Volume II Part 7 (2/2)
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 friends.h.i.+p.” 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 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 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 _grat.i.tude_ to George the Fourth for bestowing on him a t.i.tle, which adds little to the character of 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 s.h.i.+eld--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 varnis.h.i.+ng 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 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 Superst.i.tion 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 dispa.s.sionate reflection of every thinking Englishman, whether such a prost.i.tution 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 unbia.s.sed 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 ent.i.tled. 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 writers of strict independence and integrity, more particularly about the period of the Duke of York's death, when Toryism was flouris.h.i.+ng 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 n.o.ble 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 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 const.i.tution, 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 const.i.tutional 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.
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 ama.s.sing 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 lords.h.i.+p 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 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 lords.h.i.+p'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 princ.i.p.al, 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 pa.s.sage, 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 a.s.sured 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 have proved so heartless and active an oppressor of Queen Caroline? We are forcibly reminded of two pa.s.sages of Scripture, which powerfully apply to his lords.h.i.+p'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 lords.h.i.+p 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 premiers.h.i.+p, 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 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 prost.i.tuted talent, and little or nothing to claim their grat.i.tude. 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:
”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 ent.i.tles 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 cla.s.s 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 a.s.saults 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 a.s.sembly 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 ma.s.s, to which, absolving 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 compet.i.tors 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 whom you had first insulted by the offer of your alliance, then by your coa.r.s.e 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 a.s.saults, 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.
”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 b.u.t.t 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 const.i.tuents, 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 Baccha.n.a.lian 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 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 n.o.bles and gentry in particular districts, and of the lower cla.s.ses in all; let this single felon a.s.sert 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, 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 a.s.sail 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.
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