CHAP. X. 1822. The Vox Populi is not always, at the moment, the Vor Dei: it is so only when the period of action has passed, and that of reflection has arisen-when the storms of passion are hushed, and the whisperings of interest no longer of the rulers heard. When the still small voice of experience speaks of thought. in persuasive tones to future generations of men, it will be 161. Increased ascendant 162. of the revo lutionary spirit in different countries. discovered, whether the apparent government of the many is more beneficial in its effects than the real government of a few; but this much is certain, that it is their apparent government only. Men seek in vain to escape from the first of human necessities-the necessity of being governed, by establishing democratic institutions. They do not change the direction of the many by the few: by the establishment of these they only change the few who direct. The oligarchy of intellect and eloquence comes instead of that of property and influence; happy if it is in reality more wise in its measures and far-seeing in its policy than that which it has supplanted. But it is itself directed by the leaders of thought the real rulers of men appear in those who direct general opinion; and the responsibility of the philosopher or the orator becomes overwhelming when he shares with it that of the statesman and the sovereign. No doubt can remain, upon considering the events in Simultane the memorable years 1819 and 1820 in Europe, that ous outbreak they were the result of a concerted plan among the revolutionists in Spain, France, Italy, Germany, and England; and that the general overthrow of governments, which occurred in 1848, had been prepared, and was expected, in 1820. The slightest attention to dates proves this in the most decisive manner. The insurrection of Riego at Cadiz broke out on 1st January 1820-that at Corunna on 24th February in the same year-the king was constrained to accept the Constitution on 7th March; Kotzebue was murdered in Germany on 21st March; the revolution of Naples took place on 7th March, that of Piedmont on 7th June; the Duke de X. 1822. 1820. Berri was assassinated on 13th March; émeutes in Paris, CHAP. which so nearly overturned the Government, broke out on 7th June, the military conspiracy on 19th August; the assassination of the English Cabinet was fixed for 19th February by the Cato Street conspirators; the insurrection at Glasgow took place on 3d April. So many April 3, movements of a revolutionary character, occurring so near each other in point of time, in so many different countries, demonstrates either a simultaneous agency of different bodies acting under one common central authority, or a common sense of the advent of a period in an especial manner favourable to the designs which they all had in contemplation. And when it is recollected that the Chambers of France had, by the operation of the coups d'état of 5th September 1816 and March 1819, been so thoroughly rendered democratical that the dethronement of the king and establishment of a republic, by vote of the legislature, was with confidence anticipated when the next fifth had been elected for the Chamber of Deputies, and that distress in Great Britain had become so general, by the operation of the monetary law of 1819, that insurrectionary movements were in preparation in all the great manufacturing towns, and had actually broken out in several,—it must be confessed, that a more favourable time for such a general outbreak could hardly have been selected. characters volts in the diffe rent states. And yet, although these revolutionary movements were 163. obviously made in pursuance of a common design, and Different for a common purpose, yet the agents in them, and the of the reparties in each state to which their execution was intrusted, were widely different. In Great Britain, they were entirely conducted by the very lowest classes of society; and although they met with apologists and defenders more frequently than might have been expected in the House of Commons, and from a portion of the press, yet no person of respectability or good education was actually implicated in the treasonable proceedings. X. 1822. CHAP. The whole respectable and influential classes were ranged on the other side. But the case was widely different on the Continent. The French revolutionists embraced a large part of the talent, and by far the greater part of the education of the country; and it was their concurrence, as the event afterwards proved, which rendered any insurrectionary movement in that country so extremely formidable. In Spain and Portugal, the principal merchants in the seaport towns, the most renowned generals, and almost the whole officers in the army, were engaged on the revolutionary side, and their adhesion to its enemies in the last struggle left the throne without a defence. In Italy, the ardent and generous youth, and nearly the whole educated classes, were deeply imbued with Liberal ideas, and willing to run any hazard to secure their establishment; and nearly the whole of the young men educated at the German universities had embraced the same sentiments, and longed for the period when the Fatherland was to take its place as the first and greatest of representative governments. Such is the difference between the action of the revolutionary principle upon a constitutional and a despotic monarchy, and such the security which the long enjoyment of freedom affords for the continuance of that blessing to future times. CHAPTER XI. ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND SPAIN, FROM THE ACCESSION OF XI. 1821. 1. of France land in re volution. FRANCE and England, since the peace of 1815, had CHAP. pursued separate paths, and their governments had never as yet been brought into collision with each other. Severally occupied with domestic concerns, oppressed with the Divergence burdens or striving to heal the wounds of war, their gov- and Engernments were amicable, if not cordially united, and no- gard to the thing had as yet occurred which threatened to bring them Spanish Reinto a state of hostility with each other. But the Spanish revolution ere long had this effect. It was viewed with very different eyes on the opposite sides of the Channel. Justly proud of their own constitution, and dating its completion from the Revolution of 1688, which had expelled the Stuarts from the throne-for the most part ignorant of the physical and political circumstances of the Peninsula, which rendered a similar constitution inapplicable to its inhabitants, and deeply imbued with the prevailing delusion of the day, that forms of government were everything, and differences of race nothing-the English had hailed the Spanish revolution with generous enthusiasm, and anticipated the entire resurrection of the Peninsula from the convulsion which seemed to have liberated them from their oppressors. These sentiments were entirely shared by the numerous and energetic party in France, which aimed at expelling the Bourbons, and restoring a 1821. CHAP. republican form of government in that country. But for XI. that very reason, opinions diametrically opposite were entertained by the supporters of the monarchy, and all who were desirous to save the country from a repetition of the horrors of the first Revolution. They were unanimously impressed with the belief that revolutionary governments could not be established in Spain and Italy without endangering to the last degree the existing institutions in France; that the contagion of democracy would speedily spread across the Alps and the Pyrenees; and and that a numerous and powerful party set upon overturning the existing order of things, already with difficulty held in subjection, would, from the example of success in the neighbouring states, speedily become irresistible. 2. Peculiar causes which aug divergence. This divergence of opinion and feeling, coupled with the imminent danger to France from the convulsions in the adjoining kingdoms, and the comparative exemption mented this of Great Britain from it, in consequence of remoteness of situation, and difference of national temperament, must inevitably, under any circumstances, have led to a difference in the policy of the two countries, and seriously endangered their amicable relations. But this danger was much increased in France and England at this period, in consequence of the recent events which had occurred in the Peninsula, and the character of the men who were then placed, by the prevailing feeling in the two countries, at the head of affairs. Spain and Portugal were the theatre of Wellington's triumphs; they had been liberated by the arms of England from the thraldom of Napoleon; they had witnessed the first reverses which led to the overthrow of his empire. The French beheld with envy any movement which threatened to increase an influence from which they had already suffered so much; the English, with jealousy any attempt to interrupt it. In addition to this, the two Ministers of Foreigu Affairs on the opposite sides of the Channel, when matters approached a crisis, were of a character and tem |