SECRET HISTORY, &c. &c. (continued 3)

While these unsuccessful attempts were making to obtain a public inquiry into the cause of the Princess Charlotte's death, the well-paid court-minions were busily employed in calumniating the characters of every person engaged in so laudable an undertaking. The most unfounded reports were industriously circulated to wound their good names, while reasons, the farthest from the truth, were injuriously [131]assigned to blacken their motives. Yet, if we take into account the wickedness and voluptuousness of the court at this period, as well as the imbecility and arrogancy of the king's ministers, Surprise will naturally give way to Disgust, and Anger wonder at Toleration. The Junius that exposed and animadverted upon the ministerial delinquencies of a Bedford and a Grafton, a Sandwich and a Barrington, neither knew, nor could possibly imagine, the incomparably bolder task of doing justice to the public and private turpitude of a Liverpool and a Sidmouth, a Bathurst and a Canning, a Wellington and a Bexley, an Eldon and a Melville! To paint the characters of these men in their true colours would, indeed, be a difficult task. Our darkest tints and our deepest shades would give but a faint outline of the blackness of the originals. When we look back upon the accumulated burthens, the ills upon property and patience which they inflicted, what an ocean of insults and what a wild waste of oppressions do we behold! The three grand pillars of the state in its purity, and the people in their freedom, were nearly demolished. Magna Charta, the Bill of Rights, and the Family Compact, were scrolls mouldering on the shelves of these ministers, and ready to be swept out of their several departments, together with the copies of their oaths "to advise their royal master according to the dictates of their consciences,"—consciences, the only proof of the existence of which was given in their constant violation. If it be urged, that Lord Sidmouth, who [132]was the home-secretary at the death of the Princess Charlotte, was not in office at the time of Lord Tullamore's interview with the premier, we can only say, his power to do harm was as great as if he had been, if not greater, and that he took especial care to exert himself strenuously, that no "inquiry" about the Princess Charlotte should be instituted.

The premier, at this eventful period, was eager to engage the assistance of all his Tory friends, whether in or out of office, to enable him to bolster up his own misrule. The ancient author who correctly observed, that "there are vices of MEN and vices of TIMES," would have improved, as well as have enlarged, his maxim by adding, that "bad times are made by bad men." Of the truth, that "bad rulers too often make a mean people," the ministerial subjugation of nations has afforded innumerable evidences. But, with science and the manual arts, the knowledge of the best means of banishing liberty and liberal sentiments had now wonderfully advanced. The proficiency in despotism to which the Earl of Liverpool and his junto had attained certainly entitled them to take precedence of any anterior ministry. These men, throughout their whole conduct, from the highest down to the humblest of their misdeeds,—whether they betrayed the king who received their services, or the people who paid their salaries,—whether they dishonoured the crown by insulting a virtuous queen, or injured the country by screening public plunderers and private murderers,—whether they outraged justice by [133]acquitting the guilty and convicting the innocent,—were ever true to themselves. With all their arts, however, they could not destroy the SPIRIT of our free constitution; for that will ever remain immoveably fixed in the British bosom. The flame whose rays shot hence across the Atlantic can never be wholly extinguished. The sparks with which England herself animated the hearts of her regenerated colonists, warmly cherished by every American, will never cease to feed the parent fire. Lord Liverpool might have assisted to re-burthen France with the hated Bourbons, and other parts of the Continent with their legitimate despots; but this could only last for a time. The fire of liberty was but smothered for a season, as after events have sufficiently attested.

It will assuredly be matter of great surprise to posterity, how men of such circumscribed talents as were to be found in the cabinet of the Earl of Liverpool should find it possible to effect so much mischief. But Fortune delights in maintaining a sort of rivalship with Wisdom, and piques herself on her power to favour fools as well as knaves. These beings, however, were indebted to various aids for their long and too successful career; yet their principal dependance rested on the supineness of the people. The generous forbearance of Englishmen unhappily cherished the power which their patriotic vengeance should have destroyed. They were looking for gratuitous justice and liberality, instead of deserving relief by the ardour and nobleness of their [134]own exertions. Had Britons but borne in mind that "zeal, without action, is nothing worth," their condition had been very different to what it was at the period of Lord Tullamore's praiseworthy attempts to obtain an inquiry into one of the blackest crimes recorded in our annals; for Thought is the projector, and Faith the encourager, of all our views and wishes; though it is only Action that can render them effectual and profitable.

At the period of Lord Tullamore's interviews with the premier, the Marchioness of Conyngham held an entire and very injurious sway over the actions of our voluptuous monarch; her will soon became an absolute law, and, to supply means for this lady's insatiable wishes, the nation was burthened beyond all honourable limits. Yet, strange to say, one of her ladyship's sons, Lord Mountcharles, professed himself most anxious to be entrusted with the previously-named "INQUIRY." His lordship was, consequently, allowed to undertake that the matter should be investigated; but no sooner had the marchioness' son obtained an interview with George the Fourth, than he hypocritically said, "The inquiry into the death of the Princess Charlotte is all useless. You may rely upon it, the idea has originated in some ungenerous feeling towards his majesty." But, in this particular, my Lord Mountcharles acted dishonourably to the trust reposed in him. From undoubted authority, WE KNOW that George the Fourth received Lord Mountcharles into his friendship to prevent the further elucidation of [135]this matter,—at least, as far as his lordship was concerned. Another of the professed friends of justice, also, who was known to have been a witness upon this business, was speedily afterwards enlisted under the "royal banner," and, though previously poor and in "holy orders," soon found abundant means to play for no trivial sums in St. James'. But his principles may be more correctly ascertained by the fact that, after receiving the most generous services from his friends, he was mean enough to abscond from his bail, when fifty pounds was offered for his apprehension. Such was the Reverend Joseph B——, whose apostacy in this common cause fixes upon his name eternal discredit. Yet, notwithstanding his dissolute habits, this clergyman has very frequently occupied a seat at the table of Lord Teynham, and was in the habit of receiving considerable attentions from many of the lordlings in power. If his word might be deemed worthy of credit, he was no stranger to the friendship of his royal highness the Duke of Sussex, and other branches of the royal family. But of one point, we are well assured, that he who was mean enough to desert a post of duty, though it might be a post of danger, to revel in ease and luxury, was, at least, undeserving the notice of any honourable man. However strange it may appear, this divine (so called) was most unceasing in his endeavours to rouse the country to a due sense of the impositions forced upon it, declaring all consequent sufferings would be "light as dust in the balance," compared to the tortures of [136]a guilty and harassed conscience. Thus, under the mask of religion and patriotism, did this faithless character hide his real sentiments and intentions, and while professing to serve the cause of liberty, he was in reality the aider and abettor of tyrants,—dishonourable in his engagements, and a disgrace to his order. We may pity and even forgive his want of honour to his friends; but the subject from which he shrunk was of such vast national importance, that his desertion of the cause of justice and his dereliction from the path of duty in this matter must always be considered as unpardonable offences.

Such vacillating conduct, however, we are sorry to record, was not confined to the two gentlemen just mentioned. Many, whose prospects of aggrandizement appeared upon the wane, exhibited an anxiety to ascertain the probable result of this inquiry. Amongst this number, was a fashionable fortune-hunter, who boasted of being the illegitimate son of a royal duke,—the sudden and unexpected death of whom, it was currently reported, had left this unfortunate offspring totally unprovided for. Added to a tolerably honest appearance and pleasant address, this gentleman possessed considerable talent, which he could exemplify in farce, comedy, or tragedy, as the circumstances might require. In the words of Lord Byron, "he had ten thousand names, and twice as many attributes." He also professed himself the uncompromising enemy of oppressors, and as being ever ready to [137]hazard his life in bringing the murderers of the Princess Charlotte to their merited punishment. But exteriors are too frequently deceptive, and this self-styled patriot was ultimately proved unworthy of the notice of any respectable person. Under false pretences, he found means to reach "the board of hospitality," fed upon the ample provision, and then, like the reptile of eastern climes, stung the benevolent hand that had furnished the sources for his enjoyment, by an attempt to defame one of the proudest and most noble characters our country can boast!

Would that we had no more instances of treachery to offer; but too many others might be given of persons, calling themselves professional gentlemen,—particularly one residing in Duke-street, St. James',—who, after volunteering their services to bring this "hidden thing of darkness to light," forsook their friends, and accepted a BRIBE as a reward for their silence. We could also extend our record of mean expedients adopted by men in power to suppress this disgraceful business,—such, indeed, as would almost stagger the faith of those who had not been eye-witnesses of their depravity. Indignation rises in our breasts while contemplating such a picture of human wickedness! Our readers, we feel assured, do not desire more proofs than we have already given of the principal fact,—that the Princess Charlotte was poisoned, through the instrumentality of those who ought to have been the first to protect so amiable and virtuous a woman! It is, [138]therefore, only a matter of minor importance to expose those who have failed in their loud professions of seeing justice enforced on her murderers. No history, perhaps, is richer in recorded crime than that of our own country; but neither the annals of this or any other empire can furnish a more striking instance of unmanly barbarity, of greater wickedness, or of more horrid depravity, than that of which we are now speaking. Let us hope the people of 1832 will seriously reflect on the enormity of this revolting act, and be no longer lost in an apathy that has already proved so disastrous to their liberties. Let them not suffer their good sense to be lulled and amused by the "raree-shows" of royalty, or by the glitter of any grandeur supplied by the produce of their own labour. Nothing confers, either on a king or his ministers, any real dignity or glory, except their virtue and their good deeds; and the people ought, therefore, not to suffer their courage to be deterred, or their judgment to be imposed upon, by the pomp and glare of state ostentation. The people, we say, ought now to make amends for their long neglect, and exhibit a stronger and more determinate resolution than ever for that "inquiry" which Lord Liverpool so often refused; for, so long as the death of the Princess Charlotte remains unavenged, so long will cowardice and ignominy be attached to the name of Englishman!

