Volume II Part 2 (2/2)
At the city concert, also, Alderman Wood displayed his indecorous conduct. The orchestra was elevated about a foot, and at the right of the orchestra two chairs were placed, one for the queen, and the other for her lady in waiting, who sat next the people. Alderman Wood stood behind her majesty the whole time, laughing and whispering, in the most intimate style, in her ear; and though her lady kept her face towards them, wis.h.i.+ng it to appear _to the public_ that at least she had a _share_ in the conversation, alas! too many saw she was never spoken to by either!
From such impudent and vulgar conduct as this, we heard a certain royal duke observe, ”I wish to serve the queen, but I will not be Mr. Wood's cat's-paw, nor play second fiddle to him!” Similar observations were made by n.o.blemen of the very first rank in this country. It may be asked, ”Why did the queen allow herself to be guided so much by this alderman?” Because her majesty thought him _honest_, and was not aware that he kept any other persons away. ”Could no one tell her majesty the real state of things?” No! for Mr. Wood actually set her against every one, except himself and his own creatures, in order to preserve entire influence over her majesty. Indeed, her legal advisers could hardly speak to the queen, without this very officious gentleman being present.
He began by prejudicing her majesty against them all; for he said, ”No lawyers are good for any thing; I esteem _myself_ above them all.” _We ourselves heard him say so._ When he had thus persuaded her majesty of his own superiority, and introduced himself into all the consultations of her law advisers, (unless they demanded a _private_ audience) he began to attack the _Whigs_, and amused himself by constantly abusing them. He has frequently been heard to say, ”The Whigs are worse enemies of your majesty than the ministers; they would sacrifice you if they could.” But, for himself, he led her to believe that he could do any thing with the people! In the city, he conceitedly told her majesty, at the head of her own table, (where he _usually sat_, till Lord Hood took his place) in November, when his friend Thorp was elected mayor, that ”they wanted to elect me mayor a third time, but I would not accept the office;” while, at this very election, there was but ONE SINGLE VOTE for him, and that was the new lord mayor's, who could not vote for himself!
It is very lamentable to consider that her majesty was so much guided by this one man in most of her actions, even to the fatal day of the coronation, upon which occasion, however, he took particular care not to attend her. There is every reason to believe, notwithstanding, that her going at all was owing to his _secret_ advice, though he pretended to the contrary. Those who heard him at the _king's dinner_ were disgusted at his being the _loudest_ to applaud his majesty! Most certainly, the coronation day did not end to her majesty as she had been led to expect; and she discovered, or fancied so, that she had no friend or adviser in England on whom she could rely; and, therefore, determined to visit Scotland. It was remarked to the queen, by a _true_ friend, who sought only her honour and happiness, that Scotland was a proud nation, and that it would not be there thought that Alderman Wood was of sufficient rank to attend her majesty. The queen quickly and _indignantly_ replied, ”Alderman Wood! I should never think of taking _him_! No, no; I shall only take Lord and Lady Hood, and Lady Hamilton!” All the world knows her majesty never named the alderman in her will; but all the world does not know that, a short time before her death, she said, ”I OWE WOOD NOTHING!”
The alderman also seized every opportunity he could to persuade the queen to go _abroad again_. On one of these occasions, a friend of her majesty overheard the hypocritical adviser, and immediately said, ”How can you, Mr. Wood, pretend to be her majesty's best friend, and yet want her to do that which would ruin her in the eyes of the whole country?”
”I do not _want_ her to go,” replied he, ”but if she _will_ go, I wish to point out to her the best way of doing it.” ”Sir, there is _no good way_ for the queen to quit the country, and if you should unfortunately succeed in persuading her to do it, you will be her ruin!”
Thus it will be seen, that ”all is not gold that glitters;” but Mr. Wood ought hardly to find fault with us for stripping him of his borrowed plumes, considering the length of time he has been allowed to wear them!
