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preparing plans for revolutionising the kingdom, till he was shut up for life in solitude and silence. In Paris, towards midnight of a certain Sunday, Louvel was waiting outside the opera-house, his hand upon the dagger with which he hoped to cut off the successor to the throne of France by the murder of the Duc de Berri. In Germany, certain watchful eyes were counting the letters which Kotzebue sent through the Post-office, to inform the Russian autocrat of the state of literature and public opinion in the cities;' that is, of the open songs and secret societies by which the university students were endeavouring to rouse and organise the citizens for a purpose of constitutional demands; and the young fanatic, Sand, was secretly nourishing his resolution to free the land from the spy. When the act was done, and Sand was sent after his victim, 'thousands of spectators hastened, if possible, to get some drops of his blood, or some of his hair. The chair on which he sat when he underwent his punishment was purchased of the executioner by a society for six louis-d'ors. No disorder, however, took place. The time was not come for what newspapers call disorder,' though there was much of what the sovereigns considered so. The professors had 'not yet completely learned to confine themselves to their proper province;' they forgot the morals of the students in teaching them the principles of politics. Even at Vienna, and in the metropolitan seat of learning, such a spirit appeared that the emperor was compelled to have recourse to 'severe measures,' to control the teachings of the masters of learning. Along the Elbe, the Maine, and the Rhine, a silent symbol was put forth which troubled the repose of rulers on their thrones. For hundreds of miles, men appeared in the old German costume, which suggested to everybody thoughts of an 'ancient ideal system of Teutonic freedom.' In the streets of Jena and Heidelberg, and under the walls of the ducal palace at Darmstadt, a song was heard-the celebrated Great Song,''Princes arise, ye people rise' -which was all discord to the ears of princes, all music to the hearts of the people, and whose authorship could never, by threat or stratagem, be discovered. While the emperor, at St Petersburg, was dispensing his benevolences, his brother Constantine was torturing Polish officers at Warsaw, and teaching the most rapid lessons of rebellion to the crowds gathered about the great parade of the city. When any officer was declared to have failed to bring up his horse to a hair's-breadth in the line, he was compelled to leap his horse over a pyramid of bayonets so high that it was barely possible to escape impalement of one or both: if both escaped, the feat was to be done again, and then a third time; and after the popular cry of 'Shame!' and military intercession had compelled the prince to release his victim, it was no surprise to any one that that victim disappeared in the night, and for ever. This prince was,it is true, a sort of Caliban, and no more like the ordinary run of princes than that of men in general; but the world saw him in command of an army, and beheld in these scenes a spectacle of royal sport and popular suffering; and it went with other things to deepen the abyss between sovereigns and subjects.

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In Spain, there was no longer any pause or any disguise. In the south, Colonel Riego rose in the beginning of 1820, and proclaimed the constitution of 1812. He was soon disabled by accidents of the season and of fortune; and every endeavour was made to conceal from the rest of the kingdom what had happened near Cadiz. It is doubtless more conceivable that such an attempt should be made in Spain, than that an English cabinet should hope to prevent the people of Scotland knowing of a rising in Dorsetshire; but it was yet too absurd to succeed. All Spain presently knew of Riego's enterprise; and the greater part of the nation immediately rose. In a few days, the rising was in a state to be reported to all Europe as the revolution in Spain. At the end of February, the king saw his generals and his best troops joining the liberal cause. On the 10th of March, he published his intention of convening the cortes, and instituting various reforms. But it was too late. The people of Madrid assembled round his palace, with shouts for the constitution; and on the evening of that same 10th of March, the feeble Ferdinand promised and proclaimed the constitution of 1812.