In the month of April, Mr. Brougham visited his native country, for the purpose of being invested with the title of "Lord Rector of the University of [139]Glasgow." We should not have noticed a circumstance of such trivial importance to the public, did it not afford us an opportunity of introducing a most admirable speech, which that learned gentleman had an opportunity of delivering on the occasion by reason of some allusion being made to the trial of the late Queen Caroline. To explain the impropriety of calling such persecuting proceedings a "trial," Mr. Brougham said,

"If he could bring himself, on such a day as this, to those habits of contentious discussion to which he was sometimes accustomed, he should have to analyze his friend's splendid speech, and object to the whole of his eulogy. But there was one part of that speech which had caused him considerable pain: his friend had talked of 'the trial' of the late queen. Never had he (Mr. Brougham) either in public or private, before heard so great a profanation of the attributes of those judicial proceedings, which by profession and habit he had been taught to revere, than to use the name of 'trial' when speaking of such an event. It was no trial, he said, and so did the world. The subject was gone by, and not introduced by him; but still the phrase, when dropped, must be corrected; for 'trial' it was none. Was that a trial where the accused had to plead before those who were interested in her destruction?—where those who sat on the bench of justice, aye, and pretended to be her judges, had pre-ordained her fate? Trial!" continued Mr. Brougham, "I [140]repeat there was, there could be, none, where every channel of defamation was allowed to empty itself upon the accused, borne down by the strong arm of power, overwhelmed by the alliance of the powers and the princedoms of the state, and defended only by that innocence and that law which those powers and those princedoms, united with the powers of darkness, had combined to destroy. Trial it was none, where every form of justice was obliged to be broken through on the very surface before the accusers could get at the imputed grounds of their accusations. This, forsooth, a trial!—call it not so, for the sake of truth and law. While that event deformed the page of their history, let them be silent about eastern submissiveness; let them talk not of Agas, the Pachas, and the Beys,—all judges, too, at least so they call themselves,—while they were doomed to remember they had had in their own times ministers of their own crown, who, under the absolute authority of their own master, consented to violate their own pledge, to compromise and stifle their own avowed feelings, and to act as slaves, crouching before the foot-stool of power, to administer to its caprice. Let them call that a trial which was so conducted, and then he would say the queen had been tried at the time when he stood for fifty-six days witnessing the sacrilegious proceeding. Did he now, for the first time, utter this description of its character? No, no; day after day did he repeat it in the presence of all the parties, and dared them to deny the imputation; he dared them then, [141]but not now, lest he should be forced to see the same faces in the same place again, professing to exercise the same functions. If it were in his power to repeat in their hearing now what he had said in their presence before, they might, indeed, call that a trial in his case which they had called it in the other; but to whom it looked not like a chamber of justice, but rather the gloominess of the den; not indeed of judgment, for he could not liken it to such, but rather to others—(here Mr. Brougham paused)—But no, he could not sustain the allusion, lest, perchance, for the very saying of it, (for he could not be prevented from thinking of it so) he should again have to submit to the test of power,—an alternative which his veneration for the constitution of his country and its honours forbade him to precipitate.

"How many long years," said Mr. Brougham, "had they not seen, when to be an Englishman on the Continent was a painful, if not a degrading, condition? He meant, during that dark and murky night of power, when the machinations of the family of the tyrants of Europe were at work, and when they could reckon upon the minister of England as silently suffering, nay, permitting their deadly march against the liberties of mankind. England then had her fair name degraded by being considered as the ABETTOR of every tyrant's plan for the subjugation of his subjects. Then was the time when no despot could open his glaring eye, flashing with vengeance for his prey, without catching the [142]glistening eye of the supplicant British minister. Then was the time when no tyrant could hold out his hand, after shaking in it the chains he had forged to bind and excoriate his people, without its meeting the cordial grasp of friendship of the British minister. Then was the time when the oppressor stalked abroad with the countenance of the rulers of that land, which was called the champion and the protectress of the free. Then did horrid tyranny, more grim in its blasted actions than even in the vices of its original debasement, disfigure the fair face of Europe, while linked and leagued (O, shame upon the pen of history!) with the freest government upon earth,—to which, nevertheless, the tyrant never turned his glance, or stretched his hand in vain, during such disastrous times. That black and disgraceful night of intellect and freedom had now gone down, the sky was clear, and the view was changed into a brighter prospect. Now," continued Mr. Brougham, "we can speak out, and look abroad with clear vision. What man is there now, I ask, in half-represented England, in unrepresented Scotland,—aye, where and which of you, in either country, or even in tortured, insulted, and persecuted Ireland,—where, I say, can the man be found, who dared to look forth in the broad face of day, who dared to raise his voice before his fellow-men, and say, 'I befriend the Holy Alliance?' Not only, I repeat, is there no such man, I will not say so wicked, but so childish,—I will not say so stricken with hostility to free principles, or so [143]bent upon the destruction of his own individual character,—in the whole walk of society, as to avow such sentiments. O, no; not out of Bedlam could we find him!—hardly there, save in the precipitation of a maniac's rage, could we behold a being in the shape of a man to stand up and say, 'I am the friend of the Holy Alliance.' If there be the man where freedom shines, who could look with complaisance on the accomplished despot who fills the Calmuc throne, who can behold with meekness that specious and ungrateful imbecility which promised first, and then refused, free institutions to the Germans who had bled and died in thousands to restore his throne; if there be any man who can approve the scourge of fair Italy, and the tyrant of Austria; if there be, I repeat, any such man, so reckless of himself as to admire or approve, (for that is out of the maddest rage of speculation) but even to tolerate the mere mention of the name of that cruel tyrant of his people at home,—the baffled despot, thank God! of South America,—but whose sway it pleased Providence still to permit at home, and to suspend for a short season the doom of that nameless despot. If there be a man, I say, so monstrous and unnatural as to approve of these royal minions, then it was a consolation to know that he had the grace to confine his thoughts to the regions best adapted for their culture, to lock them up in the innermost recesses of the offices of state, or to confine his silent migrations to the merest purlieus of the court, or perchance to lurk 'behind the [144]arras,' to live there among the vermin which were its natural tenants, and there to gloat upon the merits of Alexander, Frederick, Francis, or Ferdinand,—have I named him?—among the spiders, the vipers, the toads, and those who hated the toads, the lizards. To such an association and contact were these lovers of despots confined; not a word of approbation from any member of the government could be extorted for them. He had often seen much ability and ingenuity devised and exercised to endeavour to get out even a smooth word in favour of the Holy Alliance in parliament; but no, the attempt was fruitless,—all cheered the sentiments which were breathed against these tyrants. So that whoever loved them 'behind the arras,' had at least, if not the better principle, the better taste,—was, if not better in demeanour, at least more ashamed in practice to avow himself as their champion, and rather to prefer to hide himself from that sun of day, which would almost feel disgraced by being compelled to shine upon him in common with the better part of mankind."

The facts and well-merited castigations contained in this most eloquent address were not very creditable to the character of the voluptuous king and his servile ministers. Mr. Brougham here uttered some startling TRUTHS, and accompanied their recital with that keenness of remark for which he is so famous. We need hardly say how heartily we agree with him in the detestation he expressed [145]against the queen's persecutors. Would that he had performed HIS OWN PART more consistently with her majesty's wishes and interests!

On the 6th of March, Science mourned the death of her favourite son, in the Reverend Doctor Samuel Parr, a celebrated philologist, erudite classical scholar, and a profound mathematician, in the 79th year of his age. The weekly, monthly, and annual registers, did not forget to name the transcendent merits of the deceased in literary pursuits; but they either forgot or declined to mention the interest this worthy gentleman had taken in the cause of the Princess of Wales, and also after she became Queen of England. The memorials and testimonies of Doctor Parr in her cause were not chimerical opinions, as some have imagined, but the real sentiments of his honest and manly heart.

The close of this eventful year was marked with unprecedented calamity. The "panic," as it was briefly termed, which prevailed in the city of London, seemed to have overtaken the most wealthy of its inhabitants, and poverty and consternation appeared in all their terrors. The political horizon was also of the most foreboding and gloomy character. The "House of Incurables," however, still arrogantly boasted of the "freedom and prosperity of the nation," and shut their eyes against all the proofs of a contrary nature.

