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TORY UNION

OUR ONLV

SAFEGUARD AGAINST REVOLUTION.

TORY UNION

OUR ONLY

SAFEGUARD AGAINST REVOLUTION.

BY

ONE OF THE OLD SCHOOL.

LONDON:
PRINTED FOR JAMES CARPENTER AND SON,
14, OLD BOND STREET.
1830.

Charles Whittingham, Tooks Court, Chancery Lane.

TORY UNION
OUR ONLY
SAFEGUARD AGAINST REVOLUTION.

Some men live and learn, others learn only to
forget, and a third class never learn at all.
Under one or other of these denominations it is
easy to recognize all the various, and daily varying
parties which now divide our legislature.
To its members, collectively and individually,
the following observations are addressed, by one
who neither covets praise nor fears censure, and
who, as a calm, yet deeply interested, spectator of
the drama, professes to express opinions which its
actors are either too busy, or too prejudiced to
take much trouble in collecting. He utters the
sentiments of no particular class or profession of
men; he is no trader in religion, in politics, or
literature, through the medium of the press. He
owns no party, save that of the people of Eng
land ; no motive but the public good. He holds,
B

as a fundamental principle of social order, that
to support the king's government is the rule, to
oppose it the exception ; and, if any further pro
fession of faith be wanting, he will sum it up in
one word by declaring himself anti-revolutionary..
Such he believes the people of this country still
to be, although the spirit which roams abroad,
and which will take no rest, is growing yearly,
and daily, and hourly so much more influential
among all classes of society, that, without great
practical wisdom and good sense (which many
want) on the part of our peers and representatives,
as well as great energy and prudence in the coun
cils of our rulers, it requires no prophetic eye to
see that our institutions, and our privileged orders,
and our social system generally, will fall, ere long,
with a mighty crash upon the heads of us and of
our children.
We stand on the verge of a precipice, and
yet see no immediate danger, so blind is self-
delusion and obstinacy ; we hear that the fire
rages in every quarter, and we know that, if the
wind rise but a little higher, it may spread to our
own tenement ; and yet, like oriental fatalists, who
act at least on principle, not from sheer folly and
indolence — we smoke our pipes, and ask after the
fire as coolly as after the weather, over the more
than oriental luxuries of a club dinner. We have

heard a rich man ofthe east say, coolly shrugging
his shoulders, " that it was God's business to look
after the fire;" — but now, Englishmen, who can
war vrith the elements and render the very light
ning ©f heaven subservient to their preservation,
are seen to laugh and grin at every fresh explosion
of the elements of social discord, and quarrelling
about the past when present danger presses, leave
government to look after the fire, or cry out for
new ralers, instead of uniting heart and soul in
one common cause, against one common enemy.
When the first French Revolution broke out, it
seemed even more resistless in its course, and not
less overwhelming in its consequences, than that
&f 1830 appears to be in the eyes of cotemporary
democrats. Rapid as the storm within the tropics
and more terrific, because more universal in its in
fluences, it threatened at one time to tear up, root
and branch, every existing institution, to dismember
all established churches and all governments.
The state of French society upon which that storm
fell, afforded as little to deserve as to provoke
regret; it being our dearest boast, and our most
innate source of. national pride, that we excelled
the French in our exemption from those oppres
sions by which they had till then been burthened.
What wonder then that the sympathy which our
honest English feelings denied to the court party,
should have been kindled with generous enthusi-

asm for their popular, and, as we imagined,
patriotic adversaries.
From nation to nation, from family to family,
from breast to breast, the electric spark flew ; and
with our best, our holiest, it kindled also our most
dangerous feelings. Were we ourselves imper
fect? What human beings, what human institu
tions are not ? It gave us lingering yearnings after
excellence exactly similar to those felt by religious
enthusiasts. Real blessings we only valued as
types of imaginary ones. We were to march
like saints of old, from victory to victory. Nil
actum reputans dum quid superesset agendum.
Were any discontented and unhappy ? All such it
roused from morbid languor into life, and inspired
hope into thousands of hearts, from which, whether
by deserved or undeserved misfortune, it had been
driven ?
Lastly, were any, as some whom we might point
out now, fallen, yet aspiring : high in their ovra
vain-glorious opinion ; low in the estimation of
the wise and good ; cant on their tongue, mis
chief in their hands ; patriots by name, egotists
at heart; bullies among their equals and supe
riors ; cringing, crouching creatures of the mob ;
now doers of evil that good may come, now turn
ing good itself into evil with perverted ingenuity ;
deadly enemies, deadlier friends ; sowing seeds of
discord under the garb of benevolence, and letting