This Spanish revolution was the signal for many risings. In August, Portugal followed; and before the year was out, Naples had demanded and obtained the proclamation of the Spanish constitution. Then Piedmont prepared for a similar struggle, and believed liberty to be secure when Charles Albert, the present King of Sardinia, and then Prince of Carignano, swore that he would lay down his life for the cause. He laid down other lives, however, instead of his own; drawing back at the critical moment, and in fact, if not in purpose, betraying his confederates and their cause. And now occurred the circumstances which in reality assembled the congress at Verona, though the pretext was a consultation on the affairs of Greece. While Spain and Portugal were shouting at the fall of the Inquisition and many another ancient wrong, and Germany was chanting the echoes of freedom, and Piedmont and Lombardy were rapidly arming, and Naples was triumphing, and Sicily was trembling, as if the very Titan beneath her mountain were about to arise, what was doing in France? The King of France was engrossed with the fear that his beloved subjects would catch a fever. That was the great affair in France in 1821. A most pestilent fever' had broken out at Barcelona the autumn before; and the French government, which took little apparent notice of the political epidemic which had appeared at Cadiz and Corunna, set up a vigorous opposition to this bilious fever at Barcelona. It does not appear that the disease spread beyond a small district; but the passes of the Pyrences were filled with French troops; only one road was left open; and everything which passed in and out of Spain by that road was very critically examined. Every ass, and every handful of fruit was surveyed; and any person who passed the line without leave, anywhere from sea to sea, was to be shot. These precautions were so extreme, and continued so long after the epidemic had ceased to be heard of, that everybody saw that the fever was not the

real object of the cordon. There had been, in fact, much correspondence between the French and Spanish liberals. The Spaniards had been, as usual, too forward and boastful, representing the liberal cause as more advanced than it was, in their own country and everywhere else; and the French sovereign had some reason to fear for his throne. Within a short time, so many conspiracies were broken up, and so many risings actually took place, that it is probable there was an understanding between the secret societies of other countries and those of France. From time to time, while these things were going on, more and more forces were posted along the Spanish frontier; till at last they looked so like a formidable army, that it became time for nations in alliance with both France and Spain to inquire what all these preparations were for. It was too late now to say anything more about the Barcelona fever; for the time we are speaking of was the autumn of 1822, the date of the Congress of Verona.

When the Duke of Wellington left London to attend the congress, Mr Canning had been in office only forty-eight hours. It may be doubted whether he, bringing into office the comprehensive views of a bystander, believed, as the Duke of Wellington did, that the object of the congress was to consider the affairs of Greece, in prevention of a war between Russia and Turkey. At Paris, the duke was informed by M. Villèle that the affairs of Spain would also be deliberated on; and he wrote home to desire instructions.

Here, in our view, is the parting point of the former and the later foreign policy of England. The moment of sending off the reply to the Duke of Wellington was one of inestimable importance, and worthy of earnest notification in history. The wording of the dispatch was simple enough; and there may be little in its contents to indicate its significance; but there is just enough to shew that a new spirit had arisen in that conspicuous sphere; and that the function of that new spirit was not to bind but to unloose. When the statesmen of the continent heard that Wellington was to be the substitute of Londonderry at the congress, they no doubt thought that the actual representative would be as good for their purposes as the proposed one, who had been called away to a very different congress; and it was probably a long time before they became fully aware of the magnitude of the change which had taken place through the substitution of personages at home. It was said everywhere for years, and is even at this day said by some, that the death of Londonderry made no difference whatever at Verona; that he would have protested against despotic aggression in Spain and elsewhere; and that Canning's opposition did not go beyond protests. But the character of a man's mind stamps itself upon all his acts; and protests to the same general effect from two men of opposite character and views may be as truly unlike each other as if they were opposed in substance. It was long before Mr Canning did any official act so new and singular as to startle the world into a conviction that here was a new man who would reverse the old policy;

