The Canning house. [1815 Coming back from abroad to assert her rights, she was met by a Bill, introduced by Lord Liverpool, under pressure from George IV., for the dissolution of her marriage. The evidence produced before the House of Lords certainly convicted her of astounding disregard for propriety; but it had no effect whatever on the London mob, which persisted in regarding her as a deeply wronged heroine. The majorities for the Bill dwindled, and it was dropped after its third reading in the Peers. Soon afterwards, however, her hold on public sympathy began to relax; a foolish attempt to force her way into Westminster Abbey on the occasion of the king's coronation completed the popular disillusionment, and in August she died. The crowd rioted round her coffin as it was being conveyed through London. The king went on his way to Ireland, where, to the disgust of the Whigs, he was received with boisterous loyalty. In the following year he showed to more credit in Edinburgh. But he could not face London, and soon shut himself up in the Brighton Pavilion, a prey to his whims and his attendants. Warned by recent events, Lord Liverpool resolved to reconstruct his Ministry. In 1822 Lord Sidmouth retired, and was succeeded by Robert Peel, who had already made his mark as Chairman of the Bullion Committee, which recommended the resumption of cash payments. Later in the year Lord Castlereagh (now Marquis of Londonderry) committed suicide on the eve of his intended departure for the Congress of Verona. He was replaced by Canning, and two of Canning's friends also joined the Government: Robinson as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Huskisson as President of the Board of Trade. Canning promptly tried a fall with the Holy Alliance, which had determined to put down constitutionalism in Spain. He sent the Duke of Wellington to Verona with instructions to protest against any interference. The duke went so far as to withdraw from the Congress, but a French army was nevertheless despatched across the Pyrenees. With supreme adroitness Canning converted the rebuff into a diplomatic triumph. He hastened to recognise the revolted Spanish colonies, or to use his own rhetoric-he called the new world into existence to redress the balance of the old." And when Spain desired to suppress the constitutional cause in Portugal, Canning intervened with decision. Within four days an expedition was >ha! 1832] despatched to plant the British flag on "the well-known heights of Lisbon," and Ferdinand VII. withdrew the troops that he sent in support of the absolutist Dom Miguel. As a matter of fact Canning's policy was less of a departure from Lord Castlereagh's than is generally supposed, but he acted more freely, because he was unhampered by private friendships with Metternich and other Continental statesmen. The Marquis of Hastings, Governor-General from 1814 to 1823, had enlarged the frontiers of India. Driven by frontier raids to invade Nepaul, the British troops defeated the Goorkhas and Photo: Walker & Cockerell. At home the new element in the Government was doing Domestic excellent work. The Home Secretary set himself to reform and consolidate the criminal law, abolishing the penalty of capital punishment for nearly a hundred felonies. Robinson set aside the sinking fund, reduced the interest on the war The Canning and Goderich [1815 debt, and, after the commercial crisis of 1825 had tried credit very severely, he countenanced the creation of joint-stock banks, and prohibited the issue of £1 and £2 notes (p. 122). His financial policy, which, though within limits, proved a distinct advance on Vansittart's was supposed to be largely influenced by Mr. Huskisson. That able man modified the Navigation Acts by carrying a Reciprocity of Duties Bill, whereby foreign nations were offered an equality of trade with this country. He also lowered the duties on silk and wool, and so gave a considerable impetus to both industries. The Liverpool Ministry had gone far to recover its popularity with the country. But the "pigtail Tories" were infinitely disgusted, and even went so far as to oppose Mr. Canning's friends at the polls. On the 7th of February, 1827, Lord Liverpool had a stroke of apoplexy, and with his death the divisions of the party became past healing. There were two possible Prime Ministers, Peel and Canning, but neither would serve under the other. To his great disgust, Ministries. the king was compelled to send for Canning, whom he disliked on personal grounds. Peel and the Duke of Wellington promptly resigned their offices, though Catholic Emancipation was still to remain an open question. Canning got together a Ministry of his personal friends, and he was afterwards joined by Lord Lansdowne and other Whigs. He was badly beaten in the Lords on a Bill for graduating the corn duties, and on August 8th died, his last days having been embittered by paltry strife. Robinson, become Lord Goderich, attempted to carry on the rickety Government. Its members, however, quarrelled violently, and at last that "transient and embarrassed phantom," its nominal chief, went to the king and resigned in tears. In January, 1828, the Duke of Wellington formed a Ministry, with Peel as his Home Secretary, and a Canningite element, including Huskisson, Lamb, Palmerston, and Grant. Navarino. The duke had promptly to deal with the Eastern question in a very acute shape. The Greeks had revolted against Turkey, and their cause aroused genuine, if exaggerated, sympathy in this country. It appeared hopeless, however, when Mehemet Ali, the Viceroy of Egypt, sent an army under his son, Ibrahim Pasha, to help the Sultan. Russia and England had long been striving after a point of union, and, after the 1832] Porte had refused an armistice, Lord Dudley, the Foreign Secretary of the Canning Ministry, had signed the Treaty of London, whereby the two Powers and France pledged themselves to enforce a cessation of hostilities. Vague orders were sent to Admiral Codrington, who commanded the Mediterranean Squadron, and he remained at anchor while Ibrahim Pasha ravaged the Morea. When, however, the Turkish fleet. attempted to issue from Navarino Bay and fired on the British flag-ship, the allies replied in good earnest, and gained a complete victory (October 27th, 1827). The duke was far from relishing this "untoward event," as it was styled in the Queen's Speech. Instead of sending the British fleet to Repeal of the Test Act: Catholic Emancipation. (1815-1832 Constantinople, he allowed Russia to prosecute the war alone, and wring the Treaty of Adrianople from the Turks. The limits of independent Greece were fixed by the allies in London, and they were far from satisfying Philhellenist aspirations. At home the Government had no settled policy. Lord John Russell forced upon it the Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts in February, 1828, and thus removed a Nonconformist grievance. The Canningites had threatened revolt, and in May they resigned in a body over the question of the assignment of the seats of the disenfranchised borough of East Retford. Want of tact on Mr. Huskisson's part, rather than a deliberate intention on the Duke's to shed the more Liberal members of the Ministry. was probably the cause of the rupture. Still, they went. Wellingtons followers were soon compelled to surrender the chief principle on which the administration rested, namely, that of resistance to Catholic Emancipation. This legacy from the Union had frequently come before the House of Commons Resolutions in favour of the Catholics had passed. only to be rejected by the Lords. The question became far more acute when its control in Ireland passed from the hands of an easy-going, aristocratic committee into the vigorous direction of O'Connell (p. 146). He formed the Catholic Association, and began to collect the Catholic rent in 1823. His meetings were perfectly orderly, but they were inevitably calculated to provoke Protestant reprisals, and his lieutenants were none too discreet. Suppressed by law, the Association reconstituted itself as an educational and charitable combination. At the general election of 1826 O'Connell's candidate was returned for County Waterford. despite the Beresford interest. In the following year O'Connell, though ineligible, stood in person for Clare, against Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald. The forty-shilling freeholders deserted the landlords, and on the fifth day of the polling O'Connell's opponent withdrew. The duke paused irresolutely between surrender and revolution. He compelled Anglesey, the Lord Lieutenant, to resign for blurting out his differences with the Government to O'Connell. But by the meeting of Parliament Peel's commonsense got the upper hand. As a preliminary Peel insisted |