sia, Old Castile, and the capital itself. 
 
 8L On the night before the assem- 
 bling of the Cortes, an event happened 
 of evil augury as to its future career. 
 A part of the body-guard attached 
 to Liberal principles broke into the 
 royal palace, under pretext, which was 
 Avholly unfounded, that a number of 
 Serviles had assembled there to offer 
 the king their services, and murdered 
 a faithful officer who withstood their 
 
354 
 
 HISTORY OF EUEOPE. 
 
 entrance. So far there was nothing 
 remarkable ; such tragedies are almost 
 invariably the accompaniment of civil 
 dissension. But what followed proved 
 the unpotence of the law ; and that the 
 majority, as in America, had now be- 
 come so powerful that no crime com- 
 mitted in their interest could be 
 brought to punishment. The fact of 
 the murder was notorious ; it had been 
 committed by the assassins with their 
 official scarfs on ; the persons impli- 
 cated in it were well known ; but so 
 far from being punished, they were all 
 acquitted on a mock trial, and imme- 
 diately promoted. 
 
 82. The session of the Cortes was 
 opened with great pomp by the king on 
 the 9th July, in presence of the queen 
 and whole corps diplomatique. The 
 sovereign again took the oath to the 
 Archbishop of Seville, the first Presi- 
 dent of the Cortes, who addi-essed his 
 Majesty in a speech which terminated 
 with these words : * ' The most virtu- 
 ous of nations will forgive its injuries, 
 pardon the outrages it has received, 
 establish its constitutional govern- 
 ment, and preserve in all its purity 
 its holy religion. The distrust, the 
 seeds of discord, the fears, the odious 
 suspicions, which the perfidious have 
 so long sought to inspire in the best 
 of kings, will cease, and all will unite 
 around his throne by a fraternal alli- 
 ance, which will secure the public 
 peace, produce abundance, and prove 
 the source of every social blessing." 
 The king pronounced a speech which 
 re-echoed these warm anticipations and 
 benevolent intentions. It will appear 
 in the sequel how, on either side, these 
 promises were fulfilled and these anti- 
 cijiations realised. 
 
 83. One of the most important pub- 
 lic documents presented to the Cortes 
 was a report on the state of the army, 
 which gave a graphic picture of its 
 deplorable condition, and revealed the 
 main cause of the revolutionary spirit 
 with which it was animated. The 
 minister reported that, including the 
 guard, its entire effective strength was 
 only 53,705 men, in lieu of 87,000, its 
 strength on paper ; and 7085 cavalry 
 mounted. The whole was in the most 
 
 [chap. VII. 
 
 deplorable state of nudity and desti- 
 tution. The clothing of the infantry 
 for the most part had not been renewed 
 since 1814 ; only seven regiments of 
 cavaliy were dressed in anything like 
 homogeneous uniform ; various dresses 
 clothed the remainder, all worn out. 
 The artillery was crazy and broken 
 down, the arsenals empty. The entire 
 cost of the army was 352,607,000 reals 
 (£3,500,000), being more than half 
 the revenue of the monarchy, and yet 
 every branch of the service was deeply 
 in arrear of its pay. No less than 
 38,000,000 reals (£380,000) were due 
 to the cavalry, and £450,000 to the 
 infantry. The report announced that 
 the constitution had been accepted at 
 Puerto Pico, St Domingo, and Cuba, 
 but that the war, " fomented by the 
 stranger," still lingered on the conti- 
 nent of America, to which, since 1815, 
 forty - two thousand men had been 
 despatched from Old Spain. Here is 
 the secret of the Spanish rev9lution ; 
 it is to be found in the destitution of 
 the exchequer, and ruin of the exter- 
 nal commerce of the kingdom, in con- 
 sequence of the South American revo- 
 lution. Had the trade of Cadiz and 
 Coruuna been as flourishing as it was 
 prior to 1810, and the Spanish troops 
 been paid, clothed, fed, and lodged, 
 like the English soldier, there would 
 have been no revolution ; the king, 
 with the general consent of the na- 
 tion, would have reigned like his 
 fathers, and Riego, unknown and guilt- 
 less, would have died a natural death. 
 84. The majority of the Cortes was 
 composed of the Liberals of 1812, 
 whom six subsequent years of the 
 galleys, imprisonment, or exile, had 
 confirmed in their principles, and in- 
 spired with an ardent thirst of ven- 
 geance against their oppressors. It 
 was no wonder it was so ; the royal 
 government now experienced the re- 
 tribution due for its severities, and 
 had leisure to lament the failure to 
 act in that magnanimous spirit which, 
 by forgiving error, might have caused 
 it to be abjured. But although the 
 composition of the majority was such 
 as presaged violent and destructive 
 measures at no distant period, its 
 
1820.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 355- 
 
 leaders were men of enlarged views 
 and great capacity, whose statesman- 
 like wisdom at first imposed a consi- 
 derable clieck upon its excesses. In 
 the front rank of the leaders must be 
 placed Martinez de la Rosa, a man 
 of great ability and uncommon ora- 
 torical powers ; and Calatrava, an 
 orator less brilliant, but more argu- 
 mentative, and a statesman more 
 experienced in public affairs. The 
 Marquis Toreno also, a nobleman 
 of the most enlarged views, Avho had 
 studied with advantage, and learned 
 the action of representative govern- 
 ments by travelling in foreign coun- 
 tries, lent the aid of his extensive 
 knowledge and profound reflection. 
 If anything could warrant the hope 
 of a prudent use of power in a body 
 constituted as the Cortes was, it was 
 its being directed by such men. But 
 there were others of a different stamp, 
 whose influence ere long increased, 
 and at length became irresistible from 
 the combined influence of the clubs 
 and the press. Among these were 
 soon remarked Gasco, Philippe Xavar- 
 ro, Romoro, Alpuente, and Moreno, 
 the Jacobins of the revolution. Their 
 party at first did not number above a 
 sixth of the whole Cortes ; but, as is 
 too often the case in such circum- 
 stances, they in the end acquired its 
 entire direction. 
 
 85. The first measures of the Cortes, 
 though not of a violent or sanguinary 
 character, were nevertheless obviously 
 calculated to increase the democratic 
 influence and action in the country. 
 The Afrancesados, who awaited their 
 fate in Biscay in deep distress, were 
 restored to their property, but not to 
 their offices, pensions, or honours ; the 
 sixty-nine of the old Cortes were in- 
 cluded in the amnesty, but, with tlie 
 exception of the Marquis of Matta- 
 florida, declared incapable of holding 
 any election or public office. The de- 
 cree of the former Cortes and of the 
 king against the Jesuits Avas adopted. 
 
 with certain modifications. An im- 
 portant law was also passed restricting 
 the entails, which had so long operated 
 to the prejudice of Spanish agriculture. 
 They were prohibited in future abso- 
 lutely in landed estates, and permitted 
 only in payments out of land, as right 
 of superiority, or of the manor, to the 
 extent of 20,000 ducats for grandees, 
 40,000 for persons enjojdng title, and 
 20,000 for private individuals. No en- 
 tail was admitted below 6000 ducats. 
 These were steps, and important ones, 
 in the right direction ; and if the 
 leaders of the revolution had limited 
 themselves to such practical reforms, 
 they Avould have deserved well of their 
 country and of the human race. 
 
 86. But in the midst of these be- 
 neficent labours, the dreadful evil of 
 embarrassment of the finances still 
 made itself felt, and with increasing 
 severity, from the cessation of specula- 
 tion and confidence which had arisen 
 from the revolution. The loss of the 
 revenue derived directly from South 
 America by the produce of the mines, 
 and indirectly by the stoppage of the 
 commercial intercourse with the re- 
 volted colonies, rendered abortive all 
 attempts to pay the interest of the 
 debt and carry on the current expenses 
 of the nation from its domestic re- 
 sources. * In this extremity the Span- 
 ish Cortes did what the Constituent 
 Assembly had done before them ; they 
 suppressed all the monasteries except 
 eight, and confiscated their property 
 to the service of the State ; the monks 
 and nuns, 61,000 in number, turned 
 out, received small pensions varying 
 from 100 to 400 ducats (£20 to £80). 
 Already the clubs had become so formi- 
 dable that a decree was passed closing 
 their sittings, which remained a dead 
 letter. Tithes were abolished, both in 
 the hands of the clergy and lay proprie- 
 tors, but the half of them was kept up 
 as a direct contribution for the service 
 of the State. Even after all these extra- 
 ordinary revolutionary resources had 
 
 * According to a report presented to the Cortes by the Commission of Finance, on 22d 
 October, the National Debt consisted of— 
 
 Reals. Francs. £ 
 
 142,220,572,391 or 35,555,000,000 or 1,422,200,000 
 The whole revenues of Spahi were not equal to the discharge of the interest of this debt &u- 
 nually. —iJaj3j3orf, Oct. 22, 1S50. AnnuairQ Ristorique, iii. 440. 
 
856 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 been taken into the exchequer, the bud- 
 got exhibited a deficit of 172,000,000 
 of reals (£1,720,000), being about a 
 fourth of the annual revenue,* which 
 v,'asprovidedforby aloan of £2, 000, 000, 
 negotiated with Lafitte and the bank- 
 ers on the Liberal side in Paris. 
 
 87. But meanwhile the Government, 
 the creature of militarj^ revolution, was 
 subjected to the usual demands and 
 insults consequent on such an origin. 
 They found ere long that the prre- 
 torian guards in the Isle of Leon were 
 as imperious, and as difficult of man- 
 agement, as their predecessors in the 
 camp which had overawed the masters 
 of the world. Incessant were the ef- 
 forts made by Eicgo, who had now the 
 command of that force, to keep alive 
 tlie spirit of revolution among the 
 troops ; but as it rather declined, and 
 rumours of an intention to separate 
 the army began to reach the Isle of 
 Leon, Eiego hastened to Madrid, to 
 supj)ort by his presence the revolution- 
 ary clubs against the Government, 
 which was suspected of leaning to mo- 
 derate ideas. He arrived there in the 
 end of August, and for a week was the 
 object of general adulation. He was 
 surrounded by the club Lorrenzini, by 
 the influence of which the minister-at- 
 Avar was removed, and succeeded by 
 Don Gastano Valdes. In the middle 
 of it he visited the theatre, where an 
 audience from the clubs, vehemently 
 excited, called for a party air, the 
 Trogala Pcrro, which had been com- 
 i>osed in hatred of the noblesse during 
 the fervour at Cadiz ; and Riego him- 
 self, standing up surrounded by his 
 whole staff, joined in the chorus. This 
 open insult to the nobility and the 
 Government led to a fearful tumult in 
 the theatre, in the course of which 
 Riego openly resisted the police and 
 other authorities ; and next day the 
 clubs were all in a tumult, and the ban- 
 ners so well known in the French Re- 
 volution were seen in the great square 
 
 [chap, VII. 
 