There was a time when some atonement for unjust acts would have been instantly demanded from the sovereign by the people; for we read in [146]"Rapin," that Edward the Second, when conquered and made prisoner by his wife, was tried by the parliament, which decreed, "that (though kings are supposed incapable of doing wrong) he had done all possible wrong, and thereby must forfeit his right to the crown." Again, for the sake of illustration, we may mention, that the parliament tried and convicted Richard the Second; thirty-one articles were alleged against him, in the form of an impeachment, two of which were very remarkable, though perhaps not uncommon; the first was, "that he had BORROWED MONEY WITHOUT INTENDING TO PAY IT AGAIN!!!" the other, "that he had declared, before witnesses, 'he was master of the lives and property of his subjects.'" What a lesson, also, does the wretched death of our first Charles offer of the imbecility of kings, and of their blind contempt for the people, from whom their crowns and their wealth must always be derived. But, with some men, example is disregarded, and advice neglected, if not despised. George the Fourth, for instance, reckless of all consequences, appears to have held it as a maxim, "I am determined to make every body as miserable as I can; and, so long as all my wants are supplied, no matter from what source they are derived!"

At an early part of

1826,

the Duke of Devonshire attended the coronation [147]of the despotic Nicholas, since the murderer of the brave Poles, as the representative of George the Fourth, King of England; and his splendid retinues and sumptuous fêtes created no little astonishment in the Russian capital at John Bull's extravagance.

In January, his majesty returned one thousand pounds of the public money, to relieve the distressed Spitalfields' weavers, who were suffering every possible hardship from the want of employment. We feel great pleasure in recording every instance of the charitable intentions of this king, entertaining no fear of being wearied with their detail. We should be equally happy, were it in our power, to record the payment of those loans and promissory notes, to which this personage had subscribed while Prince of Wales. It is a good old maxim, "Be just before you are generous;" and we cannot help thinking, that if the "first gentleman in the world" had given his accommodating ladies a little less, and satisfied the demands of the holders of those bonds, he would have acted more "as became a man." But no; his kingly dignity kept him aloof from the civil proceedings of his foreign creditors, and, being a stranger to honour, the documents were left undischarged!

The king at this period being reported unwell, the parliament was opened by commission. His majesty's indisposition could hardly be wondered at, when the gay life he had led was taken into consideration. Besides, as he was now getting into the "sear and yellow leaf," it might naturally be supposed [148]that the prickings of Conscience sometimes annoyed him into bodily pain. Indeed, though the fact was only known to a few persons at court, his majesty had long been getting into a very low and desponding state, and frequently appeared lost in abstraction, from which he was but seldom relieved by shedding tears! He knew that there were blemishes upon his escutcheon, which, though he had long been able to conceal them by bribery and trickery, might some day or another be exposed to the rude gaze of the multitude. He had long unsheathed the sword of oppression against his suffering people, and he could not possibly tell at what period it might be lifted against his royal self.

The Tory government of persecuted England still appeared to think that the persons composing their Sanhedrim were the only interested individuals in giving and opposing laws. But had not every Englishman a direct interest in the affairs of government? If government should act a part that might endanger the safety of the community, surely every man's property would be equally at stake. All national affairs, therefore, ought to be conducted with a view to the general good, and not for the mere aggrandizement of a privileged and self-elected set of hirelings. When secret missions were the order of the day, as was the case at this period, the public might be assured that "something was rotten in the state of Denmark!" for state secrecy is always the forerunner of evil to the people. But no men of upright principles were to be found in George the [149]Fourth's cabinet. We do not mean to say that England did not possess such characters, but then they had taken the advice of the poet,

When the Chancellor of the Exchequer brought forward his budget this year, the galleries and lobbies of the House of Commons were actually converted into a "Stock Exchange." We need not offer a remark upon this circumstance,—the intelligent reader will draw his own inferences from such an exhibition. Shortly after this, the House proposed "that five thousand pounds per annum be added to the salary of Mr. Huskisson." Repeated discussion ensued, but the proposition was finally abandoned, and two thousand pounds only agreed to. Mr. Huskisson was undoubtedly a man of great talent; yet he was already in the receipt of a sufficient remuneration for the exercise of that talent, as he then enjoyed two incomes from the people: as treasurer to the navy, three thousand pounds, and as president of the Board of Controul, five thousand pounds, making together the annual amount of eight thousand pounds! Some people, however, are not to be satisfied, as Mr. Huskisson said, that he felt considerable anxiety and hardship arising from the union of the two offices or situations, and that, from the great pecuniary responsibility attached to the treasurer of the navy, the two offices were more than he could possibly attend to! "Then," modestly [150]added the president, "the pay-master is an officer fully acquainted with the details of business, and perfectly familiar with all the operations necessary for the proper and effective management of the department." We do not doubt the verity of this remark, or dispute the qualifications of Mr. Huskisson for one of the offices; yet we cannot help thinking it was a little slip of the tongue, when this gentleman said, "I cannot say from my own knowledge whether, at this moment, matters are going on right or wrong in my office, but I have entire confidence in the pay-master." This curious confession of Mr. Huskisson proved that he enjoyed the emoluments arising from a situation, to the business of which he paid little or no attention! Would an unprejudiced and honest administration have exercised the imposing means here set forth? or would any real representatives of the people have sanctioned such mal-practices by their vote?

The manufacturing districts unfortunately continued in a most melancholy and alarming situation. Riots, disorder, and distress, universally prevailed. To relieve the people's grievances, however, the king returned eight thousand pounds more of the public money to the distressed weavers of Spitalfields. But we cannot help thinking, that such an inadequate sort of relief very much resembled a bankrupt's paying one farthing in the pound, and then claiming the gratitude of his ruined creditors!

Let not our readers suppose that the worthy parliament were idle this year. The matter printed for [151]the House during its short sitting, from February to May, occupied twenty-nine bulky folio volumes, independent of the journals, votes, private acts, and other matters of equal importance to the nation! In this brief session, also, no less than seventy-nine new acts of parliament were added to the already ponderous and indigestible statute-book. Here was industry indeed! But, good reader, in all this mass of business, not a single act was passed for the amelioration of the distressed condition of the people.

The health of the Duke of York now began to decline; and, although he had been in the receipt of such enormous sums from the people, he was actually destitute of a home,—at least of one he could call his own. Here was a disgraceful circumstance!—the heir presumptive to the throne of England, through his abominable and reckless extravagance, obliged to accept the hospitality of an acquaintance! An accumulation of diseases, arising from excesses of every kind, soon became manifest, and the duke was at length declared to be seriously indisposed. On the 14th December, he was pronounced, by his medical attendants, to be in the most imminent danger.

The revenue was deficient in its returns from the former year, two hundred and thirty-three thousand, nine hundred, and forty pounds! which arose from the very general stagnation of trade and the paralization of commerce. This enormous deficiency in the country's income, however, had no effect upon [152]the men in power; for the most wanton expenditure was still kept up, both at home and abroad. Our ambassadors appeared the very type of their sight-loving and spendthrift master, and thousands were swallowed up in glittering baubles and unmeaning pageantry. At the time the "Dandy of Sixty," (as the ingenious and patriotic Mr. Hone usually termed him) was meditating on the most expeditious way of squandering the hard-earnings of the poor, his wicked and unmanly ministers pampered the royal appetite in all its childish wishes and unconstitutional desires, verifying the words of Pope,

The internal state of the country at the opening of

1827

exhibited the most lowering prospects; for when the people are suffering from oppressive enactments and injurious policy, the country cannot possibly wear a smiling countenance. Some of the milk-sop daily journals, notwithstanding, were very profuse in their complimentary language to royalty, and announced, as a matter of wonderful importance, the kindness and brotherly affection manifested by the king to the Duke of York, as his majesty had spent nearly two hours with his brother at the residence of his Grace of Rutland! What astonishing kindness! what inexpressible condescension that a man [153]should visit his own brother who was at the point of death! But the king's condescension did not put aside the visit of the general conqueror, Death! for the Duke of York expired, at the mansion of the before-named nobleman, on the 5th of January, being then in the sixty-fourth year of his age.

If we were to form our judgment by the eulogiums bestowed on the character of the deceased duke, by the greater portion of the press, he was one of the brightest and most illustrious ornaments of society. But such disgraceful truckling to royalty and the "powers that be" could only tend to degrade the national character in the consideration of all well-informed men, who would observe in such unmerited compliments a convincing proof that Truth was a creditor, whose claims were "more honoured in the breach than in the observance." To prove that our complaints on this head are well-founded, let our readers look over the following outline of the royal duke's virtues, which we copy from "Baldwin's Annual Register for the year 1827:"

"Never was the death of a prince accompanied by more sincere and universal regret; and seldom have the public services of one so near the throne BEQUEATHED TO THE COUNTRY SO MUCH SOLID AND LASTING GOOD, as resulted from his long administration of the British army. His private character, frank, HONOURABLE, and SINCERE, was formed to conciliate personal attachments; a personal enemy he had never made, and a friend once gained, he [154]had never lost. Failings there were: he was improvident in pecuniary matters; his love of pleasure, though it observed the decencies, did not always respect the moralities, of private life; and his errors in that respect had been paraded in the public view by the labours of unwearying malice, and shameless unblushing profligacy. But in the failings of the Duke of York, there was nothing that was un-English, nothing that was un-princely.