If the public had known these particulars at the time they occurred, it is doubtful whether the alderman would have ever received _his plate_; therefore, he owes us a little grat.i.tude for not mentioning them before that (to him) _golden_ opportunity!
Alderman Wood, however, we are sorry to say, was not the only false friend her majesty had to lament. Many others ”held with the hare in one house, and ran with the hounds in another.” Some of these even attended public meetings in the quality of friends, and then wrote as enemies in the public journals. Some inveighed against her in public, and wrote, spoke, and acted for her cause in private. One of her judges, to our positive knowledge, spoke admirably for her in parliament, and yet privately, in more places than one, impugned the character of her majesty! Even while the queen was abroad, her _presumed_ friends were extremely negligent at home. They permitted insidious paragraphs to appear in the newspapers, day after day, month after month, and year after year, without either contradiction or explanation; by which shameful neglect, the public mind became so impregnated with falsehood and insinuation, that, had not the queen returned to this country as she did, her name would have been recorded in history as infamous! Sure never woman was so shamefully treated, both by friends and foes; indeed, her majesty might well have exclaimed, with Gay,
”An open foe may prove a curse, But a _pretended_ friend is worse!”
On the 12th of August, while his majesty was absent on a visit to Scotland, an extraordinary excitement prevailed by the reported ”sudden death” of the Marquis of Londonderry. It is hardly necessary to enter into the various causes a.s.signed for so unexpected an event; it is sufficient to know, that his lords.h.i.+p committed suicide, by cutting his throat with a small knife, at his seat, Foot's Cray, and that a coroner's inquest (either from conviction, or in kindness to his surviving friends) returned a verdict, that his lords.h.i.+p inflicted the wound while ”delirious and of insane mind.”
It is an obligation imposed upon every independent historian to lend his a.s.sistance to a just and honest estimate of the character of public men.
It leads to useful, though not always to gratifying, reflections, to examine the causes which pointed them out as objects worthy of being entrusted with political command. By what strange union of circ.u.mstances, then, or by what unlucky direction of power, did the Marquis of Londonderry attain to the high and important offices which he successively held for so long a period?--a period the most momentous and ominous, the most fertile in change, the most wicked in court intrigue, and the most fraught with terror, of any in our annals! We have heard his lords.h.i.+p described as having been amiable in private life; but who has denied the manifest mediocrity of his genius for the situations he was allowed to fill? Some of his public proceedings, however, prove him not to have possessed much of ”the milk of human kindness,” as we shall presently shew. He was, indeed, only qualified to act as a mere a.s.sociate, to be put forward in the face of Europe, not as himself a high and original power, but as a pa.s.sive organ for the expression of sentiments, or for the execution of measures, hereafter traceable only as the opinions and actions of the ”united cabinet” of a wicked chief magistrate. The panegyrists of his lords.h.i.+p have also trumpetted forth eulogiums on his ”personal bravery.” And if bravery consists in fighting duels, proposing the most unconst.i.tutional acts, fearlessly oppressing the innocent, and in defying the power of a justly-enraged people, Lord Londonderry a.s.suredly possessed ”personal bravery” in an eminent degree!