 — * ' The Constitution or Death. " The 
 Government, however, was not deter- 
 red. The troops remained faithful to 
 their duty : large bodies, with artillery 
 loaded with grape-shot, were stationed 
 around the square of the Puerto de Sol, 
 where the mobs were assembled ; and 
 the revolutionists, seeing themselves 
 mastered, were compelled to submit. 
 On the following day a decree of the 
 Cortes put the clubs under a strict 
 surveillance, closed the Lorrenzini, 
 and Riego was deprived of his com- 
 mand and sent into exile at Oviedo. 
 At the same time the army in the Isle 
 of Leon was bioken up ; but to keep 
 tliem in good humour, and insure obe- 
 dience to the decree, large gratuities 
 and pensions Avere voted to the troops, 
 according to their rank and periods of 
 service. Riego and Quiroga for their 
 share got a pension of 84,000 reals 
 (£840), equivalent to about £1500 in 
 Great Britain. 
 
 88. This vigorous step was attended 
 by an immediate schism in the popu- 
 lar party. Arguelles and Quiroga, who 
 had been foremost in resisting the clubs, 
 were soon denounced as traitors ancl 
 apostates ; and Riego, for a short time, 
 was the rallying-cry of the seditious 
 in the provinces. If this victory had 
 been followed xtp Avith A'igour and per- 
 severance, the downward progress of 
 the revolution might have been ar- 
 rested, and Spain saved unutterable 
 calamities. But it AA-as not so : the 
 press continued as A'iolent as ever ; 
 the clubs assumed their ascendant, 
 and the progress of anarchy became 
 ' unrestrained. The Cortes had passed 
 the decree, despoiling the religious 
 houses for the adA^antage of the State, 
 already mentioned, and it AA-as brought 
 to the king to adhibit his signature 
 in terms of the constitution, Avhich 
 declared that necessary for it to be- 
 come a laAA'. Instead of doing so, he 
 Avrote at the bottom the words pre- 
 scribed for his refusal. He was per- 
 
 The "budget proposed by the Cortes exhibited— 
 
 Froiu all sources 530,394,271 reals, or £5,304,000 
 An expenditure of 702,807,000 7,02S,00() 
 
 Deficit, 
 
 172,408,033 
 
 £1,724,000 
 
 •which was provided for by a loan of 200,000,000 reals, or £2,000,000.— ^?iJi. Eist. iil 443. 
 
1S20.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 357 
 
 fectly entitled to do so, as 11111011 as tlie 
 Cortes was to present to him the project 
 of the law. It was on the third pre- 
 senting only in successive sessions that 
 he was constrained to accept. But it 
 is not in the nature of democracy to 
 admit of any compromise, or tolerate 
 any bridle, how gentle soever, in its 
 career. The clubs were instantly in 
 motion ; the cry of a counter-revolu- 
 tion was heard. Frightful crowds of 
 the lowest of the populace, yelling and 
 vociferating vengeance in the most vio- 
 lent manner, paraded the streets, and 
 converged towards the arsenal which 
 contained all the arms and ammuni- 
 tion. The report spread that the 
 troops would not act against the in- 
 .surgents ; that the life of the king was 
 in danger. Intimidated and overawed, 
 the ministers counselled submission, 
 and renewed their entreaties to the 
 king to sanction the law. He long 
 resisted ; but, overcome at last by the 
 increasing danger, and their assurance 
 that the troops could not be relied on, 
 he affixed his signature, and immedi- 
 ately after set out from Madrid for the 
 Escurial. 
 
 89. The victory thus gained over 
 the king was not attended by the ad- 
 vantages which had been anticipated. 
 In some places in and around the gi-eat 
 towns, as Valencia and Barcelona, the 
 people broke in tumultuous crowds 
 into the monasteries, forcibly expelled 
 the monks and nuns, and it was with 
 difficulty that the heads of the houses 
 were rescued from their hands. At 
 Valencia, the archbishop, besieged by 
 a furious mob in his palace, on account 
 of an anathema which he had fulmi- 
 nated against the sale of the ecclesias- 
 tical estates, was only rescued from 
 death by being embarked in the night 
 for Barcelona, where, on landing, he 
 encountered similar dangers. But in 
 the rural districts, especially Galicia, 
 Leon, Navarre, Asturias, Old Castile, 
 and Aragon, the decree against the 
 priests met with a very different re- 
 ception, and was found to be incapable 
 of execution. Transported with in- 
 dignation at the thoughts of the hos- 
 pitable doors, where they had so often 
 been fed in adversity, being closed 
 
 against them, and their revered in- 
 mates being turned adrift upon the 
 world without house or home to shel- 
 ter them, the people rose in crowds, 
 and forcibly prevented the execution 
 of the decree. Between the resistance 
 of the people in some districts, and the 
 cupidity of their oavu agents in others, 
 the treasury derived scarcely any aid 
 from this great measure of spoliation. 
 It was exactly the same in France in 
 1789 ; it will be so in similar circum- 
 stances to the end of the world. When 
 Government takes the lead in iniquity, 
 it soon finds it impossible to restrain 
 the extortions of inferior agents : it is 
 like a woman who has deviated fi'om 
 virtue attempting to control the man- 
 ners of her household. 
 
 90. ^Meanwhile the king, shut up in 
 the Escurial, refused to be present at 
 the closing of the session of the Cortes, 
 which terminated on the 9th Novem- 
 ber, and in secret meditated an attempt 
 to extricate himself from the meshes 
 in which he was enveloped. To effect 
 this, the su^iport of the military was 
 indispensable; and with that view the 
 king, of his own authority, and with- 
 out the concurrence of any of his min- 
 isters, which, by the constitution, was 
 required to legalise the appointment, 
 promoted General Carvajal to the situ- 
 ation of Captain-general of New Cas- 
 tile, in room of the constitutional Ge- 
 neral Vigodet, who held that important 
 command. A warm altercation ensued 
 between the two generals when the 
 order to cede the command was pro- 
 duced, which ended by Vigodet de- 
 claring that he would retain the com- 
 mand till superseded by a general 
 legally appointed. The intelligence of 
 this rash step on the part of the king 
 soon transpired : the clubs immediately 
 met and commenced a warm agitation ; 
 the committee of the Cortes assembled, 
 and declared its sittings permanent ; 
 the ministers were in constant consul- 
 tation ; and in the clubs and agitated 
 crowds in the streets, it was openl}'' 
 announced that a counter-revolution 
 had been resolved on, and that de- 
 thronement had become now indispen- 
 sable. Anxious to avoid such an ex- 
 tremity, the ministers sent in their 
 
358 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. VII. 
 
 collective resignation to the king ; 
 and the permanent commission of the 
 Cortes, and municipality of Madrid, 
 despatched deputations to the Escu- 
 rial, with grave and severe remon- 
 strances against the illegal step which 
 had been taken. The irresolute and 
 inconsistent character of the king im- 
 mediately appeared. No sooner were 
 the addresses read than he declared he 
 had no idea he was doing an unconsti- 
 tutional thing in the appointment of 
 General Carvajal ; that he revoked it ; 
 that he would dismiss the Count Mir- 
 anda, the grand -master of his house- 
 hold, and his confessor, Don Victor 
 Paez, and Avithin three days would re- 
 enter his capital. 
 
 91. He arrived, accordingly, on the 
 21st, accompanied by the queen, who 
 was in a very feeble state of health, 
 surrounded by a crowd shouting voci- 
 ferous revolutionary cries, through a 
 double line of National Guards, and 
 amidst cries of ' ' Viva el Constitu- 
 tion!" Suddenly a child was raised 
 up above the crowd, with the book of 
 the constitution in its hand, which 
 it was made to kiss vnth fervour. A 
 thousand cries, and the most fearful 
 threats of vengeance, accompanied the 
 incident ; and when the king inquired 
 what it was, he was informed it was 
 the son of General Lacy come to de- 
 mand justice against his father's mur- 
 derers. Overcome with terror, and 
 almost stupitied with emotion, the 
 king, with feeble steps and haggard 
 looks, re-entered the palace, and im- 
 mediately shut himself up in his apart- 
 ment. The most sinister presenti- 
 ments were felt. Terror froze every 
 heart. The striking resemblance of 
 the procession which had just termi- 
 nated to that of Louis XVI. from Ver- 
 sailles to Paris in 1789, struck every 
 mind ; and men shuddered to think 
 how short an interval separated that 
 melancholy journey from the 21st Ja- 
 nuary, when the martyr king ascended 
 the scaftbld. 
 
 92. The victory of the revolutionists 
 was now complete, and they were not 
 slow in improving it to the utmost 
 advantage. General Riego, so recently 
 in disgrace, was made Captain -general 
 
 of Aragon ; Velasco, the late governor 
 of Madrid, who had been dismissed 
 from his office for his supineness on 
 occasion of Riego's riot in the theatre, 
 was appointed Governor of Seville ; 
 Mina was made Captain - general of 
 Galicia ; Lopez Bafios, of Navarre ; 
 Don Carlos Espinosa, of Old Castile ; 
 Arco-Arguerro, of Estremadura ; the 
 Duke del Infantado, president of the 
 Council of Castile ; and all the per- 
 sons of moderation in the Government 
 were sent into exile from the capital. 
 These were all men, not only of ap- 
 proved courage, but of the most deter- 
 mined revolutionary principles. The 
 whole subordinate officers, civil as well 
 as military, were selected from the 
 same party ; so that the entire autho- 
 rity in the kingdom had, before the 
 end of the year, passed into the hands 
 of the supporters of the new order of 
 things. The clubs resumed their for- 
 mer activity, and increased in vigour 
 and audacity in the metropolis ; and 
 with them were now associated a still 
 more dangerous body of allies in the 
 secret socwties of the provinces. The 
 ancient and venerable institution of 
 freemasonry, formed for the purposes 
 of benevolence, and hitherto unstained 
 by those of party, was now perverted 
 to a different object, and converted 
 into a huge Jacobin Societj', held to- 
 gether by secret signs and oaths ; and 
 along with it was associated a new in- 
 stitution of a still more dangerous and 
 pernicious tendency. 
 