yet he wrought the revolution as effectually as if he had done it by proclamation. He proclaimed nothing which could plunge England and other countries into a war, and precipitate the liberals everywhere into a rising which he could not undertake to sustain; but he furthered the liberties of the world quite as much by his heart being honestly with them, and his heartiness shewing itself in all his transactions. Where Londonderry's dispatches would have been vapid and meagre, because he preferred transacting business, as far as possible, by confidential conversation, Canning's were frank and glowing, though moderate and clear. Where, in the palaces, cafés, and streets of continental cities, nothing could have been reported of Londonderry but what would have shewn him a true brother of his colleagues in congress-as hard and unsympathising, as narrow, and as presumptuous as the rest who proposed to give the world a new image of the gospel the speeches of Canning were creating a new thought and a new soul.) Never did the fires of western forests run through the wilderness more gloriously than the speeches of Canning through the political wilds of Europe, under the deep night of the Holy Alliance. In those western wildernesses, the unaccustomed and the timid tremble and shriek, and hang together as they see the spreading flame, and hear the rush and roar, and think of the waste of ashes that will be seen to-morrow; but the hardy freeman enjoys the sight-enjoys the sprinkling and scattering blazes which seize upon decay and rottenness, to turn them into freshness and fruitfulness. And so it was when the utterance of Canning in the British parliament ran over Europe, kindling as it went. It was hateful and terrific to despots, because it leaped upon their abuses, and scorched their vanities, and made of their antiquated dogmas ashes for a new growth of opinion; but the restless spirits of that time were quieted by that utterancequieted not by compulsion, but from within. They could sit still, instead of prowling about under the shadow of that night, while they had this kindling to watch, and its promise to dwell upon. Nothing in the career of Canning is more striking than the quietness of his official action by diplomatic missions and state-papers, while the whole heart of Europe beat whenever he opened his lips to speak, and was ready to burst when he had done.

The reply to the Duke of Wellington's application for instructions ran as follows: If there be a determined project to interfere, by force or by menace, in the present struggle in Spain, so convinced are his majesty's government of the uselessness and danger of any such interference, so objectionable does it appear to them in principle, as well as utterly impracticable in execution, that when the necessity arises, or, I would rather say, when the opportunity offers, I am to instruct your grace at once frankly and peremptorily to declare, that to any such interference, come what may, his majesty will not be a party.' This was decided enough; and it may be considered decisive. The assembled potentates said much-and much might reasonably be said

of the violent character of the liberalism of the time; of the danger to empire when civil reforms

preventing war was the course most full of danger; and his plan was to endeavour, by all possible prudence, to preserve peace.

Mr Canning's 'system' was much talked of at the time; and this was not to be wondered at, at a season when all government was supposed to be carried on by 'systems.' System was the one idea of the members of the Holy Alliance; and it was that which solely occupied the mind of Lord Londonderry. His successor differed from him in nothing more than in this. Mr Canning saw that there can be no stability or working power in any system but by virtue of the principle involved in it; and his was a mind which could resort directly and constantly to the principle, leaving the details of operation to form and discover themselves as they

J

were wanted. Being sure of his principle, he could thenceforth rely upon it; and hence his quietude in official action, his calmness and power of resource amidst the fluctuations of a disturbed time, and the consistency of his foreign policy amidst the everchanging aspects of circumstances whose total elements no enlightened mind would dream of comprehending. The Metternichs, Alexanders, and Ferdinands made a plan which they declared complete; and they would have endeavoured to coerce the very elements themselves when they arose to shatter it. The philosopher who had now come among them saw the narrowness and frailty of all political systems in an age when mankind had learned to live and move; and he knew that the age of self-will and system for rulers was past, while

the ruling power of principles is everlasting.) To speak of Canning's 'system,' therefore, is not to do justice to him. To understand him, we must look for his principle first, and then for the practical purpose which lay nearest to it.

7 His principle was the preservation of peace; and his immediate practical purpose was to dissolve, by the quietest means, the Holy Alliance.]

Mr Canning never concealed that he would have been glad to have left England unrepresented at the Congress of Verona, as the most immediate method of withdrawing her from the Holy Alliance; but the time was so short that the step would have been too hazardous. It took him two years to set England free for her own action abroad; but he did it peacefully and effectually. It was no very easy task. The sovereigns abroad and their ministers had carefully and constantly represented England as favourable to the principles of the Holy Alliance; and every countenance was given to this by Lord Londonderry's conduct, and by our war against revolution in France. All the rulers looked to England for aid against revolution everywhere. And the suffering nations, longing to rise, when assured that England did not favour the principles of the Holy Alliance, expected from her that she should aid revolution everywhere. Both these expectations included a breaking up of peace; and the preservation of peace was Mr Canning's first object so he gratified neither of the expectant parties/