His lords.h.i.+p was born on the 18th of June, 1769, and consequently died in the 53rd year of his age. He commenced his career, like his patron, Mr. Pitt, as the advocate of parliamentary reform; and, also like that apostate minister, Lord Londonderry abandoned his early patriotic pledges and principles for the emoluments of office, which he first entered in 1797, as keeper of the privy seal, and, shortly after, one of the lords of the treasury, of Ireland. In the following year, he became secretary to the lord lieutenant. Honours and places were now lavishly heaped upon him. In 1802, his lords.h.i.+p received the appointment of the Board of Controul, and, in 1805, was raised to the high and responsible office of minister of war! On the death of Mr. Pitt in 1806, his lords.h.i.+p was obliged to resign, with all the other ”clerks in office,” as the _debris_ of Mr. Pitt's cabinet were called. On the resignation of the Grey and Grenville administration, in 1807, he resumed his former situation of minister of war, in which he continued till the ill-starred Walcheren expedition and his duel with Mr. Canning drove him from office, scorned and ridiculed by the whole of Europe. The year 1809 gave his lords.h.i.+p an opportunity of shewing how much he admired the existing abuses in church and state; for, on an investigation taking place into the Duke of York's shameful neglect of duty, as commander-in-chief, this year, the n.o.ble marquis was peculiarly active in his defence, and circulated a considerable sum of money in bribing those who were likely to appear as witnesses against the royal libertine. On the a.s.sa.s.sination of Mr. Perceval, in 1811, his lords.h.i.+p was made foreign minister, in which situation he continued till his death. Holding so high an office at a time when our foreign exertions were the most extensive and important, and acting as our negotiator when Europe might have been composed and re-adjusted by our councils, he had opportunities, which few ministers have enjoyed, of benefitting his country and the whole human race. But how did he employ these rare opportunities? Alas! his name is only to be found in treaties and conventions for clipping the boundaries, impairing the rights, or annihilating the existence of independent states; and he gloried in the opportunity of stifling liberty in all the lesser states of Europe. Even the colonial and commercial interests of Great Britain herself were bartered away for snuff boxes and the smiles of Continental despots! If, however, there is one action more than another calculated to brand the name of Castlereagh with immortal infamy, it is the mean, tyrannical, and inglorious conduct which he exercised towards the greatest man that ever reigned over a free and enlightened people--the Emperor NAPOLEON!
To view the career of this truly ill.u.s.trious man is to look back upon the course of a blazing star, that, drawing its fiery arch over the concave of heaven, fixes the admiring attention of the sublunary world, and dazzles, while it arrests, the wondering eye! What language can do justice to the mental powers and n.o.ble daring of the man who subdued the blood-thirsty enemies of his country, and laid Europe at his feet? In Napoleon, we saw the triumphant opposer of all despots, and the restorer of order to his own disorganized and distracted subjects. See him from his bold and judicious exertions at Toulon to his a.s.sumption of the imperial t.i.tle, and the dread-inspiring att.i.tude he presented to terrified and retiring Russia,--then judge his gigantic energy and valour! As first consul, he pacified Europe; and, as emperor and king, revenged her breach of the peace. Russia, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Prussia, the Netherlands, Germany, Sardinia, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Naples, were all in arms against his power; yet--all fell before it!
The termination of the great war in Europe was not the peculiar triumph of that cabinet of which Lord Londonderry was the most prominent tool.
The campaigns of 1813 and 1814 were guided by the skill and spirit of Russian and German officers,--aided, to be sure, by British soldiers,--and with the whole civilized world for their allies. The English ministers, or rather, the MONIED INTEREST of England, were bankers to the ”Grand Alliance,” and furnished the sinews of the war.
But, even with such mighty odds against him, the towering and gigantic genius of Napoleon would have defied them all, if English money had not BRIBED some of his generals. It was this, and this only, that completed his downfall. To talk of the Duke of Wellington as the conqueror of Napoleon is an insult to the understanding of any intelligent man, and for Lord Castlereagh to have boasted of having subdued him, as his lords.h.i.+p was wont to do, ”was pitiful, was wonderous pitiful!” The English cabinet, at this period, was the same ”incapable” cabinet. The men were the same satellites to Mr. Pitt, subordinates to Mr.
Perceval,--nay, even to Lord Sidmouth, of Manchester notoriety,--whom the independent members of parliament had long known and despised.
