Greek hands. Their conquest was merely a question of time; but it seemed to the European powers that the Greeks, by their seven years' struggle, had earned a better fate. Canning, therefore, was able to negotiate a triple alliance between Great Britain, Russia, and France, and to demand from the Porte that Greece should have the same position as the Danubian states, Servia and Wallachia-i.e. that she should manage her own affairs subject to the suzerainty of the Porte. Time was given to the sultan for the consideration of this proposal; but, before anything was settled, large reinforcements were sent to the Egyptian fleet. Sir Edward Codrington, the English admiral on the station, allowed these to join the rest of the Turkish and Egyptian vessels in the harbour of Navarino; but blockaded them there with the aid of the French and Russian squadrons. The Battle of Navarino. proximity of the rival fleets led to a fight; and on October 20, 1827, the Turkish and Egyptian fleets were utterly destroyed, after a cannonade of four hours. Had the destruction of the fleets been promptly followed up by the appearance of the British and their allies off Constantinople, the Turks would probably have brought the war to an end by granting the demands of the Greeks; but the ministry at home did not know its own mind, and the favourable opportunity was lost. Canning had been succeeded as prime minister by his friend Lord Goderich. Canning had been both first lord of the treasury and also chancellor of the exchequer; and as Lord Goderich, being Goderich's Ministry. in the Upper House, could not be chancellor of the exchequer, that post was given to Herries, a Tory. This led to a difficulty in appointing the chairman of a financial committee for the coming session. Herries wished to act himself: Huskisson desired to have Lord Althorp, the official leader of the Whigs. Both resigned; and Wellington's Goderich, quite at a loss what to do, resigned also. This Ministry. disastrous ending of the Canningite administration enabled the king to offer the premiership to the duke of Wellington, by whom it was accepted; and a mixed government was formed, including Huskisson, Goderich, Palmerston and other followers of Canning, and the strong Tories who followed the duke, and Peel. The first effect of the change was to undo Canning's work in the East. His policy had all along been directed to keep Russia from acting by herself for her own aggrandisement, and to induce her to Independence of take part in the common action of the other powers. The Greece. failure of the allies to follow up the battle of Navarino ruined Canning's plan. It seemed as if the British, at any rate, were 1828 Canning-Goderich-Wellington 933 half-ashamed of their victory, which the duke of Wellington described as 'an untoward event.' Disgusted, therefore, with the slackness of their allies, the Russians invaded Turkey in 1828, and forced the Turks to agree to the Treaty of Adrianople. One of the articles of this secured the independence of the Greeks. This was subsequently ratified by the other great powers, and Prince Otto of Bavaria was elected first king of the Greeks. Acts The session of 1828 is chiefly memorable for the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. This was not a government measure, but was brought forward by Lord John Russell. It was not, how- Test and ever, seriously opposed, for the Acts had been rendered Corporation nugatory for many years by the passing of the annual repealed. Indemnity Act for those who had broken their provisions. The repeal of the Acts was, however, most irksome to the duke of Wellington, who had agreed with Canning in resisting it for many years, and led to friction with the more liberal members of his cabinet. This came to a head in May, 1828, when Huskisson, having disagreed with Peel about the procedure connected with the disfranchisement of Penryn and East Retford, sent in a conditional offer to resign. This Wellington eagerly seized upon and sent to the king; and Huskisson's resignation led to that of Palmerston, Lamb (afterwards Lord Melbourne), and the other Canningites in the ministry. Their places were taken by Wellington's Tory friends, and all seemed to be going smoothly, when suddenly the Catholic question reappeared in a form which commanded immediate attention. Election. Vesey Fitzgerald, whom Wellington had made president of the Board of Trade, was the Tory member for Clare, and his acceptance of office necessitated his re-election. He was a friend of the Roman Catholic The Clare claims; but, nevertheless, the Catholic Association which, on the expiration of the act dissolving it, had resumed its old name, determined to contest the seat and brought forward as his opponent O'Connell himself. To elect a Roman Catholic was legal enough, for it depended on the choice of the elected member whether or not he would take the oath required from a member of parliament on taking his seat. Accordingly the forty-shilling freeholders, directed by their priests, placed O'Connell at the head of the poll; and the contest was therefore transferred to Westminster. It was not merely the