"Never was man more easy of access, more fair and upright in his dealings, more affable, and even simple, in his manners. Every one who had intercourse with him was impressed with the openness, sincerity, and kindness, which appeared in all his actions; and it was truly said of him, that he never broke a promise, and never deserted a friend. Beloved by those who enjoyed the honour of his private intercourse, his administration of a high public office had excited one universal sentiment of respect and esteem. In his youth, he had been tried as a general in the field. The campaigns in Flanders terminated in a retreat; but the duke,—unexperienced as he was, at the head of an army which, abounding in valour, had yet much to learn in tactics, and compelled to act in concert with allies who were not always either unanimous or decided,—displayed many of the qualities of an able general, and nobly supported that high character for daring and dauntless courage which is the patrimony of his house. He was subsequently raised to the office of commander-in-chief of all his majesty's forces; that office he held for upwards of thirty-two years, and [155]his administration of it did not merely improve, it literally created, an army. During his campaigns, he had felt keenly the abuses which disgraced its internal organization, and rendered its bravery ineffectual; he applied himself, with a soldier's devotion, to the task of removing them; he identified himself with the welfare and the fame of the service; he possessed great readiness and clearness of comprehension in discovering means, and great steadiness and honesty of purpose in applying them. By unceasing diligence, he gave to the common soldier comfort and respectability; the army ceased to be considered as a sort of pest-house for the reception of moral lepers; discipline and regularity were exacted with unyielding strictness; THE OFFICERS WERE RAISED BY A GRADUAL AND WELL-ORDERED SYSTEM OF PROMOTION, which gave merit a chance of not being pushed aside to make way for mere ignorant rank and wealth. The head as well as the heart of the soldier took a higher pitch; the best man in the field was the most welcome at the Horse Guards; there was no longer even a suspicion that unjust partiality disposed of commissions, or that peculation was allowed to fatten upon the spoils of the men; the officer knew that one path was open to all, and the private felt that his recompense was secure."

In a similar strain, the writer continues at a far greater length than our patience will allow us to quote. What man of understanding but must have felt disgusted at such a fulsome panegyric, which [156]has not so much as a word of truth to recommend it! We despise the historian who sacrifices his integrity by an attempt to mislead posterity in this manner. It will, however, prove but an attempt; for will posterity overlook the general iniquitous and abandoned conduct of the royal libertine, both abroad and at home?—his cowardice and want of skill in the field?—his tergiversation to his creditors?—his infamous conduct with regard to certain foreign bondholders?—his notorious practices as a seducer?—his gross and unpardonable dereliction of duty at the Horse Guards?—his refusal to inquire into the conduct of the soldiers at the Manchester massacre?—his shameful acceptance of ten thousand pounds a year of the public money, for only calling upon his dying father twice a week, which Earl Grey pronounced to be "an insult to the people to ask it?"—his receiving this sum, and his going down to Windsor with a bible in his carriage, on pretence of visiting his royal father after he had ceased to exist?—or his bigotted, ridiculous, and futile opposition to the claims of the Catholics? Will posterity, we repeat, forget to canvass all this, and much more, of which the Duke of York was notoriously guilty?

If we pass over the meanness of the royal duke in accepting payment for visiting his own father, we are naturally led to inquire why this money was paid from the public purse, when the king was allowed sixty thousand pounds per annum for his private demands? Could this fund have been better applied [157]than for the use of him for whom it was voted? If, therefore, it was considered necessary to pay a son for visiting his father, surely such money ought to have been applied for the purpose. Was it justifiable, in times of universal suffering and distress, to raise from an over-taxed and over-burthened people such a sum unnecessarily, when there were funds from which it might have been taken,—funds which must else be diverted from the purpose of their creation, and pass into hands for whom they were not intended? Was it not an insult to the sense of the nation to debate about what might be the feelings of the sovereign, if he should recover from the gloomy condition into which he was plunged by the afflicting hand of providence, and find his money had been so appropriated? Would not his majesty's feelings have been more hurt, in such an event, by his knowing that a reward was necessary to induce a son to take care of his father? Was there no delight in filial affection? Was not the sense of duty powerful enough? Was there no beauty in the common charities of our nature? No loveliness in gratitude? Were the claims of veneration cold?—the warmth of regard frozen? With respect to the country, it presented a serious aspect. Admitting that his royal highness, in the discharge of his office, must attend twenty times a-year at Windsor, then he would be paid five hundred pounds a time for such attendance: a single journey would discharge the wages of a thousand labourers for a week, and the annual salary satisfy twenty thousand for the same period. Would [158]it not have been more beneficial to the state, more conducive to the happiness of society, to have expended the ten thousand pounds in some honourable employment, in the erection of some work of art, that would have called hundreds into action, who were steeped up to the neck in penury, and worn down to the earth by wretchedness, than in forming a salary for the royal duke for doing that which it was his bounden duty to perform? But even this view does not put the question in its broadest light. The sixty thousand pounds set apart as the annual privy purse of the king was now useless to his majesty, for he could no longer recognize his property, direct its disposal, or enjoy it. In fact, during the greater part of the Duke of York's guardianship, his father was a corpse! On what ground, on what pretence, then, could this wicked grant be continued, as well as the accumulation of the sixty thousand pounds a year, for the service of one who no longer needed either? Why, only for the purpose of feeding the inordinate profligacy of the Duke of York, and for the gratification of the regent's malice against his innocent, though calumniated, wife! What, also, will posterity think of Lord Castlereagh's conduct on this occasion, who proposed the disgusting grant to parliament? He stigmatized as infamous the refusal to grant from the public purse that which the public ought not to pay; thus boldly classing virtue with crime,—pourtraying prodigality to be right,—disguising corruption under the mask of honour,—and attempting to cast [159]the dark shade of infamy over those few who were honest enough to oppose measures, which justice disapproved, and good policy condemned. By reducing such cases down to the level of common life, we the better discover their injustice and unfold their rapacity. If the constable of a village possessed of a rental, arising from a parochial allowance for his services more than adequate to supply his wants, were deprived of reason, and rendered unfit for his office, and if one of his sons were to declare that he would not superintend the care of his infirm and aged father, unless he was allowed a salary for performing his duty, what would be thought of such a son? But if this son averred that he would not take this salary from his father's allowance, but would demand it from the parish, how severe would be the censure that would follow his footsteps, and imprint itself on his name! However difficult it may be found to believe, it is nevertheless a fact, that the Duke of York would only receive the said ten thousand pounds a year from the PUBLIC, and refused to take it from the privy purse of his father. But this privy purse being already drained by his royal elder brother, he had not the opportunity of taking it from that source! Ought the country to have been thus trifled with and plundered, when it was writhing under general distress and an immense load of taxation,—taxation produced by bestowing unmerited pensions and unnecessary salaries? But ministers imagined, that when their countrymen became impoverished, their spirits would [160]get depressed, and their liberties fall an easier prey to their pecuniary plunderers. But why were not bolder exertions made to defeat this grant by those members of the House of Commons who were in the habit of talking loudly of their patriotism? Why was not the unblushing audacity of ministers and their time-serving tools put to the test? Why were they not told that, among all the distressing periods of our history, not one could be mentioned in which the people were less able to sustain any additional burthens,—not one in which it would have been more indecorous, disgraceful, and unfeeling than at that juncture? Why did they not represent how much better it were that a son should pay to his father the attentions dictated by nature, without fee or reward, than that, oppressed as the community already was with the failure of trade and the expenses of government, another shilling of taxation should be added to their burthens? Why did they not ask the Treasury Bench with what face it could talk of retrenchment and economy, while it augmented the weight by which the country was borne down? When we reflect on the scandalous meanness that turned so many poor clerks adrift, while it kept safely floating in the harbour of ease and plenty, men who were doing so little for the public service,—when we consider this, and add to it the circumstance of the Duke of York's unconscionable grant,—when we place together the wretchedness of the ministry's savings, and the enormity of their waste,—our indignation rises at the [161]injustice. We feel that we are Britons; for we feel that we detest such oppression and oppressors. Our hearts are held to the patriotic minority by a spontaneous and involuntary attachment, as sure and lasting as our hatred and disdain of that portion of parliament, whose only object in obtaining their seats, and only business in exercising their privileges, was to serve the interest of the ministry at the expense of the people, and to promote and help to perpetuate the mystery and the humiliation, the impoverishment and the slavery, it was their especial duty to prevent or diminish.

Of his royal highness' profligacy and neglect of duty, enough was proved in the exposures of Mrs. Clarke to satisfy the most scrupulous of their enormity. Of his utter recklessness of every honourable principle and disregard of virtue, many families, whose peace he was the cause of ruining, yet live to bear their afflicting testimony. Of his imbecility and cowardness in the field of battle, we need only mention his disastrous and disgraceful campaign in Holland, to call forth the indignation and contempt of every honest man, who must also feel shocked at the number of lives sacrificed to his royal highness' headstrong obstinacy. Of his achievements, particularly after his return from Germany, we believe they were chiefly confined to the parade in St. James' park, and to the Tennis Court in James-street, with pretty frequent relaxation amongst the nymphs of Berkeley-row. Nevertheless, his royal parents early pronounced him the "Hope of the Family;" and [162]once, in an hour of festivity, when this prince was so intoxicated as to fall senseless under the table, his elegant and accomplished elder brother, with his glass in hand, standing over the fallen soldier, performed the ceremony of baptism, triumphantly and sarcastically exclaiming,

Of his ridiculous and futile opposition to the Catholics, after times have given abundant proof. And of his getting into debt without the means of paying is a deplorable fact, to which his ruined creditors are even now (in 1832) freely testifying! Would it not have been thought treason had they suspected that the king's son,—the prince who, according to the writer in the Annual Register, "never broke a promise," "whose failings had nothing in them un-English or un-princely," and "who was fair and upright in his dealings,"—would have treated them as a common swindler, by getting their forbearance during his life, and dying without discharging his obligations? It is true that the duke left some property, which he consigned to his brother, the king, for the purpose of discharging his debts. We also know that the king promised to do so, and to supply any deficiency that might arise; but with what fidelity it was kept, the world is pretty well aware. The extortionate demands of a mercenary mistress were stronger in the eyes of George the Fourth than a solemn engagement made to a brother on his death-bed!