 93. This was a society, which as- 
 sumed the title of ^' Franc -Commu- 
 neros." Their principles were those 
 of the Socialists, in their widest accep- 
 tation ; their maxims, that universal 
 equality was the birthright of man, 
 and that nothing had hitherto so much 
 impeded its establishment as the false 
 and hypocritical ideas of philanthropy 
 and moderation by which the reign of 
 despots had been so long prolonged. 
 In pursuance of these principles, they 
 were bound by their oath, on entering 
 the society, to obey all mandates they 
 received from its superior officers, 
 whatever they were, and however con- 
 trary to the laws of the State ; and 
 they engaged '* to judge, condemn, a7id 
 
1820.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 359 
 
 execute every individual, ■without ex- 
 ception, including the king or his suc- 
 cessors, who might abuse their autho- 
 rity." So far was this power of self- 
 judging and lynch law carried, that it 
 led to serious disturbances, particularly 
 in Asturias and Galicia, in the end of 
 November and December, which were 
 not suppressed without serious blood- 
 shed ; while in IMadrid the agitation 
 was so violent that one of the clubs 
 was shut up by order of Government, 
 the whole garrison being called out to 
 enforce the order ; and tlie king, trem- 
 bling for his life, no longer ventured 
 'to leave his own palace. An incident 
 soon occurred which showed how well 
 founded his apprehensions were, and 
 gave a pitiable proof of the state of 
 degradation to which the royal autho- 
 rity was reduced. The king at length 
 went out in his carriage, which was 
 speedily surrounded by an insulting 
 mob, Avhich, from fm^ious cries, pro- 
 ceeded to assail the royal vehicle and 
 guards with showers of stones. In- 
 dignant at such conduct, the guards 
 wheeled about, charged the assailants, 
 wounded several, and dispersed the 
 rest. Instantly a furious mob got up, 
 which surrounded the barrack to which 
 the guard had retired, and insisted 
 upon the obnoxious men being deliver- 
 ed up to them. This was done : they 
 were thrown into prison and detained 
 there long, though their conduct was 
 so evidently justifiable that they were 
 not brought to trial ; and the king, on 
 the representation of his ministers that 
 the sacrifice could no longer be averted, 
 was obliged to dismiss his whole guard, 
 and coulme himself to his own ])alace, 
 
 94. PoETUGAL evidently Avas intend- 
 ed by nature to form part of the same 
 monarchy as Spain. The Pyrenees, 
 which separate them both from all the 
 rest of Europe ; the ocean, which en- 
 circles both their shores, and opens to 
 them the same commerce and maritime 
 interests ; the identity of soil and cli- 
 mate which they both enjoy in the old 
 hemisphere, the vast colonies they had 
 acquired in the new, the homogeneous 
 nature of the races and nations from 
 which they were both descended, and 
 
 the similarity of manners and institu- 
 tions which both, in consequence, had 
 established, have caused their history, 
 especially in recent times, to be almost 
 identical. The tyranny of the Spanish 
 Government, the patriotic resistance of 
 the heroic house of Braganza, even en- 
 tire centuries of jealousy or war, have 
 not been able to eradicate these seeds 
 of union so plentifully sown by the 
 hand of nature. Like the English and 
 Scotch, they yearned to each other, 
 even when severed by political discord, 
 or engaged in open hostility ; happy if, 
 like them, they had been reunited in 
 one family, and one pacific sceptre re- 
 stored peace to the whole jjrovinces cf 
 the Peninsula. 
 
 95. It was not to be expected that so 
 very important an event as the Spanish 
 Revolution of 1820, overturning as it 
 did, by military revolt, an aged throne, 
 and establishing a nominal monarchy 
 and real democracy in its stead, was to 
 fail in exciting a corresponding spirit, 
 especially among the military, in the 
 sister kingdom. But, in addition to 
 this, there were many circumstances 
 which rendered revolution in favour of a 
 constitutional form of government more 
 natiiral — it might almost be said un- 
 avoidable — in Portugal than in Spain. 
 Long habits of commercial intercourse, 
 close alliance between the two coun- 
 tries, glorious victories in Avhich the 
 two nations had stood side by side, had 
 inspired the Portuguese with an ardent, 
 it might almost be said an extravagant, 
 admiration of British liberty and in- 
 stitutions. They had seen, as already 
 observed, the probity of English admi- 
 nistration, and contrasted it with the 
 corruptions of their own : they ascribed 
 it all to the influence of English insti- 
 tutions, and thought they would ex- 
 change the one for the other by adopt- 
 ing a representative form of govern- 
 ment ; they had seen the valour of 
 British soldiers, and thought liberty 
 would in like manner render them in- 
 vincible. A conspiracy, which proved 
 abortive, headed by General Freyre, in 
 1817, had already given proof how gen- 
 erally these ideas influenced the army; 
 and three additional years of govern- 
 ment by a Regency at Lisbon, without 
 
360 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. VII. 
 
 the lustre or attractions of a court to 
 enlist the selfish feelings on the side 
 of loyalty, had given them additional 
 strength, and rendered the whole po- 
 pulation of the seaports and army ripe 
 for a revolt. The consequence was, that 
 when it broke out, on the night of the 
 23d August, it met with scarcely any 
 resistance. The whole military com- 
 menced the revolt ; the people all joined 
 them; a junta, consisting of popular 
 leaders, was established, and a consti- 
 tutional government proclaimed. 
 
 96. When the English, retiring from 
 their long career of victory, withdrew 
 from Portugal, Marshal Beresford, wlio 
 had trained their army and led it to 
 victory, was left at its head, and about 
 a hundred English officers, chiefly on 
 the staff or in command of regiments, 
 remained in Portugal. Aware of the 
 crisis which was approaching, Marshal 
 Beresford had, in April, embarked for 
 Rio Janeiro, to lay in person before the 
 king a representation of the discontents 
 of the country, and the absolute neces- 
 sity of making a large and immediate 
 remittance to discharge the pay of the 
 troops, which had fallen very much into 
 arrears. Many of the English officers, 
 however, were at Oporto when the in- 
 .surrection broke out ; and as their fide- 
 lity to their oaths was well known, 
 they were immediately arrested and put 
 into confinement, though treated with 
 the utmost respect. Meanwhile the 
 insurrection spread over the whole of 
 the north of Portugal, and the Conde 
 de Amarante, who had endeavoured to 
 make head against it in the province of 
 Tras - OS - Montes, was deserted by his 
 troops, who joined the insurgents, and 
 obliged to fly into Galicia. The Re- 
 gency at Lisbon, on the 29th August, 
 published a fierce proclamation, de- 
 nouncing the proceedings at Oporto, 
 and declaring their resolution to sub- 
 vert them. But they soon had con- 
 vincing proof that their authority rest- 
 ed on a sandy foundation. The 15th 
 September, the anniversary of the de- 
 livery of the Portuguese territor}"^ from 
 Junot's invasion in 1808, had hitherto 
 always been kept as a day of great na- 
 tional and military rejoicing in Por- 
 tugal. On this occasion, however, the 
 
 Regency, distrustful of the fidelity of 
 their troops, forbade any military dis- 
 play. The soldiers had been ordered 
 to be confined to their barracks, when, 
 at four in the afternoon, the 18th regi- 
 ment, of its own accord, marched out, 
 headed by its officers, and, making 
 straight for the great square of the city, 
 drew up there in battle array, amidst 
 cries of ' ' Viva el Constitution ! " They 
 were soon joined by the 10th regiment 
 from the castle, the 4th from theCampo 
 d'Ourique, the cavalry, the artillery, 
 and ere long by the whole of the gar- 
 rison. All, headed by their officers, 
 and in full marching order, were assem- 
 bled in the square, amidst cheers from 
 the soldiers and deafening shouts from 
 the people. No resistance was any- 
 where attempted ; nothing was seen 
 but unanimity, nothing heard but the 
 " vivas" of the soldiery, and the huz- 
 zas of the multitude. The halls of the 
 Regency were thrown open, and a new 
 set of regents appointed by the leaders 
 of the revolt by acclamation ; and hav- 
 ing accomplished the revolution, the 
 soldiers returned at ten at night, in 
 parade order, to their barracks, as fVom 
 a day of ordinary festivity. 
 
 97. Universal enthusiasm ensued for 
 some days, and the unanimity' of the 
 people proved how general and deep- 
 seated had been the desire for political 
 change and a representative govern- 
 ment, at least among the military and 
 the citizens of the to\\Tis. The entire 
 country followed, as is generally the 
 case in such instances, the example of 
 the capital ; the constitution was every- 
 where proclaimed, and the former per- 
 sons in authority were superseded by 
 others attached to the new order of 
 things. On the 1 st October, the Oporto 
 Junta entered the capital, and imme- 
 diately fraternised in the most cordial 
 way with the Junta already elected 
 there. The British officers were every- 
 where dispossessed of their commands, 
 and put under surveillance, but treated 
 with equal kindness and consideration. 
 After a debate which was prolonged 
 for several days, it was decreed tliat 
 the two Juntas should be united into 
 one composed of two sections — one 
 charged with the ordinary administra- 
 
1820.] 
 
 tion, and the otlier with the steps ne- 
 cessary for assembling the Cortes ; and 
 Count Palmella was despatched on a 
 special embassy to Brazil, to lay before 
 the king an account of the events 
 Avhich had occurred, and assure his 
 ]\Iajesty of the continued loyalty of the 
 Portuguese to the royal family. 
 
