George C. Brodrick

“ But few appreciated how seriously constitutional liberty had been curtailed by the growth of these abuses (unchecked by the Commonwealth) since the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, how effectually home and foreign policy was controlled by a small circle of noble families dominant in the lower as well as in the upper chamber, how vast a transfer of sovereignty from class to class would inevitably be wrought by a thorough reform bill, and how certainly men newly entrusted with power would use it for their own advantage, whether or not that should coincide with the advantage of the nation. ”

“ He understood better than any man how to deal with the king, and overbore not only the king's own prejudices but the machinations of the Duke of Cumberland with masterly resolution. He set a good example in declining to regard himself as a mere party leader and in refusing to study the arts of popularity hunting, but he never grasped the principle that constitutional government ultimately rests on the will of the people. Still he was too good a general not to see when facts were too strong for him. ”

“ It was easy to pick such a compound scale to pieces, to uphold the claims of one venal borough against another equally venal, and even to reproach the government with inconsistency in relying on the census of 1831, instead of on that of 1821—a course which the opposition had specially urged upon them. But it was not so easy to combat the irresistible arguments in favour of the bill on its general merits, to ignore the reasonable concessions on points of detail which it embodied, or to explain away the patent fact that no measure less stringent would satisfy the people. ”

“ No doubt it was a passionate and defiant warning against any manipulation or dilution of the bill in a reactionary sense, but it was also a distinct protest against attempts by the extreme radicals to amend it in an opposite direction. Now, as ever, the impulse was given by the middle classes, and they were in no mood to imperil their own cause by revolutionary claims. They could not always succeed, however, in checking the fury of the populace, which had been taught to clamour for reform as the precursor of a good time coming for the suffering and toiling masses of mankind. ”

“ Whatever allowance may be made for the coercive policy of the government during the dark period of storm and stress which succeeded the great war, it is hard to find any excuse for its neglect of social legislation. Then, if ever, was a time when the work of Pitt's best days should have been resumed, when real popular grievances should have been redressed, and when the long arrears of progressive reform should have been gradually redeemed. Yet very little was done to better the lot of men, women, and children in Great Britain, and that little was chiefly initiated by individuals. ”

“ Moderation in statesmanship does not always imply mediocrity of ability; and if Liverpool failed to see how many institutions needed radical amendment, he was not so blind as some of his more celebrated associates. Not only was he more liberal in his views than Eldon and Castlereagh, but he was less opposed to free trade than most of his cabinet, to parliamentary reform than Canning, and to catholic emancipation than Wellington or Peel. ”

“ The moderation of the British demands, as embodied in these treaties, excited not only the amazement but the contempt of Napoleon, who discussed the subject at St. Helena with great freedom. Well knowing that his paramount object throughout all his wars and negotiations had been to crush Great Britain, and that Great Britain had been the mainstay of all the combinations against him, he could find no explanation of our self-denial except our insular simplicity. ”

“ Ireland was still to be connected with Great Britain by "the golden link of the crown," and though agitation was carried to the verge of rebellion, the great agitator never actually advised his dupes to rise in arms for a war of independence. Short of this he did all in his power, and with too much success, to inflame them with a malignant hatred of the sister country. If the promoters of catholic emancipation had ever looked for any reward beyond the inward satisfaction of having done a righteous act, they were speedily and wofully undeceived. ”

“ The disfranchisement of the forty-shilling freeholders and the substitution of a ten-pound suffrage was the price to be paid for catholic emancipation, and no time was lost in completing the bargain. In days when it is assumed that every change in the electoral franchise must needs be in a downward direction, it may well appear amazing that so wholesale a destruction of privileges enjoyed for thirty-six years should have provoked so feeble an opposition. ”

“ The British government, already engaged in the Peninsular war, had at last resolved to take a vigorous part in the new and desperate struggle between France and Austria in Southern Germany. The latent spirit of German nationality, [Pg 62] aroused by Napoleon's ruthless treatment of Prussia, and quickened into a flame by sympathy with the uprising in Spain, was embodied in the secret association of the Tugendbund; and Austria, smarting under a sense of her own humiliation, mustered up courage to assume the leadership of a national movement. ”

“ The national preference for amateurs over professionals in politics, no less than in other fields of energy, found an admirable representative in him, and he was all the more popular as a political leader because it was believed that he had no desire to be a political leader at all. At all events, he inspired confidence in all, and it was no mere whim of the king which treated his removal from the commons to the lords as an irreparable loss to Melbourne's administration. ”

“ The suppression of the slave-trade which had revived after the great war, the liberty of the press, the cause of popular education—these were among the almost innumerable objects, outside the common run of politics, and largely philanthropic, to which he devoted his restless mind, before it was engrossed for a while by parliamentary reform. There, as we have seen, he showed a moderation which had not been expected of him, nor is it too much to say that, both as a leader of the bar and as chancellor, he made good his claim to be the greatest of law reformers. ”