[163]Though the executors of the late duke declared that his freehold and leasehold estates were mortgaged beyond their intrinsic value, nothing satisfactory was said about the jewels of his royal highness, which were valued a very few days after his death, and were calculated as being worth one hundred and fifty thousand pounds. These jewels, we are aware, were carried down to Windsor by desire of his majesty, but how they were disposed of remains to be explained. It was known that a large portion of these valuables had belonged to the Duchess of York in her lifetime, and as some legacies bequeathed by her royal highness at her demise have been paid since the death of her husband, it is inferred that the jewels have been, in some way or other, made available for that purpose. The legality of the application of any part of the personal property of the duke to purposes in which the interests of the creditors at large have not been consulted is, however, very questionable. Some part of the duke's property was bequeathed to his sister Sophia; but how far such a bequest was consistent in a man overwhelmed in debt, or how any honourable woman could accept from a brother that which was not his to give, is a matter totally irreconcileable with our notions of justice and fair dealing. One of these said jewels was also bestowed on the king's mistress, which, whenever and wherever it is recognized, cannot possibly add any lustre to her corpulent charms.

The Duke of York was elected Bishop of [164]Osnaburgh when only eleven months old; but we leave the reader to judge how capable a child of this age was to perform the duties of a bishop! Here, indeed, was a wanton disgrace inflicted on religion and the Established Church of England! If money had been wanted to purchase toys for this baby prince, could it not have been supplied from some more creditable source? We are here naturally led to inquire, who was the former Bishop of Osnaburgh? If this question should lead to inquiry among the friends of Truth and Justice, it may possibly be productive of much good to a CERTAIN INJURED AND PERSECUTED INDIVIDUAL.

Among the high church and high tory characters, his royal highness was held in much esteem for his PIETY! They boasted of his always travelling with a bible in one pocket of his carriage and a prayer-book in the other, but we know that the last journey he took, thus equipped, was on a Sunday, in order to make some bets on a race-course for the ensuing day!

In contemplating the enormous means possessed by his royal highness, we are at a loss to account for his dying so deeply in debt. We find him enjoying out of the taxes an annuity of twenty-six thousand pounds, a pension of seven thousand pounds, and an annuity of twelve thousand pounds sponged from the poor people of Hanover. Notwithstanding this income of forty-five thousand pounds a-year, and his immense receipts as commander-in-chief, colonel of regiments, &c. &c., such [165]an embarrassed, pauper-like state of existence has seldom been exposed,—head and ears in debt, and himself dying in another man's house, without a roof of his own to cover his shame! At his principal banker's, he had but a balance of forty-four pounds, fifteen shillings, and a penny, at his death. Like the old story of the many items of sack to one item of bread, we find that his royal highness' horses were more valuable than his books. But one of his disgraceful transactions more deeply concerns the public:—the scandalous grant of public land for a rent never paid, and an advance of forty-seven thousand pounds of the public money, by way of accommodation, upon a mortgage of land which already belonged to the people. Common honesty required that the late Tory ministers, in leasing public land to the duke, should exact its fair value; but, so far from it, the duke obtained an immediate advance of thirty thousand pounds, and eventually of forty-seven thousand pounds, upon his lease. Never was there a more flagrant exposure of the insolent impunity with which Tory ministers betrayed the public interests. It was the duty, the sworn duty, of the Tory commissioners of woods and forests, to let the public land upon the best terms. Instead of which, they not only granted a lease to a notorious insolvent, a man who for very many years had never paid his way,—a man so involved that sheriff's officers followed his carriage and seized it directly he got out of it,—but they granted this man [166]a lease so much under its value that he immediately got thirty thousand pounds advanced upon it. In other terms, the public were defrauded of thirty thousand pounds; but this is purity compared to what follows. These Tory ministers advance forty-seven thousand pounds of the public money to the duke, knowing that he is insolvent and cannot pay the interest. Their mode of securing the principal is still more nefarious. Instead of pursuing the usual course of business, when ground landlords advance money to tenants covering their estates on building leases, they paid the money, not to those who built on the land, or not by instalments exactly as the land was covered, but to the duke, who got people to build for him on credit, and never paid them. The crown, of course, seized for its claims of rent and loan, and, possessing itself of the property of the duke's creditors, the builders, left them the victims of their misplaced confidence in the royal honour,—of a man who once thought that his mere word "on the honour of a prince" was sufficient to paralyze the House of Commons in their inquiries into his malversation of office. Such a playing into the hands of the duke, whilst he was defrauding the confiding tradesmen and workmen, is monstrous. We ask a question, Were not sums of money clandestinely paid to the duke, and smuggled into the accounts of the Army Pay-office, and did not, on one occasion, one of the sworn commissioners, in examining and passing the accounts of the paymaster-general, [167]publicly declare, that the ministers who had signed the warrant for this illegal payment to the duke,—a payment without any vote of parliament,—deserved to be IMPEACHED?

From the above statement, it will be seen why the late Tory administration so resolutely resisted all attempts made in the House of Commons to obtain an annual statement of the land-revenue department. The grant to the duke of a lease for sixty years of valuable mines in Nova Scotia, also appears to be a job infamous beyond any recent precedent. The public ought to have nothing to do with the private debts of this weak, bad man; and it should rest with the royal family whether they suffer the duke to go to his account, with all his imperfections on his head, as an insolvent, defrauding his creditors.

When the disreputable life of the duke is taken into consideration, what an insult was offered to the understandings of an informed people, at the command issued for all persons to robe themselves in garments of decent mourning, upon the demise of this son of Mars and Venus! The country, indeed, had more cause for rejoicing than mourning; as they had lost an enemy to every thing liberal and beneficial. "What!" said the inquiring citizen, "am I to put on the garb of sorrow when I have no cause to mourn? What was the Duke of York to me, or to my family? Nothing less than an intruder upon our scanty means, and yet we are [168]commanded, as good citizens and loyal subjects, to put ourselves and families into decent mourning?" But such was the order issued from the office of the Lord Chamberlain, and it was certainly complied with by all those who depended upon the favour of the court, and by persons who wished to be thought—fashionable! Happy, however, are we to know, that the sensible and independent portion of the nation viewed such an absurd order with the contempt it merited. Had the duke been a private gentleman, he would have had the exact portion of tears shed to his memory as he deserved,—would have been buried and forgotten, except by his creditors, who would scarcely have waited till the turf had covered him, before his house and effects would have been sold, his family turned into the street, and every one paid as much in the pound as his property would have allowed. But the adored of Mrs. Clarke, being the son of a king, no such insult was offered to his manes. His disappointed creditors were left nothing but promises for the articles with which he had been so lavishly supplied; and some of these broken-hearted men, we can attest from personal knowledge, were afterwards reduced to the greatest possible distress, while others have closed their miserable days in a parish work-house,—martyrs to the broken faith of his royal highness the Duke of York, of whom Sir Walter Scott impiously said, in the language of Scripture "There has fallen this day in our Israel, a prince, and a [169]great man!" How forcibly the language of Shakespeare applies here:

Indeed, the whole panegyric which follows the quotation from Scripture is of that description which is sure to raise for its author a monument, whereon will be engraved, "Grovelling servility to royalty, and a mean sacrifice of public duty at the altar of private friendship." The following brief extract will be sufficient to establish the justness of our censure:

"The RELIGION of the Duke of York was SINCERE. His family affections were strong, and the public cannot have forgotten the pious tenderness with which he discharged the duty of watching the last days of his royal father. No pleasure, no business, was ever known to interrupt his regular visits to Windsor, where his unhappy parent could neither be grateful for, nor even be sensible of, his unremitted attentions. (!!!) His royal highness prepared the most splendid victories our annals boast, by an unceasing attention to the character and talents of the officers, and the comforts and health of the men. Terms of service were fixed for every rank, and neither influence nor money was permitted to FORCE any individual forward. (!!!) It has never been [170]disputed(?) that, in the field, his royal highness displayed INTELLIGENCE,(!) MILITARY SKILL,(!!) and his family attribute, the most UNALTERABLE COURAGE.(!!!) If a tradesman, whose bill was unpaid by an officer, thought proper to apply to the Horse Guards, the debtor received a letter from HEADQUARTERS, requiring to know if there existed any objections to the account, and failing in rendering a satisfactory answer, he was put on stoppages until the creditor's demand was satisfied. Repeated applications of this kind might endanger the officer's commission, which was then sold for the payment of his creditors."