 98, In the midst of these events, 
 Marshal Beresford returned from Bra- 
 zil to Lisbon, in the Vengeur of 74 
 guns, charged A\ith a message from the 
 king to the former Junta. Being in- 
 formed by a fisherman, as he approach- 
 ed the coast, of the revolution, and 
 subversion of the former authorities, 
 he made no attempt to force his way 
 in, but requested permission to land 
 as a private individual, as he had many 
 concerns of his own to arrange. This, 
 however, was positively refused ; he 
 was forbid on any account to approach 
 the harbour ; the gims were all loaded, 
 and the artillerymen placed beside 
 them to enforce obedience to the man- 
 date. Beresford expostulated in the 
 warmest manner, but in vain ; and as 
 the agitation in the city became exces- 
 sive as soon as his return was known, 
 it was intimated to him that the soon- 
 er he took his departure for England 
 the better. During all this time the 
 shores were strictly guarded, and no 
 precaution omitted which could pre- 
 vent any communication with the Ven- 
 geur. At length Beresford, finding 
 he could not open any correspondence 
 with the new Junta, sent them the 
 money he had received at Eio Janeiro 
 for the pay of the troops, and returned 
 to England in the Arabella packet ; 
 while the Vengeur proceeded on its 
 destination up the Mediterranean. 
 
 99. Such was the return which the 
 Portuguese nation made to the British 
 for their liberation from French thral- 
 dom, and the invaluable aid they had 
 rendered them during six successive 
 campaigns for the maintenance of their 
 independence ! A memorable, but, mi- 
 happily, a not unusual instance of 
 the ingratitude of nations, and the im- 
 mediate disregard of the most impor- 
 tant services when they are no longer 
 required, or when oblivion of them may 
 be convenient to the parties who have 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 361 
 
 been benefited. Above a- hundred of- 
 ficers accompanied Marshal Beresford 
 to England ; and the eflects of the 
 absence of this nucleus of regular ad- 
 ministration soon appeared in the 
 measures of Government. The two 
 Juntas came to open rupture in regard 
 to the manner in which the Cortes was 
 to be convoked. The Lisbon one main- 
 tained it should be done according to 
 the ancient forms of the constitution ; 
 but this was vehemently opposed by 
 the Oporto Junta, which was composed 
 of ardent democrats, who asserted that 
 these antiquated forms were far too 
 aristocratical, and that the public wish- 
 es would never be satisfied with any- 
 thing short of the immediate adoption 
 of the Spanish constitution. Few knew 
 what that constitution really was ; but 
 it instantly was taken up as a rally ing- 
 cry by the extreme democratic party. 
 Still the Junta of Lisbon held out, 
 upon which Silviera, who was at the 
 head of the violent revolutionists, and 
 had great influence with the troops, 
 surrounded the Palace of the Junta 
 with a body of soldiers, who, by loud 
 shouts and threats, instantly extorted 
 a decree, adopting in toto the Spanish 
 constitution, and appointing one de- 
 puty for every thirty thousand inha- 
 bitants, to be elected by universal 
 sufl"rage. 
 
 100. So far the victory of the revo- 
 lutionists was complete, but the step 
 had been too violent ; neither the 
 public nor the majority of the army 
 were, on consideration, inclined to go 
 into such violent measures. The in- 
 corporations (Gremios) and magistrates 
 protested against the proceedings, and 
 a majority of the officers in the army 
 came round to the same sentiments. 
 A hundred and fifty officei-s in the 
 army, and nearly all the civil autho- 
 rities, resigned their situations. The 
 consequences were soon felt. On the 
 17th November a general council of 
 officers was held, at which Colonel 
 Castro Sepulveda, who was at the head 
 of the moderate party, laboured so 
 assiduously to convince them of their 
 error, that, after a debate of six hours, 
 resolutions were passed to the effect 
 that the state of public opinion in the 
 
362 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. vir. 
 
 capital required that those who had 
 resigned should resume their situa- 
 tions ; that the election of the Cortes 
 shall be made according to the Spanish 
 system, but no other part of theSiianish 
 constitution adopted till the Cortes 
 had met and considered the subject. 
 The reaction was now complete : upon 
 these resolutions being intimated to 
 the officers of the late Government 
 who had resigned, they resumed their 
 functions. Silviera was, with the gen- 
 eral concurrence of the people, ordered 
 to quit the city in two hours, which he 
 did amidst loud acclamations, and the 
 ascendancy of the moderate party was 
 for a time established. But it was for 
 a time only. The fatal step had been 
 taken, the irrecoverable concession 
 made. The resolution that the Cor- 
 tes should be elected on the Spanish 
 principle, which Avas a single chamber 
 and universal suffrage, and that there 
 should be a member for every thirty 
 thousand inhabitants, necessarily threw 
 the power into the hands of the multi- 
 tude, and precluded the possibility of 
 anything like a stable or free constitu- 
 tion being formed. 
 
 101. Italy was not long of catching 
 the destructive flame which had been 
 kindled, and burned so fiercely, in the 
 Spanish peninsula. The career of re- 
 form was begun in Piedmont on the 
 25th February 1820, by a decree of 
 the King of Sardinia, which created a 
 commission composed of the most emi- 
 nent statesmen and juris-consults, to 
 examine the existing laws, and con- 
 sider what alterations should be made 
 to bring them into harmony with the 
 institutions of other countries and the 
 spirit of the age ; and even in the 
 realm of Naples, the germ of practical 
 improvement had begun to unfold it- 
 self. The excessive increase of the 
 land-tax, which had in some places 
 risen to thirty -three per cent, had 
 tended to augment in that country the 
 general discontent, which in the in- 
 habitants of towns, and the more in- 
 telligent of those in the country, had 
 centred in an ardent desire for repre- 
 sentative institutions, wliich they re- 
 garded as the only effectual safeguard 
 
 against similar abuses in time to come. 
 The government of Murat, and the 
 society of the French officers during 
 eight years, had confirmed these ideas, 
 and augmented the importunity for 
 these institutions. This desire had 
 been fanned into a perfect passion in 
 Sicily by the experiment which had 
 been made of a representative govern- 
 ment of that country by the English 
 during the war, which was in the 
 highest degree popular \vith the Liberal 
 leaders. But after the peace it had 
 been foimd by experience to be so 
 alien to the character and wants of the 
 rural inhabitants, that it fell to the 
 ground of its own accord, on the with- 
 drawal of the English troops ; and the 
 only trace of the constitutional regime 
 which remained was the ominous word 
 "uno hudgetto," a money account, 
 which had been imported from their 
 Gothic allies into the harmonious 
 tongue of the Italian shores. 
 
 102. Ferdinand the king had, in ac- 
 cordance with the declared wishes of 
 the most intelligent part of his sub- 
 jects, announced the acceptance by 
 the Government of a constitutional 
 regime during the crisis which preced- 
 ed the fall of Napoleon and conclusion 
 of the war. Before leaving the Sici- 
 lian shores to reoccupy the throne of 
 his fathers, on the dethronement of 
 Murat in 1815, he had issued a pro- 
 clamation, in which he announced, 
 " The feoiftle, will he the sovereign, and 
 the monarch will only be the deposi- 
 tary of the laws, which shall be de- 
 creed by a constitution the most ener- 
 getic and desirable." These words 
 diffused universal satisfaction, and, 
 like Lord William Bentinck's cele- 
 brated pi'oclamation to the Genoese in 
 the preceding year, were regarded with 
 reason as a pledge of the future govern- 
 ment under which they were to live.* 
 But it soon appeared that these pro- 
 
 * " De' cinque fogli del re, seritti in Mes- 
 sina dal 20 al 24 maggio erauo i sensi : pace, 
 Concordia, oblio delle passate vicende ; vi 
 traluceva la modesla confessione de' propri 
 torti ; parlavasi di leggi fondanientali dello 
 stato, di liberta civile, di formali gnarentigie ; 
 e cosi vi stava adombrata la costituzione 
 senza profferirsene il nome." — Colletta, 
 Historia di Napoli, ii. 261. 
 
1820.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 863 
 
 mises, like tliose of the German sove- 
 reigns during the mortal agony of 
 1813, were made only to be broken. 
 Wliatever the indi^adual wishes of 
 Ferdinand may have been, he was over- 
 ruled by a superior influence, which 
 he had no means of withstanding. By 
 a secret article of the treaty between 
 Austria and Naples, concluded in 1815, 
 it was expressly stipulated that "his 
 Neapolitan majesty should not intro- 
 duce in his government any principles 
 irreconcilable with those adopted by his 
 Imperial majesty in the government of 
 his Italian provinces. 
 
 103. The hands of the King of Na- 
 ples were thus tied by an overwhelming 
 power, which he had not the means, even 
 if he had possessed the inclination, 
 to resist. All that could be done was 
 to introduce local reforms, and correct, 
 in a certain degree, local abuses ; and 
 some steps towards a representative 
 government had already been taken 
 in this way. Provincial and munici- 
 pal assemblies had been authorised, 
 whi<3h had commenced some reforms 
 and suggested others, and were in pro- 
 gress of collecting information from 
 practical men as to the real wants and 
 requirements of the country. But these 
 slow and progressive advances by no 
 means suited the impatience of the ar- 
 dent Italian people, and least of all, of 
 that energetic and enthusiastic portion 
 of them who were enrolled in the Se- 
 cret Societies which already over- 
 spread that beautiful peninsula, and 
 have ever since exercised so important 
 an influence on its destinies. 
 