loose the waters of strife among those to whom
they preached up peace — wiser in their genera
tion than better men; but, like the serpent, wise
only to ensnare and make a prey of those who
droop their wings like coward birds beneath his
gaze. Proud possessors of the tree of knowledge
— eager distributors of its fruit, but sapping at its
root that tree of life without which knowledge
ceases to be a blessing, and may be made a curse.
Were any in those days to be found who an
swered to this character, they did then as they do
now, and as they always will do ; they trimmed
their boat to suit the times, and scudded with the
gale, no matter whence or where it blew, so they
were at the prow. Was the cry loud against real
grievances in France? They raised it still more
loudly against ideal ones in England, and brought
the tide of popular commotion home to our own
shores. The French of that day soon displayed, as all
men must who are suddenly let loose from the
restraints of ancient usage, moral opinion, and
political servitude, the extremest licentiousness of
liberty ; the fair hopes of well meaning enthu
siasts were blighted, and the hopes ofthe levellers —
the Tom Paines and the Carliles — were elevated
in proportion as the fears of all true statesmen were
excited by the moral pestilence.

Our Legislature was not then, as now, split into
a thousand petty divisions. Two great parties,
each headed by the greatest and most eloquent
of orators, took a lead in state affairs, and the
French Revolution instantly banished out of the
field almost every minor source of contention.
Mr. Pitt and his friends, at the head of the con
servative party, set all fine-spun theories on one
side ; they sacrificed even particular views of par
ticular questions, which, in more tranquil periods,
they might have wished to further, and, with
heart and soul, through good report, and throagk
bad report, they resolved to preserve our con
stitution. Burke, without exception, the noblest
spirit, the wisest head, and the most energetic
character that modern times have produced, fore
saw every danger to which we were exposed, and
anticipated every remedy. Pitt upheld the banner
of religion against impiety, of morals against licen
tiousness, of order against anarchy, of domestic
peace against civil war; and under the most Bri
tonlike of kings, the people rallied round the
throne. They did well.
But what did the Broughams of that day — the
Foxes — the Greys — the Erskines and Cokes — the
high-minded and patriotic Whigs ?
They did as all politicians do, who found their
conduct upon feeling instead of principle, and

who allow private ambition to dictate conduct
which the public good should alone inspire. They
sacrificed real honour to its shadow, and enlisted
on the. side of France.
While French revolutionists had at least this
excuse, that they fought in self-defence against
oppression ; our English demagogues would have
bartered that very liberty which they enjoyed for
licentiousness and anarchy.
At a moment of surprise, of overwrought gene
rosity, the Whigs, with perfidious oflaciousness,
induced us to warm in our bosoms the viper of
Pseudo liberalism. Stung to the quick, Burke
exposed their conduct to the country in its true
light, and withdrew himself in lofty disdain from
among their councils ; but the war of opinion, of
which they had sown the seeds, in order to reap
the harvest, once begun, could no longer be res
trained. Already on every side the enemy was
in the field. At home the match was lighted —
kings stood aghast, and whole nations trembled.
The British Government alone stood firm as on a
rock of ages.
At an hour when Whig statesmen assured
us all was lost, unless we struck our colours ;
when a Lansdowne would have fled in terror to
Bo- wood, a Goderich have temporised till it weis
too late even to fly, or a Brougham have treated

with the enemy ; a Pitt said, " To your tents,
O Israel." War he deprecated, but when forced
upon him by the very men who now affect to
deplore it, he threw himself into the breach.
It is not our wish here to indulge in general un
meaning declamation against an opposite party;
but, if any doubt us, they have only to read the
parliamentary history of the period, where they will
see that to decry the British constitution, to vilify
our apostolic church, to weaken our aristocracy,
to dishonor the king, to magnify apparent griev
ances, and to create imaginary ones, has ever been
their line of tactics.
Endless are the tricks and contrivances to which
they resorted ; pitiful their subterfuges, and des
perate their aims. When the reign of French
jacobinism had passed away, and given place to
military despotism, they truckled to Bonaparte as
to Mirabeau, and animated with malignant flat
tery the heroes of any country but their own.
During the whole of the continental war they
fought and strove as fiercely against its conti
nuance as our keenest national enemies could de
sire, and endeavoured to thwart the victorious
march of a Wellington in arms with the same fac
tious spirit which they now are raising up against
his councils.
When the absurd conduct of the Irish parlia-