“ In the meantime, sanguinary riots broke out afresh at Madrid, hundreds of French were massacred, and the insurrection, as it was called, though sternly put down by Murat, spread like wildfire into all parts of Spain. A violent explosion of patriotism, resulting in anarchy, followed throughout the whole country. Napoleon was taken by surprise, but the combinations which he matured at Bayonne for the conquest of Spain were as masterly as those by which he had well-nigh subdued the whole continent, except Russia. ”

“ Those who remembered the bloodthirsty orgies of the French revolution, ushered in by quixotic visions of liberty, equality, and fraternity, may perhaps be excused for distrusting the moderate professions of demagogues who deliberately inflamed the passions of ignorant mobs. Moreover, the whigs and moderate reformers, who privately condemned the excesses of their violent followers, made light of these in their public utterances, and reserved all their censures for the repressive policy of the government. Bread riots had begun before the harvest, which proved a total failure. ”

“ The internal history of England during the first two years of Liverpool's premiership has been entirely dwarfed by the interest of external events. For this period comprised not only the Russian expedition—the greatest military tragedy in modern history—the marvellous resurrection of Germany, with the campaigns which culminated in the stupendous battle of Leipzig, and the invasion of France which ended in the abdication of Napoleon at Fontainebleau, but also the brilliant conclusion of the Peninsular war, and the earlier stages of the war between Great Britain and the United States. ”

“ Meanwhile, prison reform became a favourite study of benevolent theorists in an age when the criminal law was still a relic of barbarism, when highway robbery was rife in the neighbourhood of London, when sanitation was hardly in its infancy, when pauperism was fostered by the poor law, and when the working classes in towns were huddled together, without legal check or moral scruple, in undrained courts and underground cellars. ”

“ Canning was the most brilliant orator of his day, and no less persuasive in private conversation than in public orations, gifted with an agile brain that leaped readily from one idea or one project to another, but cursed with a bitter wit which lightly aroused enduring enmities, and which, coupled with an excessive vanity, rendered him unpopular with his colleagues, and made it difficult for any one to take him seriously ”

“ His noble spirit was broken at last by the defection of Prussia, and after lingering a while, he died on the 23rd of that month, leaving a name second to none among the greatest statesmen of his country. His sagacious mind grasped the advantage to be gained by freeing trade from unnecessary restrictions, and anticipated catholic emancipation, parliamentary reform, and the abolition of slavery. He gave the nation, in the union with Ireland, the one constructive measure of the first order achieved in his time, and only marred by the weakness of more pliable successors in a lesser age. ”

“ The period which elapsed between the resignation of Pitt and the battle of Waterloo was hardly less eventful in the history of British civilisation than in the history of British empire. To some, the boundary line between the society of the eighteenth and that of the nineteenth century appears to be marked by the outbreak of the French revolution, and the far-reaching effects of that catastrophe upon ideas, manners, and politics in Great Britain, as well as upon the continent, are too evident to be denied. ”

“ Speaking deliberately in reply to Grey, who had indicated reform as the only true remedy for popular discontent, the duke stated that no measure of reform yet proposed would, in his opinion, improve the representative system then existing, which, he said, "answered all the good purposes of legislation" to a greater degree than "any legislature in any country whatever". He went further, and avowed his conviction not only that this system "possessed the full and entire confidence of the country," but also that no better system could be devised by the wit of man. ”

“ As an essayist his work breathes the spirit of an earlier age; but as a literary critic he is a leader, and displays an inwardness in his appreciation that makes him in a sense the model of the new age in which criticism has so largely supplanted creation. It may be doubted, however, whether the abnormal growth of criticism, as a distinct branch of English letters, has been a benefit on the whole to our literature. ”

“ With the governments who have declared their independence, and maintained it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration, and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power, in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition towards the United States. ”

“ Prussia, fearing war, resisted the proposal, and preferred to draw France into a guarantee of the status quo by recognising Louis Philippe. Russia was last of the great powers to acknowledge the new régime in France, and she only did so on condition that the powers should hold the French king responsible for the execution of the international engagements of the fallen dynasty. Louis Philippe was certainly not the man wilfully to embroil France in a war with her neighbours, and, had he been independent of French public opinion, there would have been no reason to fear French aggression. ”

“ The English ministry, too, was impelled by strong motives to enter upon the negotiations which resulted in the peace of Amiens. Not only was Great Britain crippled by the loss of nearly all her allies, but the high price of bread had roused grave disaffection, [2] and intensified among British merchants a desire for an unmolested extension of commerce; above all, English statesmen now recognised the consulate, under Bonaparte, as the first stable and non-revolutionary government since the fall of the French monarchy. ”