 104. Secret societies banded together 
 for some common purpose are the na- 
 tural resources of the weak against the 
 strong, of the oppressed against the op- 
 jiressors. It is the boast, and in many 
 respects the well-founded boast, of free 
 nations, that by remo^'ing the necessity 
 Avhich has produced it, they alone have 
 succeeded in eradicating this dreadful 
 evil from the social system. "Where men 
 are permitted to combine openly, and 
 the constitution afi"ords a legitimate 
 channel of complaint, the necessity of 
 secret associations is removed, and ^vith 
 that removal their frequency is much 
 abated. Yet is it not altogether re- 
 
 moved : the desire to compass even 
 legitimate ends by unlawful means 
 sometimes perpetuates such societies 
 when the necessity for them no longer 
 exists ; and the Ribbonism of Ireland 
 and trades-unions of England remain 
 a standing reproof against free insti- 
 tutions, and a lasting proof that the 
 enjoyment of even a latitudinarian 
 amount of liberty sometimes aff'ords 
 no guarantee against the desire to 
 abuse its powers. In Italy, however, 
 at this time, the despotic nature of the 
 institutions had given such societies a 
 greater excuse — if anything can ever 
 excuse the banding together of men by 
 secret means and guilty acts, to over- 
 turn existing institutions. 
 
 105. The Carbonari of Italy arose 
 in a very different interest from that 
 to which their association was ulti- 
 mately directed. They were founded, 
 or perhaps taken advantage of, by 
 Queen Caroline, on occasion of the 
 French invasion of Naples in 1808 ; 
 and it was by their means that the re- 
 sistance was organised in the Abruzzi 
 and Calabria, which so long counter- 
 balanced the republican influence in 
 the southern parts of the peninsula. 
 Subsequently they were made use of 
 by Murat at the time of the downfall 
 of Napoleon, to promote his views for 
 the formation of a great kingdom in 
 Italy, which should be free from Tra- 
 montane influence, and restore unity, 
 independence, prosperity, and glory to 
 the descendants of the former masters 
 of the world. Being directed now to 
 a definite practicable object, which 
 had long occupied the Italian mind, 
 which had been the dream of its poets, 
 the aspiration of its patriots — which 
 it was hoped would rescue it from the 
 eff'ects of the "fatal gift of beauty" 
 under which it had so long laboured, 
 and terminate a servitude which clung 
 to it conquering or conquered* — this 
 association now rapidly increased in 
 numbers, influence, and the hardihood 
 of its projects. It contmued to grow 
 rapidly during the five years which 
 succeeded the fall of Napoleon and re- 
 establishment of the Bourbon dynasty 
 in Naples ; and as the desires of peace 
 
 * " Vincitrioe o vinta senipre asserva." 
 
864 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 ;CHAi'. VII. 
 
 had come in pLace of the passions of 
 war, it had swelled so as to embrace 
 considerable portions of the members, 
 and by far the greater part of the talent 
 and energy of the State. It had com- 
 paratively few partisans in the rural dis- 
 tricts, among which ancient influences 
 still retained their ascendancy ; but in 
 the towns, among the incorporations, 
 the universities, the scholars, the army, 
 and the artists, it had nearly spread 
 universally ; and it might witli truth 
 be said, that among the 642,000 per- 
 sons who in Italy Avere said to be en- 
 rolled in its ranks, Avere to be found 
 neai'ly the whole genius, intelligence, 
 and patriotism of the land. 
 
 106. Governed both by princes of 
 the house of Bourbon, and intimately 
 connected for centuries by political al- 
 liance, intermarriage of families, and 
 similarity of manners, Naples had for 
 long been influenced in a great degree 
 by the political events of Spain. Upon 
 a people so situated, actuated by such 
 desires, and of so excitable a tempe- 
 rament, the example of the Spanish 
 revolution operated immediately, and 
 -with universal force. The Carbonari 
 over the whole peninsula were speedily 
 in motion, to effect the same liberation 
 for it as had already been achieved 
 without serious eff'usion of blood in 
 Spain ; and as it w^as known that the 
 Franc - Communeros of that country 
 had played an important part in its 
 revolution, sanguine hopes were enter- 
 tained that they might be equally suc- 
 cessful in their patriotic eff"orts. Their 
 great reliance was on the army, many 
 of the higher officers of which Avere al- 
 ready enrolled in their ranks, and which 
 it was hoped would be generally influ- 
 enced by the example and rewards ob- 
 tained by the insurrectionary host in 
 the Island of Leon. These hopes were 
 not disappointed ; on the 2d July, Mo- 
 relli and Menichini — the one a simple 
 lieutenant in the army, the other a 
 priest in the town of Nola, but who 
 both held important situations in the 
 society of the Carbonari — assembled 
 the soldiers of Morelli's troop, 
 raised the cry of ** God, the King, 
 and the Constitution ! " fraternised 
 with the National Guard, who joined 
 
 in the same sentimeiits ; and with 
 their united force marched upon Avel- 
 lino, the chief town of the province, 
 in the hope of inducing its inhabitants 
 to join their cause. This was not long 
 in being eff"ected. ConciUi, who com- 
 manded the militia of that town, join- 
 ed the popular cause ; Morelli and he 
 proclaimed the Constitution amidst 
 unanimous shouts, and Concilii was, 
 by acclamation, declared the head of 
 tlie patriotic force and the Riego of 
 Naples. 
 
 107. The news of the insurrection at 
 Nola, followed as it was immediately 
 by the defection of the garrison of 
 Avellino, threw the court of Naples 
 into the utmost consternation, and 
 General Campana, who had the com- 
 mand at Salerno, received orders to 
 march without delay on the latter 
 town, while all the disposable force 
 at Naples was ordered to advance in 
 support. But vain are all attempts 
 to extinguish revolt by soldiers who 
 themselves are tainted Avith the spirit 
 of insurrection. General Carascosa, 
 who commanded the troops which 
 came up from Naples, was no soonel- 
 in presence of the insurgents who Avere 
 marching on Salerno, than he found 
 his men so shaken that he was con- 
 strained to retire, to prevent them 
 from openly joining their ranks. The 
 revolutionists advanced accordingly to 
 Salerno, Avhich they occupied in force ; 
 and the intelligence of their approach 
 excited such a ferment in Naples that 
 it soon became cAddent that the main- 
 tenance of the government had become 
 impossible. A large body of the prm- 
 cipal officers in tlie garrison Avaited on 
 General Pepe, and entreated him to 
 put himself at the head of the insur- 
 rection, assuring him of the support 
 of the entire army. He yielded AA'ith- 
 out difficulty to their entreaties ; and 
 taking the command of a regiment of 
 horse' in Naples which had declared for 
 the constitutional cause, he set out 
 amidst loud cheers for the headquar- 
 ters of the insurgents, whom he joined 
 at Salerno, where he was immediately 
 saluted by acclamation General -in - 
 chief. 
 
 108. Every day noAv brought Intel- 
 
1820.] 
 
 ligence of fresh defections ; the whole 
 regiments in the garrison of Naples 
 declared for the constitution, and every 
 2)ost announced the junction of some 
 new garrison to the cause of the insur- 
 gents. Numerous crowds constantly 
 surrounded the palace, and with loud 
 cries and threats demanded the instant 
 proclamation of the constitution. The 
 students, the professors, the munici- 
 pality, the whole intelligent classes, 
 loudly supported the demand ; and the 
 Icing, Avithout guards or support of 
 any kind, moral or physical, found 
 himself constrained to yield to their 
 demands. Anxious to gain time, he 
 consented, after some negotiation, to 
 resign his authority into the hands of 
 his son, the Duke of Calabria, whom 
 he declared his Yicar-general, with the 
 unlimited authority of ^^ Alter ego." 
 The prince immediately issued a pro- 
 clamation declaring his acceptance of 
 the Spanish Constitution, under cer- 
 tain conditions ; but the silence of the 
 king still excited the alarm of the 
 popular party, and at length his ma- 
 jesty himself issued a proclamation, in 
 which he ratified the promise made 
 by his son, and engaged to accept the 
 Spanish Constitution, under the reser- 
 vation of such alterations as the na- 
 tional representation legally convoked 
 might find it necessary to adopt. * The 
 prince, at the same time, issued a 
 decree declaring his unconditional ac- 
 ceptance of the Spanish Constitution 
 as promulgated by His Most Catholic 
 ^Majesty on the 7th March ; and the 
 king two days after solemnly took the 
 oath in presence of all the civil and 
 military authorities of the kingdom, f 
 
 * "La costitnzione del regno delle Due 
 Sicilie sara la stessa adottata per il regno 
 delle Spagne nell' anno 1S12, e sanzionata da 
 S. M. Cattolica nel marzo di questo anno ; 
 salve le modificazioni die la rappresentanza 
 nazionale, costituzionalmente convocata, cre- 
 dera di proporci per adattarla alle circostanze 
 particolari dei reali dominii. Francesco, Vi- 
 cario. July 6, 1S20." — Colletta, Storia di 
 Napoli, ii. 361. 
 
 t The oath taken by the Prince Vicar-gene- 
 ral was as follows: " In quanto alia costitu- 
 zioue di Spagna, oggi ancora nostra, io giuro 
 (e alzo la voce piu diquel che importava 1' es- 
 sere udito) di serbarla illesa, ed all' uopo di- 
 feuderla col sangue." — Colletta, ii. 36S, 300. 
 
 The oath of the king, taken on the 13th in 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 365 
 
 The whole authority in the kingdom 
 immediately passed into the hands of 
 the revolutionists. General Pepe was 
 declared Commander-in-chief instead 
 of the Austrian General Nugent, who 
 was dismissed. General Felangiers was 
 appointed Governor of Naples ; the 
 ministry was entirely changed, and a 
 new one, composed of ardent Liberals, 
 appointed ; a junta of fifteen persons 
 nominated to control the Government, 
 and the whole appointments solemnly 
 confirmed by the king. Great popular 
 rejoicings and a general illumination 
 testified the universal joy at these ra- 
 pid changes ; but it augured ill for the 
 stability of the new order of things, or 
 its adaptation to the people by whom 
 it was adopted, that they had to send 
 io Spam /or a cojnj of the Constitution 
 to which they had all sworn fealty. 
 