9
hient, and the necessity for domestic union, as a
safeguard against foreign invasion became evident,
they did all that a vexatious party-influence could
do to frustrate the union with Ireland. Unable
to prevent it, they strove, with more success, to
weaken its benefits, by rendering it unpopular, and
tore open more widely than ever the wounds it was
meant to heal.
When the communication of the elective fran
chise to the forty shilling freeholders gave new
power to the people, and united their feelings as
well as interests more intimately than ever with
those of their representatives ; when, moreover,
the continuance of a war with foreign papists
gave extra ground for alarm to those who saw
danger in a divided allegiance ; the Whigs as
usual interposed a baneful meddling hand. The
grateful feelings of the Irish, for whatever good
had been done or intended them, were blunted
and destroyed. They were told that they were op
pressed until they believed it; and the threat of
their rebellion was not only hinted at, but painted
in such glowing colours, that the most lethargic of
men might have been roused.
Roman Catholic emancipation thus became, in
reality, a watchword for disaffection : a measure
which, in the hands of Mr. Pitt, would have been
judged of with cool dispassionate attention; the
c

10
peculiarities of which would have been weighed
in a balance with an even hand, and all exaggera
tions — all distortions of fact — all arguments of
passion rather than of reason, left out of the scale,
became in the hands of the Whigs a perpetual
source of discord. With one hand they wove the
web, with the other they cut that web asunder,
and the harder they pushed the king and govern
ment, the greater became the danger of concession,
the more unpopular the measure throughout the
country. All the evils which have since attended the dis
cussion and the settlement of the question may, in
our opinion, be mainly attributed to the same cause.
Its importance was less intrinsic, quoad Catholic
.and Protestants, than incidental, insomuch as it
bore upon the political state of Europe, of Ire
land, of parties in England, and of public opinion
generally. If a modest woman keep company with a har
lot, the presumption is against her purity, and if
she seek admission into your own domestic circle
the voice of the charmer, charm she never so
wisely, would operate more and more to her pre
judice the more and more loudly it was raised.
Evil communications corrupt good manners ;
and, even if the balance inclined, under all cir
cumstances, in her favour, the conduct of her

11
friend would force it down to kick the beam
against her. Thus did the Whigs prejudice the
Catholic cause in the minds of most sober, re
ligious-minded Tories; and thus, now it is carried,
does the leprosy of their principles keep at a
distance many honest but narrow-minded friends,
who, fearing it as revolutionary, because the
Whigs were revolutionists, and endeavoured to
render it such, are now themselves playing into
the hands of those very Whigs, by weakening a
government which is in truth their only safeguard
against revolution.
To those friends — friends at least of the same
cause at bottom — we shall address a few more
words hereafter; but we have not yet done with
their present allies, the Whigs, whose course we
will attempt to follow up, through windings which
would puzzle the most knowing fox hunter. No
wonder that Tory country gentlemen should be no
match for such wily adversaries. King-haters and
satirists of courts, as they have always endea
voured to appear among the people, no party ever
intrigued more frequently to conciliate royal favor
— none ever pandered more grossly to the frail
ties which it provoked and afterwards betrayed.
Awed from the presence of a high toned, moral
sovereign, they left no art untried to fascinate and
alienate from his councils the heir-apparent. His

12
endearing, his court-like qualities of mind and
person; his ready wit and brilliancy in conversa
tion ; his social and convivial feelings, were all
enlisted in their favor, and threw a dazzling veil
over their cause ; which drew to it, as honied
poison attracts flies, the youthful votaries of rank
and fashion.
Still did reason triumph over folly — the sove
reign prince rejected as statesmen' the pleasant
companions of his youth ; and they, in return,
never ceased during his life, nor even in death, to
satirize those points of character which, but for
them, might have been altogether lost sight of
by a generous people. It is not very generally
known, though interesting as an historical fact,
that when Mr. Fox came into power, shortly
before hig death, the then Prince of Wales, know
ing the weakness of his father's health, and the
sincerity of his feelings in regard to the Catholic
question, obtained a pledge from that statesman
not to agitate it, which pledge was redeemed with
true Whig consistency by Lord Grey, in the me
morable attempt made by him and his friends to
force it on the aged monarch This fact was referred
to, and dwelt upon in the strongest manner, by
the late king, at the interview which took place
between him and the bishops, on the occasion of
Mr. Canning's elevation to the premiership. He

13
urged it as a proof of the resistance which he had
himself given to that measure, and it was, doubt
less, one main cause of the bad opinion which he
afterwards entertained politically of the Whigs.
To them, indeed, as a body, he was bound by
no ties, save those of table companionship ; and
when Mr. Fox died, every particle of party spirit
was extinguished in his breast. We write this
advisedly, with a letter before us, written by him
to Earl Moira in 1807, wherein he speaks with
becoming indignation of the conduct of the Whigs
towards him, and alludes pointedly to their dis
regard of his feelings, in regard to the Catholic
question. We have not time or patience to enumerate all
the acts of disloyalty of which the same party j
were guilty, in all that relates to the unhappy
queen. As the drowning man catches at every
straw, so they seized upon every occasion wherein
a chance appeared left them of riding, upon their
king and country's ruin, into power. In her case
they succeeded so far in their object, by the in
strumentality of the press, that if one powerful
and energetic organ of opinion had not risen at
the hour of need, and cut their cause to the bone,
with the keen edge of truth, ridicule, and sarcasm,
it is impossible to say into what excesses a misled
people might have been hurried.
As in life, so in death, the character of George