return of one member. The Association boasted that at the next general election no less than sixty Roman Catholic members would be returned; it showed also how complete was its command of Irish life by putting a complete check on crime. During the Clare election not a drunken man was to be seen-except O'Connell's Protestant coachman and judges on assize were surprised at the absence of prisoners. A power, in fact, had arisen in Ireland which was more powerful than the government, and the duke of Wellington made up his mind that there was no choice between making way for O'Connell and civil war. If O'Connell were prevented from taking his seat, it was the opinion of the duke of Wellington that civil war would be inevitable; and when the duke had once decided that it was a choice between emancipating the Roman Catholics and civil war, his mind was soon made up. As a general it had been one of his strongest points that he was ready to fight or retreat exactly as occasion required. He carried the same qualities into civil life, defended a position as long as he could, and when it was no longer tenable, fell back unconcernedly to the next. Emancipation carried. Accordingly he decided that resistance to the Roman Catholic claims would now do more harm than good; decided to surrender, and carried Catholic his cabinet with him. The statesman who was placed in the greatest difficulty by this change of front was Peel, who held his seat for Oxford University as an opponent of the Roman Catholic claims. Peel felt it his duty to resign. He stood again for the seat, but was beaten by Sir R. Inglis, and had to take refuge at Westbury. Some difficulty was met with in dealing with the king; but George IV. was a very different man from his father, and the duke of Wellington made little of his scruples. As no anti-Catholic ministers were forthcoming, a threat to resign soon brought him to his senses, and Peel was able to preface his introduction of the Relief Bill by observing that it had the full consent of the king. Thus brought forward, the bill passed the Commons by large majorities; and in spite of all the efforts of Lord Eldon, Wellington's influence secured its acceptance by the Lords. It was preceded and followed by two other bills. By the first the Catholic Association was again declared illegal; but it anticipated the blow by dissolving itself. By the second the forty-shilling freeholders of Ireland were deprived of their votes, and the franchise limited to those possessed of freehold to the value of ten pounds. During the agitation against the disabilities, O'Connell had repeatedly declared that their abolition would lead to the final pacification of Ireland; but the bill had hardly been passed before he was again at work as an agitator, declaring that he would never be satisfied till he had secured the Repeal of the Union. Death of With parliamentary reform rapidly becoming the question of the day in England, and agitation for Repeal on foot in Ireland, the political horizon was anything but peaceful when the death Little good can be said of George brought a new actor on the scene. for George IV. As a young man he had dallied with the Whigs; in his old age he had lent himself to the Tories. By neither was he honoured or believed to be sincere; and he left behind him as ill a memory for being a bad son, a faithless friend, a cruel husband, as a man could well do. He died June 26, 1830. CHAPTER VI WILLIAM IV.: 1830-1837 Born 1765; married 1818, Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen. CHIEF CONTEMPORARY PRINCES France. Louis Philippe, 1830-1848. The Great Reform Bill-Period of Active Legislation-The Irish ChurchSlavery-The Poor Laws-The Municipal Reform-Peel and Conservative Reaction-Lord Melbourne's Government. THE new king had been educated as a sailor, and, till the death of the duke of York in 1827, had little expectation of ascending the throne. Character of At sea he had learnt such habits of genial good-nature as William IV. corresponded ill with the etiquette of a court. Even after he became king he would stop the royal carriage in order to pick up a friend in the street, and give him a lift home; and would willingly sit with his back to the horses in order to do so. In politics he was in favour of parliamentary reform, was believed to dislike the duke of Wellington, and to be extremely desirous of popularity. The reform party, therefore, expected much advantage from having the court on their side. By his wife, Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, whom he married in 1818, he had only two daughters, both of whom died in babyhood; so on his death the crown was expected to go to Victoria, daughter of William's next brother, the duke of Kent. Hardly had William ascended the throne when all Europe was startled by the intelligence of a new French Revolution. Louis XVIII. had The Revolu- died in 1824, and been succeeded by Charles x., the Count tion of July. d'Artois of the Revolution. Between the characters of the two brothers there was much the same difference as between those of Charles II. and James 11. Each was desirous of becoming as nearly 936 |