But occasion socn offered for declaring the new policy of England, and for loosening the bonds of the alliance. It presently came out that the French army on the frontier of Spain was not wanted against the Barcelona fever, and would march on into Spain, to aid Ferdinand against his subjects, and put down the constitution. The Emperor of Russia was delighted; and all the other potentates applauded and promised aid. But the Duke of Wellington followed his instructions, dissented and remonstrated, and withdrew. The instructions in this instance were clear and decided; Mr Canning's words being, that if a declaration of any such determination should be made at Verona, come what might, he should refuse the king's consent to become a party to it, even though the dissolution of the alliance should be the consequence of the refusal.' One consequence of the refusal was a correspondence between Mr Canning, the flowery Chateaubriand, and the bigot Polignac, wherein the high-flown royalists expatiated on the blessing to the Spaniards of seeing their king free to give them, with French aid, such a constitution as should be best for them. Mr Canning could not allow this to pass, and protested against the doctrine that constitutional rights are conferred by the royal pleasure. In noticing the speech of the French king on opening the chambers, in which the purpose of invading Spain was declared -while the Duc d'Angoulême laid his hand on his sword, and raised his eyes to heaven-Mr Canning declared that the speech appeared to mean that 'the free institutions of the Spanish people could only be legitimately held from the spontaneous gift of the sovereign, first restored to absolute power, and then

divesting himself of such portion of that power as he might think proper to part with;' that 'the Spanish nation could not be expected to subscribe to this principle, nor could any British statesman uphold or defend it. . . . . It is indeed a principle which strikes at the root of the British constitution.'

After all M. Chateaubriand's declarations and fine sentiments in favour of peace, the Duc d'Angoulême laid his hand on his sword again, on the other side of the Pyrenees. The French invaded Spain. England had done what she could in declaring for the right, and seceding from the congress which advocated the wrong; she now held herself neutral. It was on the 14th of April 1823, that Mr Canning made in the House all the declarations rendered necessary by the act of France in invading Spain. He explained the course and issue of all the attempts at mediation made by the English government, the grounds of the neutrality which she had now finally avowed; and pointed out what must be the conduct of England in regard to Portugal and the South American colonies of Spain, in certain contingencies which might arise. If Portugal joined Spain in repelling the French, there was no call upon England to interfere; but if Portugal, remaining quiescent, were to be attacked, that attack 'would bring Great Britain into the field with all her force, to support the independence of her ancient and her faithful ally.' As for the South American colonies, it was clear that Spain, though claiming them still as hers by right, had in fact lost all power over them. If France should, in the course of the war, capture any of them, so that it would become at last a question whether they should be ceded, and to whom, it would be necessary for all part ies to know that the British government 'considered the separation of the colonies from Spain to have been effected to such a degree, that it would not tolerate for an instant any cession which Spain might make of colonies, over which she did not exercise a direct and positive influence. To such a declaration the British government had at last been forced.'

The declaration of neutrality was painful and disconcerting to some of the best men in parliament and out of it. They were so accustomed to speak of England as the champion of the liberties of the world, and had so completely understood her secession from the Holy Alliance as declaratory of this, that it appeared to them a disgrace to look on, without taking part in one of the most indefensible wars against liberty which had ever been entered into. The foreign secretary had much to encounter in the House-angry rebuke from some, and pathetic expostulation from others. When the debate on the negotiations relative to Spain had been twice adjourned, Mr Canning offered, on the third night, an explanation of his proceedings and reasons, which secured him the enthusiastic support of the House and the country. The motion which had occasioned the debate was one of censure of the feebleness of tone assumed by government in the recent negotiations; and the amendment proposed was, a declaration of gratitude and approbation in regard to what had been done. At the close, the

CHAP. V.]

opposition members were about to leave the House in a body; but some ministerial members called for a division. It was only for want of room in the lobby that any one appeared to vote against the government. The whole assembly poured into the lobby, till it could hold no more; and then the twenty members who were shut in were compelled to pass for an opposition, though there were ministerialists among them. They amounted to 20, in a house of 372.