14
the Fourth has been assailed by the shafts of
Whig malignity, and we envy as little the feel
ings of those who could tolerate, as of him who
could utter such remarks as newspaper reporters
imputed to Mr. Brougham at York. But what
shall we say of the Nestor, the gray-headed seer
of the party, Mr. Coke, who, within these few
days, is declared to have apostrophised in still
more blood-thirsty terms the memory of George
the Third. His very friends and supporters looked
upon him with disgust, and instead of applause,
" He hears
On all sides, from innumerable tongues,
A dismal universal hiss, the sound
Of public scorn."
But if men who knew that revered monarch by
name alone expressed themselves in this strong
manner, what must be the feelings of Him, whose
proudest boast it is to honor his memory by fol
lowing his example, and who, with the reverence
of a son for a parent, has always entertained to
wards him the partial fondness which identity of
character inspires.
Now, in citing this instance, however memora
ble, of Mr. Coke, we might allow for the weakness
of old age, did we not know that of Mr. Percival's
death he spoke in corresponding terms of exultation
at a public dinner given about that period, so much

1.5
so that one who had till then been a warm elec
tioneering friend, became ever after as warm an
adversary. Yet, after all, this same Mr. Coke is
acknowledged by Whigs themselves to be a good
specimen of their party, and we would be loth to
speak of him with personal disrespect. He does
no more than express unguardedly and indis
creetly, like Mr. Brougham, the spirit of the
party, the rage of disappointed ambition, for the /
loss of the peerage (Leicester was, we believe, the ¦
title he coveted), which George the Third mainly
occasioned, and which accounts for some extra heat,
now that he has a son and heir.
There yet lives another illustrious member of
the royal family whose whole life has been the
subject of Whig slander and Whig hate, and
against whom, although never able ¦ to prove the
shadow of a real charge, they have never ceased
to disseminate the basest calumnies.
The public mind has in consequence been poi
soned, and another brother, whose unpopular points
of character are conspicuous without the redeeming
virtues of loyalty, protestantism, energy and strength \
of mind, which are worthy of a Tory prince, is ;
praised up to the skies; his faults extenuated,
and his name invested with all the empty honours
of Whiggism. Why this distinction — why this
adul-ation on the one side — this rancorous hostility

16
on the other ? Not for any private reasons — not on
any moral grounds ; but as the pure effect of party
feeling. The Prince who will condescend to aid and
abet all their machinations, is naturally applauded ;
but He who, in Percival's time, dared honestly ex
pose and frustrate them ; and who, upon high con
stitutional motives, really injured their cause as
place-hunters ; he is indeed their enemy. Him they
have hated to the death ; and now, when an unfor
tunate estrangement exists between him and those
whose political principles are in the main his own ;
when past differences, beyond which truly great
minds ought and, we trust, ivill soar, are unhappily
allowed to mar that future good, which Tory union
can alone produce ; when the question is no longer
between men and men, or even between Catholics
and Protestants, but between Constitutionalists
and Revolutionists, how, we ask, would that royal
personage be affected by Whig triumph, by the
admission of his deadliest enemies to power ?
Would His political importance and influence be
increased? Would the Church and State prin
ciples, for which he so long fought, be thereby pro
moted ? No — they would rather be annihilated.
Having thus pointed out the danger of Whig
contact to Princes, and the suspicion with which
their interference ought to be regarded by all to
whom public character and reputation are dear,

17
We proceed to track their attempted march to
power, upon what is called, the popular interest.
Their open avowal and maintenance of Jaco
binical principles, at the time of the French revolu
tion, afforded them no assistance. It exposed only
their bad judgment ; and force being met by force,
it served but to prove, as Burke asserted, that we
were at bottom a contented people. " We feared
God — we looked up with awe to kings, with affec
tion to parliaments, with duty to magistrates, with
reverence to priests, and with respect to nobility."
When, therefore, the spirit of the nation, being-
tortured as it were into action, shook off, like dew-
drops from the lion's mane, all the false principles
which party warfare had thrown upon its surface.
The mischief recoiled upon the Whigs themselves,
who, after every reaction of popular feeling, sunk
proportionably low in public estimation. Every
fresh defeat added to their shame ; and even the
Hunts and Cobbetts, who glory in mischief, and
whom they once made partners of their warfare,
would look upon their own popularity with the
very mob as endangered, were they not to draw a
broad line of distinction between their own cause
and that of their treacherous associates.
The Utilitarians, and others of the new liberal
school, do the same. They desire change as a
good per se; the Whigs, they know, promote it