While Sir Walter enlarges upon the duke's VIRTUES, (virtues, indeed!) in a similar strain to the above, he uses the most palliative language to gloss over his notorious vices. Not a syllable does he say about his royal highness' OWN CREDITORS BEING LEFT UNPAID, nor does he advocate the propriety, that the commander-in-chief ought to have been "put on stoppages until HIS numerous creditors were satisfied," or that the several commissions he held in the British army should have been "sold for the payment of HIS creditors!" In eulogizing the "military skill, intelligence, and unalterable courage of his royal highness," all allusion to the duke's precipitate flight from Lisle is carefully omitted, and that Houchard, the governor of that fortress, lost his head for not driving him into the sea, which it was proved he might easily have done, through the [171]duke's obstinacy and WANT of military skill!!! Are the very clear statements and unshaken evidence of Mrs. Clarke also to be set at nought, because a small majority of the most venal House of Commons of any in our history thought proper to acquit his royal highness from her charges? Was not every honourable man in England convinced of their verity? And did not universal execration COMPEL the commander-in-chief TO RESIGN, in defiance of that contemptible and loathed majority? Yet all these well-known FACTS are so smoothed down by misrepresentation and shuffling excuses, that his royal highness is actually made to appear a MARTYR TO POPULAR OPINION!!! When speaking of the duke's "pious attentions" to his royal father, the "celebrated novel-writer" says not a syllable about the infamy of receiving ten thousand pounds a-year for such unnecessary services,—unnecessary, because, at their commencement, they were only formally bestowed for the sake of gain, and not through a sense of filial duty; and, for a greater part of the period, they were less necessary, for forms could be of no use to a dead monarch!

We entertain the highest possible opinion of Sir Walter Scott's literary talents, which makes us the more regret that so fair a fame should be clouded by this incontestable proof of his want of principle and his total disregard of historical verity. We do not wish to quarrel with the talented knight's POLITICS or his gratitude to George the Fourth for bestowing on him a title, which adds little to the character of [172]any man of sterling worth, and nothing to him who was before a stranger to virtuous principles; but we do not like to see the historian's glorious shield—TRUTH—broken in pieces by bespattering a public defaulter with praises, when such a man deserved nothing but the contempt and detestation of all who regard upright dealings. Let not Sir Walter Scott, then, thus attempt to mislead the people of England in the character of their princes, by palliating their public abuses, and varnishing their private misconduct; nor let him disseminate doctrines unnatural, nonsensical, and injurious to the rights of human nature. History is materially injured when the waters of truth are corrupted by infusing into their channel the flatterer's poison. Such a vile cause cannot be maintained without having recourse to falsehood, and the cowardly concealment of conscious malversation. Honest purposes love the light of truth; and the friends of liberty and man become justly alarmed whenever they see the press disgraced by its perversion. We are well aware that the Tories were lavish in their rewards to obsequious political writers, and that needy, unprincipled, and aspiring persons, to receive the infection, were always at hand. But can any man be really great and honourable, can he be a patriot or a philanthropist, can he be a zealous and sincere friend to law, order, and religion, who thus hesitates not to break down all the fences of honour, truth, and integrity? Did Sir Walter Scott, when he penned the character of the late Duke of York, mean to proclaim to the world [173]that vice is virtue, guilt is innocence, cowardice is bravery, swindling is correct dealing?—or that conscience is but a name, and honour a phantom? Since the art of printing was invented,—since the era when Ignorance and Superstition were first driven before the light of Reason, exhibited in the circulation of a free press,—we unhesitatingly affirm there has never been published an eulogium so totally at variance with fact as that written by the author of "Waverly" on his royal highness of York. In sober reason and in the language of common sense, we would calmly appeal to the dispassionate reflection of every thinking Englishman, whether such a prostitution of truth and genius is becoming the proud fame of Sir Walter Scott? The power of such a celebrated writer over general opinion is too considerable not to deeply deplore the certainty of his misguiding some portion of the public by the apparent sincerity of his mis-placed eulogium, and by his neglecting to lead his readers to a path of just thinking. Scorning alike the meanness of flattery and the crime of delusion, we have not hesitated to deliver our unbiassed sentiments on the character of the Duke of York, (which are certainly more in accordance with facts) with that freedom to which we deem the historian to be justly entitled. We have not allowed the example of Sir Walter Scott to interfere with our fixed purpose,—that of "AWARDING HONOUR ONLY WHERE HONOUR IS DUE!"

It is a melancholy reflection that so little protection or encouragement should have been afforded to [174]writers of strict independence and integrity, more particularly about the period of the Duke of York's death, when Toryism was flourishing in the plenitude of its glory and its power. The former patriotic spirit of literary men had almost disappeared before ministerial bribery; and to write with that honesty and boldness of purpose which Junius wrote was a matter of rare occurrence; and when any author did venture to imitate that great benefactor of mankind, his temerity was sure to call down the vengeance of the powerful, and, too frequently, without awakening the sympathy of the public. Had those noble authors, who once defended the cause of freedom and truth, been living at this period, how would they have despised such instances of the degradation of talent as those we have quoted! Could they, for a moment, have risen from their graves, what would have been their astonishment at such a perversion of the blessings of the press? In a country professing to be free, and boasting of its rights and privileges, it was surely natural to expect, that he who advocated its best and dearest interests would be certain of its ardent support; that whoever devoted his time and talent to the exposition of public abuses would be an object of general esteem, and enjoy the protection of the PEOPLE, at least, if not of the government. But such was seldom the case; and hence but too many writers resigned their probity, and betrayed the public, by making ministerial delinquencies appear as good government, and royal vices as [175]elegant pastimes and gentlemanly exploits! Most of the daily and other periodical publications were in the pay of government, and they scrupled not to deny the most glaring truths, if, by so doing, they could please their patrons.

We deeply regret that so many could be found to wage war against the sound principles of the English constitution, and so few that invariably adhered to the cause of liberty and justice. That writer, who is prompted by the pure love of his country's weal, and acknowledging no party, seeks no adherents but those who are friends to her sacred cause, will look back upon such a debased state of the press with mingled feelings of indignation and pity. Be it ever remembered, that the general corruption of that powerful engine is always first aimed at by a minister who intends the slavery of the people. Had public writers but maintained one grand universal adherence to the broad and general light of TRUTH, the people of England would never have been burthened by such men as Liverpool, Londonderry, and Sidmouth; nor would they have had to endure their present immense load of taxation. Whenever the people are properly united, and headed by an honest press, not all the standing armies of their enemies will prevent them from obtaining their constitutional rights. But when the people stand apart from each other, and when ministers can obtain the services of venal writers, the star of liberty grows dim, and patriotism becomes dangerous and obsolete.

[176]The Earl of Liverpool was prevented from taking his seat at the head of the government at this period, by a sudden attack of paralysis. His cabinet were consequently thrown into great disorder and contention. The united influence of Lord Eldon, the Duke of Wellington, and Mr. Peel, however, proved inefficient to prevent the choice of prime minister falling on Mr. Canning. Many discussions arose upon this change of administration, and the frequent quarrels in the cabinet were of a nature not very reputable to the members composing it. Within forty-eight hours after Mr. Canning had received his majesty's commands to form a ministry, no less than seven of the former leading members resigned office, through vexation and jealousy at his appointment. The inconsistent Lord Bexley, however, considered that second thoughts were best, and retracted his resignation. Sir John Copley was created Baron Lyndhurst, and appointed Lord High Chancellor, upon the resignation of the Tory veteran Lord Eldon, who, though he had for so many years been amassing enormous wealth, was now mean enough to be an idle pauper upon the resources of our impoverished country for the annual income of four thousand pounds! His lordship had been for more than twenty years Speaker of the House of Peers, at a salary of three thousand pounds, and Lord Chancellor at fifteen thousand pounds per annum; while the salaries of the offices in his gift, in the legal department alone, amounted to more than forty-two thousand pounds per annum. The [177]legal and ecclesiastical patronage at his disposal was also immense; yet this pretended poor man would not retire without an ex-chancellor's salary! While "this keeper of the king's conscience" took especial care of his own purse, he did not forget to look after that of his family; and places, pensions, and church preferments were most bountifully heaped upon them.

In contemplating the long period of his lordship's enjoying the emoluments of his office, we are led to consider "the means whereby he got the office." His unmanly desertion of the virtuous cause of Queen Caroline was the principal, though not the only, reason of his rapid promotion. In this instance, he committed an indelible stain upon his integrity for the sake of obtaining patronage and wealth. Let the following passage, dictated by this time-serving lawyer, when he advocated the Princess of Wales' cause against the Douglases, bear us out in the justness of our remarks:

"However Sir John and Lady Douglas may appear my ostensible accusers, I have other enemies, whose ill-will I may have occasion to FEAR, without feeling myself assured that it will be strictly regulated, in its proceedings against me, by the principles of fairness and justice!"

Who would suppose that boaster of "fairness and justice," Lord Eldon, one of the most forward of the professed friends of the Princess of Wales, could [178]have proved so heartless and active an oppressor of Queen Caroline? We are forcibly reminded of two passages of Scripture, which powerfully apply to his lordship's desertion from the path of honour in this instance; namely, the 2nd Book of Kings, ch. viii, v. 13, and the 2nd Book of Samuel, ch. xii, v. 7 and 8! Lord Eldon not only at that time, however, expressed his decided opinion that other enemies existed, but he afterwards named the very parties, and pointed out with what clearness and facility the offence might have been proved against them! But his lordship soon afterwards sneaked into lucrative office, and had something better to do for himself than procuring justice for the injured, insulted, and persecuted Princess of Wales! Out upon such blood-suckers of their country, we say, and may their crying professions of SINCERITY and CONSCIENTIOUS MOTIVES ever be viewed as the ravings of hypocrisy!