 109. While military treason was 
 thus overturning monarchy in Naples, 
 and blasting the growth of freedom, 
 by establishing a constitution utterly 
 at variance with the habits, capacities, 
 or interests of the great majority of the 
 people, and not understood by ten in 
 a million of the inhabitants, the pro- 
 gress of insurrection was still more 
 rapid in Sicily, where, as already men- 
 tioned, a constitutional monarchy had 
 been established by the English during 
 their occupation in the latter years of 
 the war, and the people, generally 
 speaking, were more practically ac- 
 quainted with the working of a free 
 
 presence of all the authorities of the king- 
 dom, was still more solemn: " 'loFerdlnan- 
 do Borbone, per la grazia di Dio e per la cos- 
 tituzione della nionarchia napoletana, re, col 
 nome di Ferdinando I. del regno delle Due 
 Sicilie, giuro in nome di Dio e sopra i Santi 
 Evangeli che difendero e conserverd ' . . . 
 (seguivano le basi della costituzione : poi di- 
 ceva). 'Se operassi contra il mio giura- 
 mento, e contra qualunque articolo di esso, 
 non dovro essere ubbidito; ed ogni opera- 
 zione con cui y\ contrawenissi, sara nulla e 
 di nessun valore. Cosi facendo, Iddio mi 
 ajuti e mi protegga; altrimeiiti, me ne di- 
 mandi conto.' II i)rofrerito giuramento era 
 scritto. Finite di leggerlo, il re alzo il capo 
 al cielo, fisso gli occhi alia croce e spontaneo 
 disse : ' Onnipotente Iddio che collo sguardo 
 infinito leggi nell' anima e nell' av^-enire, se 
 io mentisco o se dovro mancare al giura- 
 mento, tu in questo istante dirlgi sul mio 
 capo i fulmini della tua vendetta.'" — Col- 
 letta, ii. 370, 371, 
 
866 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. VII. 
 
 c onstitution. The English institutions 
 had been abolished when they with- 
 drew from the kingdom — unlike the 
 Code Napoleon, which, founded on the 
 matured wisdom of the Roman law, 
 everywhere survived tlie fall of his 
 dynasty. The Government, however, 
 had established municipal councils, 
 elected by the more respectable classes, 
 declared any additional imposts illegal 
 without the consent of the States-Ge- 
 neral of the realm, and issued some 
 salutary decrees for the limitation of 
 the excessive evils of entails. But 
 these practical reforms did not in the 
 least answer the wishes of the Sicilian 
 revolutionists, who, even more than 
 the Neapolitans, sighed for the estab- 
 lishment of representative institu- 
 tions, and ardently desired instantly 
 to separate from Naples, and get the 
 command of the country by adopting 
 the Sj)anish Constitution. The first 
 news of the revolution at Naples ex- 
 cited a great sensation ; and this Avas 
 fanned into a perfect tumult when the 
 official intelligence arrived on the 14th 
 of the acceptance of the constitution 
 by the king. They had no thought, 
 however, of remaining subject to his 
 government. In the Sicilian mind, as 
 in the Irish, personal freedom and 
 revolution are inseparably connected 
 with insular independence ; and the 
 first impulse of patriotism ever has 
 been to detach themselves from the 
 dominant power which has ruled, and, 
 as they think, oppressed them. 
 
 110. The following day, July 15, 
 happened to be the great national fes- 
 tival of the Sicilians — that of St Ro- 
 salie — when, even in ordinary times, 
 all business is suspended, and the 
 whole inhabitants devote themselves 
 to festivity and joy. It was held on 
 this occasion with more than wonted 
 splendour and animation at Palermo, 
 the capital of the island. Early in the 
 morning the committees of the Carbo- 
 nari were in activity, the bands of 
 the revolutionists in motion ; cries of 
 *' Viva la Costituzione Spagnuola! — 
 Viva rindepenza!" were universal; 
 the inhabitants, even of an opposite 
 way of thinking, were compelled to 
 adopt cockades of the national colour 
 
 (yellow) with the Sicilian eagle ; and 
 a trifling incident having excited their 
 resentment against General Church, an 
 Englishman, who still retained the 
 command of the place, he was attacked, 
 and his house pillaged. General Na- 
 selli, who commanded the Neapolitan 
 troops in the island, in vain endea- 
 voured, by yielding to the movement, 
 to moderate its excesses. The popu- 
 lace, having once tasted of the plea- 
 sures of pillage, and become excited 
 by the passions of revolution, becam6 
 wholly ungovernable, and proceeded 
 to the most deplorable excesses. They 
 advanced in tumultuous bodies to the 
 three forts of La Sancta, Castellamare, 
 and Palermo Realo, which commanded 
 the city ; and as the troops, having 
 received no orders how to act, made 
 scarcely any resistance, the populace 
 made themselves masters of the forts, 
 and the whole arsenals they contained, 
 from which they armed themselves, 
 and immediately commenced an indis- 
 criminate pillage. 
 
 111. Alarmed at the consequences 
 of the movement they had in the first 
 instance encouraged, Naselli and the 
 nobles now endeavoured to restrain the 
 excesses of the populace. They ap- 
 pointed a junta of fifteen persons armed 
 with full powers to restore order ; and 
 then having rallied the troops, suc- 
 ce^eded, on the following day, in re- 
 gaining possession of the forts which 
 had been lost on the preceding. But 
 the revolutionists, now infuriated by 
 wine, and rendered desperate by the 
 loss of the forts, proceeded to the pri- 
 sons, which had been with difficulty 
 defended on the preceding day, broke 
 open the doors, burst through the bar- 
 riers, and, amidst frightful j^ells on 
 both sides, liberated eight hundred 
 galley-slaves, who instantly joined 
 their ranks. Encouraged by this great 
 reinforcement, they proceeded, amidst 
 revolutionary cries and shouts of 
 triumph, to assail the troops which 
 were concentrated on the Piazza del 
 Castello, to the number of seventeen 
 hundred. Assailed on all sides by a 
 highly-excited multitude twenty thou- 
 sand strong, armed with the weapons 
 they had won on the preceding day, 
 
1820.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 367 
 
 and led on by a fanatic monk named 
 Vagleia, the troops were soon broken, 
 and immediately a frightful massacre 
 ensued. Prince Catolica, who had, in 
 the first instance, declared in favour 
 of the cause of independence, but sub- 
 sequently united with the troops to 
 coerce the excesses of the people, was 
 inhumanly massacred, his head put 
 on a pike in the centre of the city, 
 and his four quarters exposed in four 
 of its principal streets. Prince Aci 
 and Colonel Sanzas, who had resisted 
 the seizure of the artillery in the forts, 
 shared the same fate ; and General 
 Naselli, who was besieged in the gov- 
 ernor's palace, with great difficulty 
 made his escape by a back way with 
 a hundred soldiers, and, reaching the 
 hai'bour, set sail in the utmost con- 
 sternation for Naples. Nearly the 
 whole remainder of the troops, fifteen 
 hundred in number, were put to death ; 
 all the Neapolitans in Palermo, to the 
 number of six thousand, Avere thrown 
 into prison ; a new junta, composed 
 of the most ardent revolutionists, was 
 appointed by the populace ; and dur- 
 ing the remainder of the day and fol- 
 lowing night the town was abandoned 
 to pillage, and all the horrors of a for- 
 tress taken by assault. 
 
 112. The first care of the new junta, 
 as is generally the case in such in- 
 stances, after the victory has been 
 gained, was to coerce the excesses of 
 the unruly allies by whom it had been 
 achieved. The galley-slaves were with 
 some difficulty persuaded to give up 
 their ai-ms, a general amnesty for all 
 offences was proclaimed, and they all 
 received a free pardon upon condition 
 of leaving the city ; the whole murders 
 and robberies of the preceding day 
 were hushed up, and their perpetra- 
 tors declared to have deserved well of 
 their country ; the most prominent 
 of them received golden medals ; the 
 monk Vagleia was declared a colonel 
 in the national army, and the Piazza 
 del Castello, where the troops had been 
 massacred, was directed to be called 
 " Piazza della Vittoria." More effi- 
 cient means were taken to assert the 
 national independence, and restore the 
 order which had been so fearfully dis- 
 
 turbed. A national guard was estab- 
 lished, and soon acquired in Palermo 
 a tolerable degree of efficiency ; circu- 
 lars were sent to the other towns in the 
 island, inviting them to join the pa- 
 triots in its capital, and a deputation 
 of eight persons despatched to Naples 
 to arrange the terms of an accommo- 
 dation, on the footing of the political 
 independence of Sicily. 
 
 113. But the republicans of Naples 
 were by no means inclined to these 
 sentiments ; and the revolutionists of 
 Sicily soon found, as those of Ireland 
 had done in the days of Cromwell, that 
 whatever changes the elevation of the 
 people to ];>ower may produce in the 
 measures of government, it makes none 
 in the ambition by which it is animated, 
 and that a democratic rule is even more 
 hard to shake off than a monarchical. 
 So far from being inclined to agree to 
 a separation of the two governments, 
 the popular leaders at Naples were de- 
 termined to uphold the union, and ani- 
 mated with the most intense desire to 
 take vengeance on the Sicilians for the 
 frightful atrocities with which the re- 
 volution had commenced. When the 
 deputation from Sicily approached, it 
 was only allowed to come to Procida, 
 an island in the Bay of Naj)les ; and 
 the first question asked was, whether 
 they recognised King Ferdinand, which 
 having been answered in the affirma- 
 tive, the negotiation commenced ; but 
 it soon broke off upon discovering that 
 the sine qua non of the Sicilian depu- 
 ties was a separate parliament and 
 constitution for themselves. "Repeal 
 of the Union " was their watchword, 
 which was answered in equally loud 
 terms from the Parthenopeian shores, 
 " Unity and Indivisibility of the Con- 
 stitution." So far from acquiescing 
 in the demand for a separation, the 
 Neapolitan government made the most 
 vigorous preparations for asserting their 
 supremacy by force, and reducing the 
 sanguinary and rebellious Sicilians to 
 entire subjection. 
 