18
only as a ladder to their ambition ; and the Times
Newspaper itself, once the favourite organ of their
sentiments, has not only discarded them, but in
dulges in gibes and jeers at their expense.
Their history, as a party, holds out a useful les
son ; would that it could operate as a- solemn
warning to those statesmen, who allow private ani
mosity to usurp the place of public principle, and
who, with rank and talent, and opinions even
worthy of a better fate (for Whigs in power are
Aristocrats), allow a factious spirit of opposition
to all government. Once entered among the ranks
of Levellers and Democrats, they are either hurried
by the vortex from excess to excess, until all
government is put an end to, or they live, like
Earl Grey, to recant in age the heresies of youth,
and stand up when the arm has lost its nerve,
the mind its energy, to defend an order whose
power, through life, they have done their best to
nullify. We venerate wisdom, which never comes
too late, even at the eleventh hour, and now that
he has won the hatred of Democrats, by avowing
Aristocratic principles, we hope he will prove his
sincerity, by doing, at least, as much to deserve
future praise, as he has done in times past to call
down censure on his head.
To Jacobinism succeeded Liberalism, an off
spring worthy of its parent, and more dangerous

19
because more specious — more successful because
more tempting to outward view.
The downfall of popular tyranny abroad was
said to have been caused by popular ignorance,
and our resistance to the baneful influences of
democracy was produced by a cloud on our under
standings. Our love of an Established Church
was the delusion of priestcraft ; our loyalty an old
fashioned prejudice; our respect for rank a childish
weakness. Such ignorance must, therefore, be
instructed, such a cloud of darkness dispelled,
such prejudices discarded, such weakness of mind
strengthened. We must be rendered worthy of
our high calling, to enjoy the blessings of the
future by learning to despise the past ; and to
renounce certain present good for the sake of a
still better state of things hereafter.
All men are dissatisfied, and Englishmen are
grujmblers par excellence. Their climate renders it
their birthright. To aggravate discontent, through
the instrumentality of the press, an engine which
Tories and Tory Governments neglect as perse
veringly as their enemies make use of it, is never
a difficult task. The Whig press has done its
utmost to gratify this our national appetite. Si
lently but steadily they have worked to reform
our national character ; they have held out to us
new lights, and we have followed them ; whither
they will ultimately lead no one, not the wisest

20
among us, can undertake to certify. They have
diffused enough knowledge to make men dan
gerous, too little to make them wise. They have
ostensibly advanced the cause of all religions,
except that which is established in these realms,
and they have cooperated with religious enthu- \
siasts in every measure whose tendency was anti- ;
episcopal. Thus, by dividing public opinion,
wherever its current had set strong in favour of
the Tory cause, and by uniting every opposite
current in one overwhelming stream against it, they
have brought about a Revolution, of which the
worst feature is, that its consequences elude general
observation. Under a thousand forms and modifications,
among all ranks and professions which they influ
ence, one common maxim is discernible, divide et
hnpera ; one common principle of action — change ]
— perpetual change. '
The unlettered peasant, who learnt his duty
from his village pastor, and looked up with reve
rence to his landlord ; who worked cheerfully six
days in the seven, and died, as he lived, happy,
because contented in that station of life in which
God placed him, is now converted into a fine gen
tleman, who thinks he knows as much as the squire,
parson, and village schoolmaster put together.
Such are many — enough in every parish to create
iscussion and discord, and to weaken the influence

21
of the higher orders upon their enlightened under
standings. That all the mischief intended has not
arisen, we owe, not to the tender mercies of our
Liberals, but to the counteracting benefits of a
National Church, and schools in conjunction with
it, which, under the fostering hand of a Tory
aristocracy, have been multiplied throughout the
country. The middle classes, being more susceptible,
have been more strikingly led astray by these false
prophets in sheep's clothing. Their discontent
has been excited by appeals to their pride and
ambition, and they have been induced to look
upon their interests as distinct from those of an
order of life above them. It is not the govern
ment, but the system of government which they
are told to reprobate ; not the ministers, but the
boroughmongers ; not the official servants of the
crown, but its hereditary councillors ; nor the
clergy, whom daily intercourse may have endeared
to them, but the tithe system, upon which, as they
well know, stands our church establishment. Not
the curate, whom they see daily, and know to be
worthy of his hire, but the bishop, whom they
seldom or never see, and whose station links the
church with the state in a manner which they can
neither estimate nor comprehend. By exposing
every weak point in the aristocratical part of our