Mr. Canning's ministry proved but of short duration. Soon after his appointment to the premiership, his health began to decline, and within four months he was numbered with the dead. This event took place on the morning of the 8th of August, and his remains were consigned to the tomb prepared to receive them, in Westminster Abbey, followed by a long procession of dukes, lords, and other great personages,—the admirers of his political principles.

In taking an impartial review of Mr. Canning's political career, we cannot help thinking that all his [179]public acts were aristocratical, and afforded indubitable proof of his love of place. Like most men who have risen to great eminence, he owed much to chance. He was lucky in the time of his decease, and in the day of his deserting his old friends. To very few has it happened to be supported by a party as long as its support was useful, and to be repudiated by it when its affection would have been injurious. The same men who, as friends, had given him power,—as enemies, conferred on him reputation! But his name is not connected with any great act of legislation. No law will be handed down to posterity protected by his support. After generations will see in him a lamentable proof of prostituted talent, and little or nothing to claim their gratitude. The memorialist may delight in painting the talents he displayed, but the historian will find little to say of the benefits he bestowed. Mr. Canning was very irritable and bold in his manners. He defended his conduct in the House and out of it; that is to say, he made some bitter speeches in parliament, and wrote three challenges, or demands for explanation: one to Mr. Hume, one to Sir Francis Burdett, and one to an anonymous pamphleteer. The author of this pamphlet was Mr. (now Sir John Cam) Hobhouse, though the fact is little known; but, for some unexplained cause, the book was speedily withdrawn from publication. A few having been sold, however, we were fortunate enough to procure one, the following extracts from which may not prove unacceptable to our readers:

[180]"Sir,—I shall address you without ceremony, for you are deserving of none. There is nothing in your station, in your abilities, or in your character, which entitles you to respect. The first is too often the reward of political, and frequently of PRIVATE, crimes. Your talents, such as they are, you have abused; and, as for your character, I know not an individual of any party, or in any class of society, who would not consider the defence of it a paradox. Low as public principle has sunk, you are still justly appreciated; and no one is deceived by qualities, which, even in their happiest exertions, are not calculated or employed to conciliate esteem.

"To what a state of degradation are we sunk, when a defendant is to be cheered into being a plaintiff; to be applauded when he assaults the sufferings of the oppressed, and arraigns the motives of men of honour and unsullied reputation! You are yourself aware, sir, that in no other assembly in England would you have been allowed to proceed, for an instant, in so gross a violation of all decencies of life as was hazarded by that speech, which found a patient and a pleased audience in the House of Commons. Can there exist in that body,—composed as it undoubtedly is of men, who, in the private relations of life, are distinguished for many good qualities,—an habitual disregard of decency, a contempt for public opinion, an absurd confidence, either individually or in mass, to which, absolving [181]themselves from the rules of common life, they look for protection against the censures of their fellow-citizens? Were it not for such a groundless persuasion, there is not a gentleman (for such a being is not quite extinct in parliament) who would not have thought himself compromised by listening to your insolent attacks upon the national character, and to a flashy declamation, which, from beginning to end, supposed an audience devoid of all taste, judgment, spirit, and humanity.

"I am at a loss, sir, to account for the insulting policy of your colleagues in office, who, though they take their full share with you in the public hatred, are far from being equal competitors for its contempt. Those worthies must have had some motive, deeper than their avowed designs, for entrusting their defence to such 'inept hands.' Were they afraid of your partially redeeming your character by silence? Were they resolved, that if you were yet not enough known, some decisive overt act should reduce you below the ministerial level? Did they suspect, that you were again willing to rebel or betray? How was it that you were selected for the odious and TREACHEROUS task of justifying the rigorous measures of the imbecile, but unfeeling, Sidmouth, directed as they were against the aged, the infirm, the powerless of his own countrymen? How was it that you were required to emerge from your suspected, though prudent, silence, in behalf of him [182]whom you had first insulted by the offer of your alliance, then by your coarse hostility, and, lastly, by the accepted tender of an insidious reconciliation?

"You know, sir, and the world should know, that when your seducer, Pitt, was tired of you, you offered yourself to this silly, vain man, who thought your keeping too dear at the proposed price, and accordingly declined the bargain. You know, and the world may remember, the immediate consequence of this slight of proffered service was your lampoons in parliament, your speeches in the papers,—I forget where they fell, but whether in one or the other, they were equally unprepared and opportune; these, and other assaults, manfully directed against those whose forbearance was the sole protection of your audacity, can hardly have slipped through the meshes of the ill-woven memories of your colleagues. Perhaps, then, it was intended to reduce you to irretrievable humiliation, and to fit you for the lowest agency, by making you the loudest encomiast of the most undefensible measure of him whom you have reprobated as the 'most incapable of all ministers, the most inept of all statesmen.' You have kissed the hand that chastised you, and have lost but few opportunities of testifying your FEIGNED REPENTANCE to him who commands you from that eminence, which you were adjudged incapable to occupy, even so as to save the few appearances required from ministerial manners.

[183]"Your submission to Lord Castlereagh, tricked out, as he appears, in those decorations of fortune which might well deceive a vulgar eye, was not surprising: it was the natural deference of meanness to success. But it was not expected, even from your condescension, that the butt of his party, the agent of that department which had, even in these times of peace, with infinite address, contrived to make the executive administration not only hateful but ridiculous, that the very minister who had no character for talents should be defended by him who had shewn himself unequal to the defence of his own. Your reply to those who spoke the language of their constituents, of unprejudiced Englishmen, of human nature itself, and who stepped forward to rescue the parliament from indelible disgrace, was such as is seldom hiccupped up from the Bacchanalian triumph of ministerial majorities.

"What, sir! one of the present cabinet dare to accuse any individual of too much faith in common rumour or in proffered information? A member of that cabinet, whose belief in the idle, malicious falsehoods of spies, pimps, bullies, and all the abandoned broken characters, whom their promises allured into perjury, has been proved by the verdict of juries, has been recorded in the courts, has been the object of general indignation, and, after having been the cause and excuse of a wanton attack on our liberties, has been judged by the cabinet itself so little qualified for examination [184]that believing parliament has been instructed to indemnify the rogues who told the lies, and the fools who believed them. What! an apologist for the gulled, the gaping Sidmouth, to deprecate the indiscriminating reception of tales and tale-bearers? a defender of him who put his trust in Castles, who employed Oliver, and who, on the faith of atrocious fabrications, of which he was alike the encourager and the dupe, has persecuted and imprisoned, has fettered and fractured, and might have put to death, his fellow-countrymen, even to decimation.

"You tell us, you should have thought yourself 'a dolt and idiot' to have listened for a moment to complaints against an agent of the home department, a runner of Bow-street, a gaoler's turnkey, or a secretary's secretary. Mighty well, sir! but let a runaway from the hulks, a convicted felon, tell you, that a bankrupt apothecary, a broken-down farmer, and a cobbler, are the centre of a widely-spread conspiracy, have formed and partially executed a plan for razing the kingdom, and for taking the Tower of London,—have provided arms, have published manifestoes; let the same respectable evidence impeach the loyalty of the nobles and gentry in particular districts, and of the lower classes in all; let this single felon assert that he is honest, and the majority of his countrymen are rogues,—you do not think YOURSELF A DOLT AND IDIOT!!! you do not think Lord Sidmouth a dolt and idiot for proceeding, [185]chiefly upon such information, to hang, draw, and quarter the first individuals designated by this credible witness! But whatever you or your colleagues thought, the JURY did think the secretary of the home department a DOLT AND IDIOT, and shewed their opinion by their verdict. I will take leave to observe, that there is this difference between the credulity of such men as Mr. Lambton, and of such ministers as yourself and your colleagues: the former may interpose to save, but the consequence of the latter has been to destroy.

"To brand with the names of 'rebel and traitor' those whom you have been unable to prove rebellious and traitorous, is but in the ordinary course of official perseverance and incorrigible folly; but that you should presume to assail those unfortunate individuals, the victims of your own recorded credulity, by making a mockery of old age and of natural infirmities, which have been occasioned by your own injustice!!—such an outrage upon your audience—how is that to be accounted for? 'The revered and ruptured Ogden!!!' This mad, this monstrous sally was applauded—was received with roars of laughter! and if there was a confession from some more candid lips, that such allusions were not 'quite in good taste,' an excuse was drawn from the warmth of the debate, clear as it was, to those accustomed to your patchwork, that the stupid alliteration was one of the ill-tempered weapons coolly selected from your oratorical armoury.

[186]"The little knot of dependants, who were willing to make common stock and carry themselves to market with you, have become ashamed of the trifling, oscillating buffoon, whom they mistook for the head of a party, and who accepted the first and lowest vacancy that could replace him in the precincts of power. Even the miserable chuck-farthing, Ward, who has learnt from you how to run riot on his apostacy, owns, that he hesitates between the disgrace of 'serving without wages, and of being dismissed without a character.'