One passage of Mr Canning's speech spread over the world, and was vehemently hailed or resented wherever it reached :

'I contend, sir, that whatever might grow out of a separate conflict between Spain and Francethough matter for grave consideration-was less to be dreaded than that all the great powers of the continent should have been arrayed together against Spain; and that although the first object, in point of importance, indeed, was to keep the peace altogether -to prevent any war against Spain-the first in point of time was to prevent a general war; to change the question from a question between the allies on one side, and Spain on the other, to a question between nation and nation. This, whatever the result might be, would reduce the quarrel to the size of ordinary events, and bring it within the scope of ordinary diplomacy. (The The immediate object of England, therefore, was to hinder the impress of a joint character, from being affixed to the war-if war there must be-with Spain; to take care that the war should not grow out of an assumed jurisdiction of the congress; to keep within reasonable bounds that predominating areopagitical* spirit) which the memorandum of the British cabinet, May 1820, describes as "beyond the sphere of the original conception, and understood principles of the alliance"-" an alliance never intended as a union for the government of the world, or for the superintendence of the internal affairs of other states.' And this, I say, was accomplished.' 'Canning,' says his biographer, 'always protested against the system of holding congresses for the government of the world.'

As this noted speech declared, the object of Great Britain was accomplished in the potentates at Verona being deterred from declaring a war against Spain. The matter lay now between the two countries which were separated by the Pyrenees; and peace was preserved elsewhere. What his idea was of the peace to be preserved by Great Britain, he manifested in a speech delivered at Plymouth in the autumn of the same year, when the French and Spaniards were at war-1823. Our ultimate object was,' he said, 'the peace of the world; but let it not be said that we cultivate peace either because we fear, or because we are unprepared for war; on the contrary, if, eight months ago, the government did not hesitate to proclaim that the country was prepared for war, if war should unfor

*The council of Areopagus at Athens, was remarkable for its penetrating and superintending character; pronouncing on the economy of private houses, and judging children for tormenting birds. It was a more meddling council than it became any congress to resemble, in a later age of the world.

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tunately be necessary, every month of peace that has since passed has but made us so much the more capable of exertion. The resources created by peace are means of war. In cherishing those resources, we but accumulate those means. Our present repose is no more a proof of inability to act, than the state of inertness and inactivity in which I have seen those mighty masses that float in the waters above your town is a proof they are devoid of strength, and incapable of being fitted for action. You well know, gentlemen, how soon one of those stupendous masses, now reposing on their shadows in perfect stillness-how soon, upon any call of patriotism or of necessity, it would assume the likeness of an animated thing-instinct with life and motion-how soon it would ruffle, as it were, its swelling plumage-how quickly it would put forth all its beauty and its bravery, collect its scattered elements of strength, and awaken its dormant thunder. Such as is one of these magnificent machines when springing from inaction into a display of its might -such is England herself; while apparently passive and motionless, she silently concentrates the power to be put forth on an adequate occasion.'

For that adequate occasion he kept watch as vigilantly as any advocate of war could have done; for he was not one to sacrifice the honour or influence of the country for the sake of the peace for which these were, and always must be, the guarantees. When it was necessary to speak and act again, Great Britain spoke and acted. The French overran Spain from end to end. The Spanish liberals had fewer resources, less union, and less hope than their enemy; and they were cruelly betrayed, not only by some few traitors from among themselves, but by the boastings of the French liberals, who had assured them that a large portion of the invading army would fraternise with the invaded, on touching Spanish soil. Instead of this happening, however, the French soldiery no sooner appeared from the passes of the Pyrenees than the royalist minority in Spain were joined by such numbers as enabled them to cope with the constitutional forces, even without the aid of a foreign invader. The soldiery were certainly royalist; and they shewed it now. The French entered Madrid on the 24th of May, within a month after the delivery, by Mr Canning, of his exposition of the British policy in regard to this conflict. The liberals were still in possession of the person of the king, who was imprisoned by them at Cadiz. There he amused himself with attempting to make signals to friends in the blockading vessels, or outside the walls-taking a sudden fancy for sending up rockets and flying kites. Rockets and kites innumerable were ready to go up at the same moment with the king's, to perplex the royalist watchers outside. He obtained his freedom at last from the hopelessness of his enemies. They dismissed him from Cadiz on the 1st of October, to join his French friends; and two days afterwards, they surrendered the town, and gave up the cause. As it was not the cause of the whole people-as the clergy and the great body of the population welcomed the French-it is clear that no aid given by Great Britain could have saved Spain, or materially