22
institutions, as studiously as they conceal every
excellence which adorns them — every blessing
which experience proves to result from them, they
have done, and are still doing, all they can do to
pervert the minds of the middle classes. In this
good work they are abetted by many needy younger
brothers. Lord Nugents or Lord John Russells,
and also, to their shame be it spoken, by some
heads of powerful families, who allow feelings
of personal pique or anger against Ministers to
outweigh their sense of danger from the coun
tenance they give to such auxiliaries.
To pursue one line of party politics, and remain
Whigs to the end of time, because their fathers
were Whigs, is also a creed — a point of honour with
some noble families; and, while the old are thus
restrained by hereditary prejudice from supporting
government, the young are led away by those
specious titles of " noble patriot," and " superior
spirit," and " enlightened advocate of liberal opi
nions," which induce a Morpeth to follow in the
train of Brougham, and swell his triumph over
the landed gentry of the country.
The Church itself now comes under considera
tion, and here we may detect the same evil agency
at workr-^the same spirit of division. With more
zeal for the cause of religion generally than has,
perhaps, existed since the Reformation, and with

23
more acknowledged excellence among the ordained
ministers of God, than at any former period : with
a bench of Bishops, peculiarly distinguished for
their learning, their piety, and their earnestness in
the good cause — how comes it that the Church
establishment is less secure ? how comes it that a
churchman is less influential as such, particularly
if he stands up boldly for his order, than he ever
was among all ranks and classes? Simply be-j,
cause our church, like our aristocracy, is divided ,
against itself, and the levelling spirit of Puritan
ism is sapping its foundation. That spirit has
been most adroitly seized upon by Brougham,
and the selfsame individual who founded a London
University, upon the avowed basis of infidelity;
whom the infidel loves, and the hater of priests
points out as our greatest benefactor, is now elected
representative of Yorkshire; not by the landed
interest — not by the Whigs — not by the people at
large, upon general principles, but by the religious,
serious, church-going part of the community. He
is chosen as a providential instrument to abolish
slavery; that is to revolutionise our colonies, as
the Amis des Noirs revolutionised St. Domingo ;
and, whilst on the one hand, our religious enthusiasts
have no worldly comforts to put in jeopardy, by
the sacrifice demanded in God's name of their
neighbour's goods ; so, on the other, they look

24
upon such an event as sanctifying all the means
whicL they may employ for its consummation.
No matter, therefore, what Brougham's charac
ter, no matter what his principles may be — He has
sworn to be theirs, and they will be His to the end
of time ; that is, so long as their support as a
party advances his ulterior political views ; but
the instant they rebel or differ in opinion, he will
kick them down with as much contempt as Crom
well, in his day, did the Presbyterians.
Thus by mixing up a fierce puritanical spirit
with purely political questions, worldly feelings
and passions usurp the place of Christian charity,
and good men being made to differ in opinion,
the bad exult over their differences, until another
act in the revolutionary drama closes to our dis
advantage. Let us now turn aside from the consideration
of that part of Whig warfare which consists in
the diffusion of what are called liberal principles
among the people, to their political history, and
to the agency of the same weapons among our
rulers. The death of Lord Castlereagh gave an
opening for that insidious policy on their part,
which has inflicted mortal injury on Toryism.
In Mr. Canning they found a statesman, who,
like many of their own school, possessed more
genius than judgment, and who allowed his vanity

2.5
to get the better of his good sense, whenever his
own personal feelings of ambition were excited.
Him they caressed, upon him they fawned ;
and having so long smarted beneath the lash of
his ready wit, they now tried, by flattering the
weak parts of his character, to neutralize the good
which might result from his other statesman-like
qualities. The official correspondence of Mr. Canning,
and the general tenor of his public life, prove that
his principles were in the main favorable to our
constitution as now established, and to the cause
of order and good government in other countries.
In office and in the cabinet he was neither de
mocrat nor revolutionist, and against parliamentary
reform he had ever raised his voice ; but the
Whigs, who chose to render him their idol, chose
also to dress him in their own colours, and
when those colours appeared popular, when he
beheld them blazoned abroad by the press, and
floating as it were in triumph upon the surface
of society, he had not courage to disclaim such
agreeable incense, and the deeper he drank the
draught of flattery, the pleasanter it seemed.
Those who will take the trouble to compare
Canning's speeches, both in and out of Parlia
ment, from the date of Loi*d Castlereagh's death