 114. In the beginning of Septem- 
 ber, General Floridan Pepe, brother to 
 the generalissimo at Naples, landed at 
 Malazzo in Sicily, four leagues from 
 Palermo, at the head of four thou- 
 
868 
 
 EISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. VII. 
 
 sand men ; and though, he met with 
 some opposition, he easily overcame it, 
 and in a few days appeared before the 
 gates of the capital. Its inhabitants 
 were nearly reduced to their o\vn re- 
 sources, for the other boroughs in the 
 island, horror-struck, and tenified at 
 the frightful excesses of which Palermo 
 had been the theatre, himg back, and 
 had forwarded none of the required 
 contingents for the support of the 
 cause of separation in that city. The 
 guerillas which infested his flanks, 
 composed almost entirely of the libe- 
 rated galley-slaves, who dreaded the 
 reimposition of their fetters, having 
 been cleared away, the attack on the 
 forces of Palermo began in good ear- 
 nest on the 3d and 4th of September. 
 They at first attempted to keep the 
 field, but their raw levies proved no 
 match for the regular troops of Na- 
 ples. Defeated with serious loss in 
 several encounters, their forces were 
 soon shut up in Palermo; and the 
 principal towns in the island having 
 sent in their adhesion to General Pepe, 
 and the regular troops in the garrisons, 
 w^hich still held out for the royal cause, 
 Iiaving joined their forces to his, the 
 junta of Palermo became convinced 
 that the contest was hopeless, and 
 were disposed to lend an ear to an ac- 
 commodation. To facilitate and en- 
 force it, Pepe moved forward on the 
 25th September to the very gates of 
 the city. He then renewed his pro- 
 positions ; but the violent party in the 
 city had now regained the ascendancy, 
 and dispossessed their own junta ; the 
 flag of truce was fired on, and the peo- 
 ple seemed prepared for a desperate 
 resistance. But it was seeming only. 
 On the next day the Neapolitan forces 
 succeeded in penetrating into the city 
 by the roj^al park, and the Neapolitan 
 flotilla in the roads drew near, and pre- 
 pared to second Pepe by a general 
 bombardment. The most furious re- 
 publicans, now convinced that further 
 resistance was hopeless, and could end 
 only in the destruction of themselves 
 and their city, listened to terms of ac- 
 commodation. Pepe humanely acceded 
 to their offer of submission, and, to 
 save their city from the horrors of an 
 
 assault, withdrew his troops from the 
 posts they had won within its walls. 
 The populace, seeing the troops with- 
 draw, ascribed it to fear, and recom- 
 menced hostilities; but the retribu- 
 tion was immediate and terrible. On 
 the 27th the bombardment commenced, 
 and with the most dreadful eff"ect. The 
 town was soon on fire in several places, 
 and the infuriated mob, passing from 
 one extreme to another, ere long craved 
 peace in the most abject terms. A 
 capitulation was concluded on the 5th, 
 and General Pepe was put in posses- 
 sion of the forts. The Neapolitan 
 constitution was proclaimed, a new 
 junta named, and the Prince of Pa- 
 lermo appointed to its head. 
 
 115. Hitherto everything had suc- 
 ceeded to a wish with the Neapolitans, 
 but they soon found that great difii- 
 culties remained behind. The ques- 
 tion of separation was not yet decided ; 
 the second article of the capitulation 
 had pro\dded that that difiicult mat- 
 ter should be decided by a majority of 
 votes in the Sicilian parliament legal- 
 ly convoked. This article, as well it 
 might, was extremely ill received at 
 Naples ; the capitulation was annulled, 
 as having been entered into by General 
 Pepe without any authority to leave 
 the question of separation unsettled. 
 He was dismissed from his command, 
 which was conferred on General Col- 
 letta. He was soon reinforced by six 
 thousand troops from Calabria, with 
 the aid of which he reduced Palermo 
 to entire subjection, disarmed the in- 
 habitants, and imposed on the city a 
 heavy military contribution, which had 
 a surprising eff'ect in cooling their re- 
 volutionary ardour. Hostilities im- 
 mediately ceased through the Avhole 
 island, and the Sicilians soon found, to 
 their cost, that they had gained little 
 by their change of masters, and that 
 their revolutionary rulers at Naples 
 were more difficult to deal with than 
 their former feeble monarch had been. 
 
 116. By the Spanish Constitution, 
 now adopted as that of Naples, there 
 was to be one deputy for every thirty 
 thousand inhabitants, which gave 
 seventy-four deputies for Naples, and 
 twenty-four for Sicily ; the inhabitants 
 
1820.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 369 
 
 of the former being 5,052,000, of the 
 latter 1,681,000. The electors were 
 anxiously adjured in a proclamation 
 to choose wise and patriotic represen- 
 tatives — a vain recommendation in a 
 country recently convulsed by the pas- 
 sions and torn by the desires of a revo- 
 lution. The deputies were such as in 
 these circumstances usually acquire an 
 ascendancy — viulent democrats, village 
 attorneys, revolutionary leaders of the 
 army, a few professors and literary 
 men, and some renegade priests. The 
 report of the Minister of Foreign Af- 
 fairs announced that all the great 
 powers had refused to recognise the 
 revolutionary changes at Naples ; that 
 of the Minister of the Interior signal- 
 ised the numerous abuses which had 
 prevailed in the internal administra- 
 tion of the kingdom, and which it was 
 proposed to remedy, and recommended 
 the sale of a large part of the national 
 domains to meet the deficiencies of the 
 exchequer ; that of the Minister at 
 War, the measures which were in pro- 
 gress for providing for its external 
 defence. This consisted in a regular 
 army of 52,000 men, movable, na- 
 tional guards 219,000 strong, and an 
 immovable one of 400,000 men. But 
 these forces existed on paper only, 
 notwithstanding all the efforts of the 
 Carbonari ; the recruiting went on ex- 
 tremely slowly : disorder and corrup- 
 tion pervaded every branch of the pub- 
 lic administration ; and, distrustful of- 
 all the vaunted means of national de- 
 fence, all eyes Avere already turned to 
 the congress of the Allied powers at 
 Troppau, where it was evident the real 
 destiny of the revolution would be de- 
 termined. 
 
 117. The Roman States were too 
 near, and too closely connected with 
 the Neapolitan, not to participate in 
 their passions, and in some degree 
 share their destinies. Disturbances ac- 
 cordingly took place at an early period 
 in the pontifical dominions ; but they 
 began in a very peculiar class, whose 
 efforts for liberation proved of as little 
 value as their assistance was discredit- 
 able to the Liberal cause. On the 
 night of the 4th September a revolt 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 broke out in the great depot of galley- 
 slaves at Civita Vecchia, where sixteen 
 hundred convicts of the worst descrip- 
 tion were confined. At seven in the 
 evening a low murmur was heard in 
 the principal prison, and immediately 
 a general insurrection commenced. 
 The irons were broken, and by sheer 
 strength and the weight of numbers 
 the barriers were burst through, and 
 the infuriated multitude rushed with 
 frightful cries into the outer parts of 
 the enclosure. The troops arrived, 
 and the galley-slaves immediately in- 
 vited them to fraternise with them, 
 calling out *' Long live the Republic ! 
 Join with us, and to-morrow we shall 
 establish a republic in Civita Vecchia, 
 and all will be right. " But the troops 
 were not convinced that all would be 
 right with the aid of such allies ; they 
 did their duty : several volleys fired 
 at point-blank distance spread terror 
 among their ranks, and at length, at 
 seven next morning, the insurrection 
 was suppressed, though not without 
 considerable bloodshed. This outbreak 
 was connected with a much more con- 
 siderable conspiracy in Rome and 
 Beneventum, which, although sup- 
 pressed in the capital by the vigilance 
 of the police, succeeded in the latter 
 town, and for a time severed it from 
 the Ecclesiastical States. 
 
 118. Amore serious insurrection soon 
 after ensued in Piedmont, which, from 
 its close AHcinity to France, the long 
 service of its troops with the armies of 
 that power, and the martial spirit of 
 its inhabitants, has always been more 
 swift to share in the revolutionary 
 spirit, and more sturdy in maintaining 
 it, than any other of the Italian states. 
 Like Spain and Portugal, the desire 
 for free and representative institutions 
 had there come to animate the breasts 
 of the officers in the army, and nearly 
 the whole of the educated and intelli- 
 gent classes of the people. The Car- 
 bonari numbered not only the w^hole 
 of the ardent and enthusiastic, but by 
 far the greater part of the intelligence 
 and patriotism in the State. Unhap- 
 pily, their information and experience 
 were not equal to their vigour and 
 2 A 
 
370 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. VII. 
 
 spirit, and by at once embracing the 
 Spanish Constitution they entangled 
 themselves in aU the evils and diffi- 
 culties -with which that absurd and 
 perilous system was environed. On 
 the 11th January some young students 
 appeared at the theatre of Andennes, 
 in the district of Novarrais, wearing 
 the red cap of liberty, and by the vio- 
 lence of their conduct occasioned a 
 tumult, which was only suppressed 
 next day by four companies of the 
 guards from Turin, which were marched 
 from that capital under the command 
 of its governor. But though suppressed 
 on this occasion, the revolutionary 
 spirit was far from being extinct, and 
 it soon broke out under more serious 
 circumstances, and in a far more in- 
 fluential class. In the end of February, 
 on the representation of the Austrian 
 minister that they were engaged in a 
 conspiracy to chase the Imperialists 
 from Italy, several noblemen, leaders 
 of the Liberal cause, were arrested in 
 Piedmont, and conducted to the cita- 
 del of Fenestrelles. This was the sig- 
 nal for a general movement, which it 
 appears was embraced by the highest 
 officers in the army, and principal 
 nobles in the State, to whose conspir- 
 acy for the establishment of a consti- 
 tutional government the Prince of Ca- 
 rignan, the heir-apparent to the throne, 
 was no stranger. He at first engaged 
 to co-operate in their designs, but soon 
 after, despairing of success, he drew 
 back, and counselled the abandon- 
 ment, or at least postponement, of the 
 undertaking. But the conspu'ators 
 were too far advanced to recede, and 
 the advance of the Austrians towards 
 Naples convinced them that not a 
 moment was to be lost if they were 
 ever to strike a blow for the independ- 
 ence of Italy. Unless this movement 
 could be arrested, it was all over with 
 the revolutionary party in the south ; 
 and nothing seemed so likely to do this 
 as an insurrection in Piedmont. 
 