Circ.u.mstances ruled these ministers, whose position was chosen for them, and improved by others. They could not have resisted that universal impulse which they had not created, but which Bonaparte himself had provoked; for he defied the whole ”Grand Alliance,” and, so far, was the author of his own reverses, which, however, he would not so soon have experienced if Fouche, Duke of Otranto, had not suffered his avarice to get the better of his duty. It was this wicked duke, who, dreading the detection of his treachery, devised a plan for a.s.sa.s.sinating the Emperor Napoleon on his road to Waterloo. But, though this diabolical intention proved a failure, he succeeded too well in putting his ill.u.s.trious master in the power of the British government. Not content, however, with betraying his king, Fouche, though he capitulated for Paris, gave up the rest of France to the discretion of her enemies and the tender mercies of the Russian cossacks! This most consummate of traitors likewise exposed those who had a.s.sisted him to execute his diabolical plans, and actually signed lists for their proscription! Even the treaty for the capitulation of Paris proved a mere juggle; for none of its provisions were properly adhered to by Lord Castlereagh. The Parisians were here most shamefully deceived. It could never have been contemplated by them, for instance, that the capital was to be rifled of all the monuments of art and antiquity, whereof she had become possessed by right of conquest. A reclamation of the great mortar in St. James'
Park, or of the throne of the King of Ceylon, would have just as much appearance of fairness as that of Apollo by the Pope, and Venus by the Grand Duke of Tuscany. What a preposterous affectation of justice did our foreign secretary evince in employing _British_ engineers to take down the brazen horses of Alexander the Great, that they might be re-erected in St. Mark's Place at Venice,--a city to which the Austrian emperor has no more equitable a claim than we have to Vienna! Lord Castlereagh's authority for emptying the Louvre was not only an act of unfairness to the French, but one of the greatest impolicy as concerned our own countrymen, since, by so doing, he removed beyond the reach of the great majority of British artists and students the finest models of sculpture and of painting the world has produced. Although England was made to bear the trouble and expense of these removals, the complacent Castlereagh gave all the spoil to foreign potentates, whose smiles and a few trifling presents compensated _him_ for their loss! But what will posterity think of a British minister's violating a treaty for such paltry gratifications?
We come now to speak of the conduct of the departed minister to the betrayed Emperor of the French. Napoleon always declared that he gave himself up to England, in the confidence of promises, sacredly made to him by Lord Castlereagh, that he should be allowed to remain in this country. ”My having given myself up to you,” were Napoleon's words, ”is not so simple a matter as you imagine. Before I went to Elba, Lord Castlereagh offered me an asylum in England, and said that I should be very well treated there, and much better off than at Elba.” But how did his lords.h.i.+p fulfil these promises? This will be best explained in the language of Napoleon himself, in a protest which he wrote on board the Bellerophon, August 4th, 1815, of which the following is a translation:
”I hereby solemnly protest, in the face of heaven and of man, against the violence done me, and against the violation of my most sacred rights, in forcibly disposing of my person and my liberty. I came voluntarily on board of the Bellerophon; I am not a prisoner, I am the guest of England. I came on board even at the instigation of the captain, who told me he had orders from the government to receive me and my suite, and conduct me to England, if agreeable to me. I presented myself with good faith, to put myself under the protection of the English laws. As soon as I was on board the Bellerophon, I was under shelter of the British people.
”If the government, in giving orders to the captain of the Bellerophon to receive me, as well as my suite, only intended to LAY A SNARE FOR ME, it has forfeited its honour and disgraced its flag.
”If this act be consummated, the English will in vain boast to Europe of their integrity, their laws, and their liberty. British good faith will be lost in the hospitality of the Bellerophon.
”I appeal to history; it will say that an enemy, who for twenty years waged war against the English people, came voluntarily, in his misfortunes, to seek an asylum under their laws. What more brilliant proof could he give of his esteem and his confidence? But what return did England make for so much magnanimity? They feigned to stretch forth a friendly hand to that enemy; and when he delivered himself up in good faith, they sacrificed him.
(Signed) ”NAPOLEON.”
Napoleon, however, acquitted the English PEOPLE of any partic.i.p.ation in this crime, and said, ”We must not judge of the character of a people by the conduct of their government.”
<script>