26
to his own premiership, may perceive the progress-
of this moral intoxication; and as the growing
prostration of hig old Tory opinions to the cant of
liberalism soon lost him the confidence of one party,
he was urged by his necessities, not less than by
his vanity, to throw himself more completely than
ever into the arms of the other : Hence the ex
pedition to Portugal ; hence his famous revo
lutionary harangue on that occasion ; hence his
increasing violence and inconsistency upon de
bating the Catholic question ; hence his vain
glorious speech on the recognition of the South
American States, which laid him open to the,
biting sarcasm of his personal enemy. Lord Grey.
But the more he followed up this dangerous
course, the more steadily did the Duke of Wel
lington and Peel pursue the even tenor of their way,
and founded a name, not as charlatan orators, but
as statesmen ; not as weathercocks of popular opi
nion, but, like Burke, as pillars of the state.
Abroad there prevails the best possible under
standings between them and other ruling powers.
They are not, it is true, bespattered by the filthy
flattery of all the hot-headed enthusiasts and demo
cratic vagabonds of Europe. They neither give
nor receive incense frora the Carbonari of Italy, the
IHuminati of Germany, the De Potters of Belgium,

27
or the blood ^j^«>*fj/ clubbists of modern Paris,^ but
in every established government under the sun,
A Gadib'us uSque remotam,
Gangem ac Euphratem,
their administration is an object of respect, of
envy, and of fear.
The evil effects of Mr. Canning's interference
in the affairs of Portugal and Greece have been
remedied as well as circumstances would permit,
and the war which his continental policy must
ere long have provoked, had it continued, is hap
pily averted. With the King of the French,
Louis Philippe, we have established the most
friendly relations, and, whilst the misfortunes
which have befallen France, and vvhich still
disturb her tranquillity, endear more .closely than
ever to us our own more deeply-rooted institutions,
we are nevertheless too generous not to desire,
would that we could expect, the consolidation of
her new Government, too sincerely anxious for peace
not to avoid, if possible, all occasion for v\^ar. ^
At home our harvest has been good; our ma^
nufacturers are by their employment, giving the
* The spirit excited at this instant by tFie demagogues in
Paris, amoiig the populace, against the unforliunate- Pcifignac,
may wellwarrant our use of this epithet — '. ' ,
" The bloodhound will have its prey."

28
lie to, last year's croakers; and while the sources
of our national wealth are recovering from partial
depression, it is notorious that the national bur
dens have been greatly alleviated. So far, there
fore, as actual circumstances afford no. legitimate!
subject for discontent, we may feel less uneasy
than we should have done had the spirit of revo
lution broken out last year ; but when the present
times generally are contrasted with those which
have preceded them, we see much to fear, much
to hate, much to deplore, much to guard against,
much to require vigilance and energy in our rulers,
much to render their support an imperious duty,
both in and out of parliament.
That Brougham should already have sounded
the tocsin of war, does not surprise us ; and the
sword once drawn, we trust our leaders will throw
away the scabbard. We always thought his em
braces more mischievous than his blows, and his
friendship more deadly than his hatred ; he stands,
however, on vantage ground, undoubtedly, com
pared with former periods. The manufacturing
population, our most inflamable and dangerous
class of citizens, has increased in physical and
moral strength, a,nd for one bible or good work
they read one hundred bad ones, which circulate
cheap, or* are distributed gratis, by revolutionary
societies. Our agricultural population is less pre-

29
ponderant, and its character less orderly, less
worthy to be depended upon if a struggle com
mence, than it was formerly. An extensive and
deeply rooted spirit of disaffection exists in every
part of the country, which recent events upon the
continent have strengthened but not engendered.
The examples of successful rebellion, the de
thronement of kings, the triumph of burghers over
regular troops, the growth of a mutinous spirit
among soldiers and among sailors, all these are
signs which cannot be mistaken, either by those
who desire, or those who dread a revolution.
With the mob they have already been made use of
as an incentive to mischief in Ireland, let them
operate as a warning to those who would avert it in
this country.
If then the new French revolution, now in its^
first stage only, find us less prepared to resist its
influences, and better disposed to understand its
merits, as our liberals believe, than we were in the
days of Pitt — if foreign war cannot again be had
recourse to as a succedaneum to domestic strife —
if wealth and luxury have impaired our national
character — if a long peace and a redundant^ popu
lation have multiplied tenfold the materials of dis
cord — if the press becomes daily more influential
and more factious — if the House of Commons be
more independent of the influence of the crown.