"Go on, sir, I pray you; proceed with your pleasantries; light up the dungeon with the flashes of your merriment,—make us familiar, make us pleased, with the anguish of the captive; teach us how to look upon torture and tyranny as agreeable trifles; let whips and manacles become the play-things of parliament; let patriotism and principle be preserved only as vain names, the materials of a jest; and, as you have disturbed the bed of sickness with your unhallowed mirth, hasten, with appropriate mockery, the long foretold approaching Euthanasia of the expiring constitution. But confine your efforts to that assembly where they have been so favourably, so thankfully received. You will find no other hearers. You are nothing but on that stage. The clerks, the candles, the heated atmosphere, the mummeries and decorations, the trained, packed paper audience, confused, belated, and jaded into an [187]appetite for the grossest stimulants; these are the preparations indispensable to your exhibition. Thank heaven, however, the House of Commons is not the only tribunal; and it is possible, that, in spite of your extraordinary progress and probable success, there may still be, in this country, a body of men, now dispersed, but whom their common interest will ONE DAY COLLECT AND UNITE, FOR THE DEFENCE OF THEIR RIGHTS AND THE PUNISHMENT OF THEIR OPPRESSORS[187:A].

"Believe me, sir, not an echo of those shouts of laughter which hailed your jests upon rebellious old age and traitorous disease, not an echo has been lost in the wide circumference of the British islands. Those shouts still ring in our ears; they will never die away as long as the day of retribution is deferred; they will never die away until we are finally extirpated by your triumph, or you are annihilated by our indignation. Do not flatter yourself that, by securing the connivance of parliament, you are safe from all national censure. Parliament does not represent the feelings of the British nation. It would be an assault upon the character of this great, this glorious people, to suppose that their representatives were sent to the House of Commons to encourage the playful ferocity of a hardened politician. The nobler portion of the nation are certainly not members of either house: the better educated, [188]the more enlightened, and the more wealthy, at least the more independent, are to be found without the walls of parliament. You are (and what ministerial man is not?) an enemy to reform. But you shall be told, sir, that the necessity of reform, and of choosing our representatives from some other classes of society, was never so decidedly shewn as in the reception of your speech. If Mr. Canning was, on a former occasion[188:A], applauded for saying, that the constitution of that assembly could not be bad, which 'worked so well in practice' as to admit of the selection of such men as Mr. Windham and Mr. Horner, I am sure it is to be allowed me to say, that the assembly can have no feelings or opinions, in common with the rest of their countrymen, which would receive, with shouts of approving laughter, such a speech as this of Mr. Canning.

"You cannot be far from the close of your career; for, either we shall be so lost that all your farther efforts will be superfluous, or you will be so resisted as to disable you for ever from all noxious exertion. This, then, may be the time for summing up the evidence, furnished by the unbiassed, uncontradictory witnesses of your life; and for enabling your countrymen to pass the verdict.

"Let him speak who ever knew you in possession of any respectable reputation. The rag you [189]stole from Mr. Sheridan's mantle was always too scanty to cover your nakedness: like all mimics, you caught only the meaner characteristics of your archetype; oratorical, not orator; poetaster, not poet; witling, not wit. You were never the first or best in any one line of action. You might not have been altogether inept or slow in playing second parts, but on no one occasion have you ever evinced that sincerity, either of principle or capacity, which the lowest amongst us are accustomed to require from the pretenders to excellence. Your spirit was rebuked in presence of those accomplished persons whom the followers of all parties recognized as beings of a higher order, and were willing to yield even more deference than their unambitious merit required. The chances of survivorship have left you a great man in these days of little men; but you keep true to the epic rule; you end as you began; power has conferred upon you no dignity,—elevation has not made your posture more erect. The decency of your character consists in its entire conformity to the original conception formed of you in early life. It has borrowed nothing from station, nothing from experience. It becomes you, but would disgrace any other man."

To a person of Mr. Canning's warmth of temper, such a production was felt most acutely; for he could not, with all his ready eloquence and talent, deny the truth of the writer's charges, or the justness [190]of his severe censure. When men find themselves exposed, without the possibility of making out a good defence by argument, however speciously employed, it is no uncommon thing for them to abuse their accusers, by stigmatizing them with the epithets of "SLANDERER," "LIAR," "COWARD," "DOLT," "IDIOT," and similar opprobrious names, which, however, generally fall harmless on the person to whom they are applied, while they recoil, with ten-fold vigour, on the head of him who disgraces himself and his cause by their adoption. Such was precisely the case with Mr. Canning, as the following letters will testify:

MR. CANNING'S LETTER.

"Gloucester Lodge, April 10, 1818.

"Sir,—I received early in the last week the copy of your pamphlet, which you (I take for granted) had the attention to send to me.

"Soon after I was informed, on the authority of your publisher, that you had withdrawn the whole impression from him, with a view (as was supposed) of suppressing the publication.

"I since learn, however, that the pamphlet, though not sold, is circulated under blank covers.

"I learn this from (among others) the gentleman to whom the pamphlet has been industriously attributed, but who has voluntarily and absolutely denied to me that he has any knowledge of it or its author.

"To you, sir, whoever you may be, I address myself thus directly, for the purpose of expressing to you my opinion, that,

"You are a liar and a slanderer, and want courage only to be an assassin.

"I have only to add, that no man knows of my writing to you; that I shall maintain the same reserve so long as I have an expectation of hearing from you in your own name; and that I [191]shall not give up that expectation till to-morrow (Saturday) night.

"The same address which brought me your pamphlet will bring any letter safe to my hands.

"I am, sir, your humble servant,

(Signed) "GEO. CANNING."

"N.B. Mr. Ridgway is requested to forward this letter to its destination."

THE AUTHOR'S REPLY,

Addressed to the Editor of the Examiner.

"Sir,—You are requested to insert in your paper the reply of the Right Hon. George Canning to my public remonstrance with that gentleman on the insult he lately dared to offer to the people of England.

"I am agreeably disappointed. After ten days' deliberation, he acknowledges the tribunal, and has determined to plead.

"Whilst his judges are deciding on the merits of his defence, it shall be my care to provide the gentleman with another opportunity of displaying his taste and talents in the protection of his character.

"In the mean time, whilst Mr. Lambton is a 'dolt and an idiot,' I am content to be a 'liar and a slanderer, and an assassin,' according to the same inimitable master of the vulgar tongue.

"I am, sir, your obedient servant,

"The Author of the

Letter to the Right Hon. G. Canning."

It was hard indeed for Liberty to have so ready and so ruthless an antagonist as Mr. Canning. This minister was not satisfied with those legitimate and classical weapons he was so well skilled to wield, forgot the days of the "Anti-jacobin," and vociferated against and challenged every one whose pen or voice was raised in opposition to him. Thus, [192]whether squibbing "the Doctor," as Lord Sidmouth was called, fighting my Lord Castlereagh, cutting heartless jokes on poor Mr. Ogden, flatly contradicting Mr. Brougham, swaggering over the Holy Alliance, or quarrelling with the Duke of Wellington, he was in perpetual personal scrapes,—one of the reasons which created for him so much personal interest during the whole of his parliamentary career. No imaginative artist, fresh from reading that career, would sit down to paint him with the broad and deep forehead, the stern, compressed lip, the deeply thoughtful and concentrated air of Napoleon. As little would the idea of his eloquence or ambition call to our recollection the swarth and iron features, the bold and haughty dignity, of Strafford. We cannot fancy in his eye the volumed depth of Richelieu's, the volcanic flash of Mirabeau's, or the offended majesty of Chatham's. We should sketch him from our imagination as we see him identically before us, with a countenance rather marked by intelligence, sentiment, and satire, than meditation, passion, or sternness,—with more of the petulant than the proud, more of the playful than the profound, more of the quick irritability of a lively temperament in its expression, than of the fixed or fiery aspect which belongs to the rarer race of men, whose characters are wrought from the most inflexible and violent materials of human nature. We do not wish to deny that Mr. Canning was an orator, a wit, and a poet. Such talents and accomplishments, however, are not of pre-eminent importance to the situation [193]which he occupied at his death. A premier ought to be the bold opposer of corruption, the solid friend of his sovereign, and the uncompromising champion of the people's rights. He should always remember that the security of the throne arises from the interest which the sovereign possesses in the hearts of his subjects, and that all attempts to stifle their voice, under a sense of grievances, must tend to alienate their affections, and inevitably lead to similar calamities which, in other countries, have been produced by arbitrary and corrupt measures. Whether Mr. Canning was such a statesman, we need only refer to his general vacillating conduct to his superiors in office, and to the return made in 1820, that this gentleman had received from the country, during his public association with government, two hundred thousand pounds! Upon the demise of Mr. Canning, a pension was granted, by act of parliament, to the trustees of the family, of three thousand pounds per annum, and his widow, shortly after, created a peeress!

The ensuing motley ministry, headed by Lord Goderich, (late Mr. Robinson) soon exhibited symptoms of its inefficiency to stand against the powerful phalanx of Toryism, then in array to oppose every thing like liberty. The philosopher, however, deeply deploring the many vicissitudes, the varying process, through which Opinion has to pass in order to be refined to Truth, but calmly aware that the sense of a people never ultimately retrogrades, might have observed through the clouds which, at this period, [194]dimmed the political horizon, the sun of Liberty darting forth its smiling beams, and exhibiting signs of a speedy victory over the murky enemies of mankind,—the brighter period, when a more enlarged intelligence would necessarily triumph,—when warlike Tory despotism, founded on a feverish desire to keep the people down by the bayonet, would wear out its own harassed existence, and a system of freedom, sanctioned and confirmed by a long previous disposition of thought, would be realized, and the spirit and letter of that solemn compact, made and ratified between the crown and the people in 1688, be finally restored to the country.