 119. On the morning of the 4th 
 March, symptoms of revolt appeared 
 in some regiments stationed in and 
 near Vercelli, but the conspirators 
 failed in their object then, from the 
 majority of the troops holding out for 
 
 the royal cause. But on the 10th the 
 constitution of Spain was openly pro- 
 claimed at Alessandria by Count Par- 
 ma and Colonel Regis, who permitted 
 such of the troops as were opposed to 
 the movement to return to their homes, 
 which a great number of them, includ- 
 ing nearly all the mountaineers from 
 Savoy, accordingly did. With the aid 
 of such as remained, however, and a 
 body of ardent students, the leaders 
 got possession of the citadel of that 
 important fortress, and immediately 
 hoisted the Italian tricolor flag — green, 
 red, and blue. No sooner was the 
 intelligence of this important success 
 received in Turin than the whole Car- 
 bonari and conspirators were in mo- 
 tion. Cries of "Viva il Re!" and 
 *' Viva la Costituzione ! " were heard 
 on all sides from a motley crowd of 
 soldiers and students who surrounded 
 the royal troops, who were not per- 
 mitted to act against them, and pro- 
 bably would not have done so if order- 
 ed. Emboldened by this inaction, and 
 hearing every hour of some fresh insur- 
 rection of the troops in the vicinitj'', 
 the conspirators, on the following day, 
 ventured on still more decisive mea- 
 sures, which proved entirely success- 
 ful. Captain Lesio, setting out early 
 from Turin, raised the regiment of 
 light-horse at Pignerol, Avho moved 
 towards the heights of Carmagnuola, 
 . shouting "Death to the Austrians!" 
 Their arrival at Turin, joined to the 
 alarming intelligence received of simi- 
 lar insurrections in other quarters, de- 
 cided the governor of the capital, the 
 Chevalier di Varas, to evacuate the 
 town with the few troops which still 
 adhered to the royal cause. This was 
 immediately done ; the citadel and 
 forts were taken possession of by the 
 Liberals, and the Spanish Constitu- 
 tion proclaimed amidst the combined 
 shouts of the military and people. 
 
 120. On receiving intelligence of 
 this alarming and successful insurrec- 
 tion, the king, who was at the chateau 
 of Monte-Calveri, in the neighbour- 
 hood, hastened to Turin, and a cabinet 
 council was hurriedly assembled to 
 consider what should be done in the 
 circumstances. At first it was intended 
 
1821.] 
 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 371 
 
 by the monarch to put himself at the 
 head of the guards and march upon 
 Alessandria, which was regarded as the 
 headquarters of the insurrection ; and 
 a proclamation was issued denying the 
 statements which had been spread 
 abroad that Austria had demanded the 
 disbanding of the Piedmontese troops 
 and the occupation of the fortresses. 
 But the accounts which rapidly arrived 
 from all quarters, of the general de- 
 fection of the troops, rendered this 
 a hopeless undertaking. The guards 
 themselves were not to be relied on. 
 Crowds, which there was no means of 
 dispersing, collected on all sides, ex- 
 claiming, "Viva la Costituzioue !" 
 The military sent against them joined 
 in the shouts, or remained passive 
 spectators of the tumult. In this ex- 
 tremity a fresh council was held of the 
 king's ministers, and it was there pro- 
 posed to proclaim the constitution of 
 France as a sort of mezzo -ter mine be- 
 tween monarchy and a republic. But 
 matters had gone too far to admit now 
 of such a compromise. While the 
 council was sitting in the palace, and 
 a vast crowd, with the military in 
 their front, iilled the great square ad- 
 jacent, three guns were heard from the 
 citadel, which announced that it had 
 fallen into the hands of the conspira- 
 tors ; and soon the tricolor flag, hoisted 
 on the ramparts, amidst loud cheers 
 from all parts of the city, announced 
 that the triumph of the insurgents was 
 complete, 
 
 121. Upon receiving this stunning 
 intelligence, the king despatched the 
 Prince of Carignan to the citadel to 
 ascertain the objects and demands of 
 the conspirators. He found an im- 
 mense crowd on the glacis, shouting 
 " Viva il Re — Viva la Costituzione di 
 Spagna!" and the troops in dense 
 masses on the ramparts responding to 
 the cries. The Prince Avas received by 
 the garrison with the honours of war, 
 and every demonstration of respect; 
 but the demand was universal for the 
 Spanish Constitution. ' ' Our hearts, " 
 said they, " are faithful to the king, 
 but we must extricate him from |iii> 
 fatal councils : war with Austria-, ?a\^' 
 the constitution of Spain — that is wWt 
 
 the situation of the country and the 
 people require." "With this answer the 
 prince returned to the palace, where a 
 long conference took place between the 
 princes of the royal family and the 
 cabinet. It was animated in the ex- 
 treme, and continued through the 
 whole night. The king was firm : re- 
 solved not to be unfaithful to his en- 
 gagements with his allies or the cause 
 of royalty, he took the resolution to 
 abdicate in favour of the next heir, 
 who was less implicated in the one, 
 and might feel less reluctant to forego 
 the rights of the other. This deter- 
 mination was immediately acted upon. 
 Early on the morning of the 13th, the 
 royal family, under a large escort, set 
 out from Turin for Nice, and a pro- 
 clamation was issued by the Prince of 
 Carignan, declaring that he had been 
 appointed regent of the realm. The 
 change of government was immediate- 
 ly notified to the foreign ministers, the 
 regent installed in full sovereignty, and 
 the constitution of Spain proclaimed 
 amidst universal acclamation, without 
 the vast majority knowing what they 
 had adopted or were shouting about. 
 
 122. Such was the Revolution of 
 1820, in the Spanish and Italian penin- 
 sulas, and which more or less extended 
 its influence over all Europe. Com- 
 mencing with military treason, it ended 
 with robbery, massacre, and the in- 
 surrection of galley-slaves. Nothing 
 durable or beneficial was to be expected 
 from such a commencement, " non tali 
 auxilio nee defensoribus istis. " It was 
 characterised, accordingly, throughout, 
 by impassioned conception and ephe- 
 meral existence : violent change, dis- 
 regard of former usage, inattention to 
 national character, oblivion of the gene- 
 ral national interests. Designed and 
 carried into execution by an active and 
 energetic, but limited and special class 
 of the people, it exhibited, in all the 
 countries Avhere it was established, the 
 A\ €11'- known r?rtuies of class legisla- 
 tion; and by the ^establiohment of class 
 ' representation of the very worst kind 
 — universal suffrage — it insured at no 
 Iistant/p£fi6cl ite oAvn jio'Airnf^ill,' It will 
 appear" in'thg sequel hojv sUjiden and 
 Vfolent th'e 'reaction* Was; ho\r quickly 
 
HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 [chap. VII. 
 
 the newly-raised fabric yielded to the 
 aroused indignation of mankind, and 
 how galling, and heavy, and lasting 
 were the chains of servitude which, 
 from the failure of this ill-judged at- 
 tempt at liberation, were imposed upon 
 the people. 
 
 123. In ti-uth, all revolutions which, 
 like that of Spain, and its imitations 
 in Portugal, Naples, Sicily, and Pied- 
 mont, are brought about by a single 
 and limited class of society, involve 
 in themselves the principles of their 
 own speedy destruction. They may be 
 propped up for a time by the aid of 
 foreign powers politically interested in 
 the establishment of such institutions ; 
 but even with such external aid they 
 cannot long endure ; without it, they 
 at once fall to the ground. The reason 
 is, that the constitution which they 
 establish — being founded on the prin- 
 ciple of opposition to all that has pre- 
 ceded it, the growth of centuries, and 
 adapted to the experienced wants of the 
 people — is soon found to be wholly un- 
 suited to the national disposition and 
 necessities; and having been brought 
 about by the efforts of a single class, 
 it is calculated only for its interests, 
 and proves destructive to those of all 
 the other classes. There was no need 
 of the bayonets of Austria or France to 
 overturn the revolutions of the two 
 peninsulas. Left to themselves, they 
 would speedily have perished from their 
 experienced unsuitableness to the cir- 
 cumstances of the countries. The only 
 revolutions which ever have or ever can 
 terminate in durable institutions, are 
 those which, brought about, like that 
 of Great Britain in 1688, by an un- 
 bearable tyranny which has for a time 
 united all classes for its overthrow, 
 
 are limited to the change requisite to 
 guard against the recurrence of that 
 tyranny, avoid the fatal evil of class 
 legislation, the invariable result of class 
 revolution, and make no further change 
 in the~^institutions or government of 
 the State, the gi'owth of centuries, and 
 the creation of the national wants, than 
 is necessary to secure their unimpaired 
 continuance. 
 
 124. "What, it is often asked, are the 
 military to do when called on by the 
 government to act against insurgents 
 demanding a change in the national 
 institutions ? Are they to imbrue their 
 hands in the blood of their fellow- 
 citizens, guilty of no other offence but 
 that of striving to obtain the first of 
 human blessings, that of civil liberty ? 
 The answer is, " Certainly," if they 
 would secure its acquisition for them- 
 selves and their cliildren. Freedom 
 has been often won by the gradual 
 pressure of pacific classes on the gov- 
 ernment ; it never yet was secured by 
 the violent insurrection of armed men. 
 To be durable, it must be gradually 
 established: its builders must be the 
 pacific citizens, not the armed soldiers : 
 it never yet was won by the sudden 
 revolt of the military. The only effect 
 of the success of such an insurrection is 
 an increase in the sti'engih and means 
 of oppression in the ruling power — the 
 substitution of the vigour of military 
 for the feebleness of monarchical, or 
 the infatuation of priestly government. 
 Riego and Pepe were the real murderers 
 of freedom in the Spanish and Italian 
 peninsulas, for they overturned the 
 national constitution to establish mi- 
 litary rule, and blasted the cause of 
 liberty by the excesses which came to 
 be committed in its name. 
 
 KN-D OF THE 5 TR3t VOLUME. 
 
 ^Rl>iTED BY Wl'Lt-rAM BLACKWOOD AXD SONS, EDINBURGH. 
 
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