30
and less efficient for purposes of government — if
many landmarks which were once salutary hiave
been removed— and if with less inclination to ^ee
or resist it, more future mischief colours the per-
spection than fools dream of in their philosophy^ —
If divisions have thinned our ranks alre?idy, and
if such divisions may inVariably be traced to the
treacherous manoeuvres of common enemies—if
the lower and middling classes have increased in
numbers,^ in wealth, in knowledge, aud in power —
if the higher orders have become more luxurious,
more enervated, ahd more openly profligate in
their social character — if puritanical enthusiasm
be gaining ground, not among dissenters and lay
men only, but in the bosom of the church itself — ;
if a bond of union exist by means of societies,
semi-religious, semi-political among men, who,
however they may differ as to means, all agree in
one grand object — Reform— if party divisions in
the legislature tend to weaken the strong arm, of
the ministry, and party influences abroad, all anti-.
aristocratic, circumscribe the protecting power,
which they have hitherto exercised in favour of
aristocracy — if rigid economy have iinpaired its
means of encouraging friends and supporters, and:
throw it, necessarily, more and more upon popular
opinion for support— if we say a combination of;
causes like these to which the current of democratic

31
feeling abroad has given a new in^petus, afford
just ground for alarm — Who, we ask, ought to be
the alarmists ? whose interests are affected ? whose
influence is weakened, whose future existence as a
body is in reality threatened ?
Are the ministers of the day demanded as a
sacrifice ? or even if, as a first libation, their ruin
were effected, can any one in his senses imagine
t-hat their retirement would bring into office any
party except that of Whigs, liberals, and demo
crats? From such rulers we pray that Heaven
may defend our country, at least, in this our time ;
but hearing we should not hear, and seeing we
should not understand, unless we acknowledged
that the course recently pursued by a certain party
has done more to weaken their hold upon the
country, to diminish their preponderance in the
state as legislators, and to impair that part of our
social fabric which they constitute than twenty
Catholic Questions, if carried ever so unwisely
or unconstitutionally Could have done.
We assert this more in sorrow than in anger ;
and having ourselves shared many of their feel-
iirgs, we cannot wonder at them although we de
precate their bitterness. If sorrow itself, as a
passion, be dangerous when carried to excess,
how much more so anger and resentment? But

32
setting aside morals, we would reason with them
on the ground of policy and expediency.
They know they cannot as a party succeed in
becoming rulers to the exclusion of Wellington and
Peel. Brougham knows it also, and therefore he en
courages their hostility; he cheers them to the
conflict, against whom, against his enemies, their
best and otAj friends. Wide as the poles asunder
are the principles entertained" by him and them,
and yet he would enlist their services in the field ;
for what ? to strengthen their order ? to augment
their boroughs, to widen their dominion? Say
rather, to build his strength upon their weakness;
to mock their inconsistency and folly in preferring
foes to friends, and to point with the finger of
scorn, in some Scotch organ of democracy, to the
blessed time when " Blenheim and when Stoke
may be known only by name, as spots ubi Troja
fuit."* In the name then of all that is holy and just
and of good report.
In the name of our church, through whose in
strumentality the fountains of Christian life have
been so interwoven vvith the fountains of wealth,
* We copy the identical expression used in a late number of
the Edinburgh Review.

3;]
of knowledge, of power, of government, and ofl
social order, as to render its aristocratic foundation '
the bulwark of King and people.
In the name of a monarch, whose very prejudices,
if he have any, and prejudices may be honorable
even now, are truly English.
In the name of that Order, which is still venera
ble in the eyes of some, and which may still con
tinue powerful if it fall not by its own parricidal
hand, the victim of its own infatuation.
In the name of that gentry and commonalty of
the land, whose true interests are identified with
those of every other order in the state, and who
must give to it support in order to secure protec
tion. In the name of those common liberties which are
established, not upon the will of a fluctuating po
pular assembly, not by the sword of a burgher
guard, not upon the scroll of a Jeremy Bentham,
but upon the ancient institutions of our country.
In the name of that country we call upon all her
- children to unite and rally round the government.
In times like these he who is not with us is
against us ; and if there be any, who in spite of
every warning, in defiance of reason, in the teeth
of their own experience of his character, should
^, swell the ranks of Mr. Brougham ; if the spirit of
faction, which is Whiggism, should be allowed to

34
fan, in the walls of parliament, the spirit which
rages without ; if revolution abroad be made the
signal of dissension at home, then, indeed, may
England say. Farewell! a long farewell to all her
greatness. With enemies united, and friends at variance,
what state can long exist !
The crisis is urgent— time presses. Let us not
bend, but soar above the storm, and our constitu
tion may yet survive a beacon to the political
wanderer, when Utopian republics and paper con
stitutions are consigned with their founders to
oblivion.

FINIS.

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