CHAP. V.] ANGLESEY, VICEROY OF IRELAND-HIS RECALL. leaders echoed from end to end of the empire; and by them the leaders must be judged. During these important months, nothing seems to have been seen and heard of the Irish government, till, on the 1st of October, it issued a proclamation against such assemblages as had already been put down by the influence of the association. All was again still and mute till a strange incident, which occurred in the last month of the year, fixed attention on the two friends-the Duke of Wellington and the Marquis of Anglesey, who governed England and Ireland. Dr Curtis, the titular Catholic Primate of Ireland, had been intimate with the Duke of Wellington ever since the Peninsular war, when Dr Curtis held a high office in the University of Salamanca, and was able to render important services to the British army. The Catholic primate wrote to the premier on the state of Ireland, on the 4th of December of this year; and on the 11th the duke wrote in reply-as friend to friend, and without any idea of a political use being made of what he said. There was nothing in the letter which would have fixed attention, if it had been from any other man; and it now appears natural and reasonable enough, and little or nothing more than he had said in parliament half a year before. He reciprocates his correspondent's desire to see the question settled; sees no prospect of it; laments the existing party-spirit and violence; thinks, if men could bury the subject in oblivion for a short time, during which difficulties might be pondered-a curious method, by the way, of burying a subject in oblivion-'it might be possible to discover a satisfactory remedy.' A copy of this letter was presently in Mr O'Connell's hands. Mr O'Connell carried it to the association, and read it aloud: the association received it with cheers, and recorded it on their minutes, as a decisive declaration of the primeminister in favour of Catholic emancipation. This was not, perhaps, so audacious a stretch of interpretation as some persons-probably including the writer of the letter himself-supposed; for the impediments were now clearly only external and circumstantial; and the association might reasonably feel equal to the conquest of all such. Meantime, Dr Curtis had replied to the duke, in a long letter in which he set forth his reasons for thinking that the burying the subject in oblivion was wholly out of the question; and that every attempt to get rid of it would be extremely dangerous. He sent copies of the duke's letter and his own reply to the lord-lieutenant; and the lord-lieutenant in return explained his own view to be that the Catholic agitation should be continued. No doubt, this was not intended in contradiction or opposition to the premier; but under the idea that the Catholic agitation was the surest means of overpowering the difficulties which embarrassed the premier, and thus of aiding the government. Its effect, however, was strange, from its appearance of being in direct opposition to the views of the head of the government. Not less strange was the following sentence of Lord Anglesey's reply: 'Your letter gives me information on a subject of the highest interest. I did not know 253 the precise sentiments of the Duke of Wellington upon the present state of the Catholic question.' What were men to think of this? They must conclude one of two things-both highly injurious to government: either that there was such indifference about the Catholics as that their cause had not been discussed with the lord-lieutenant among other subjects of Irish policy; or that the lord-lieutenant was not in the confidence of government at home. It was impossible not to entertain the last of these suppositions; especially as the viceroy proceeds to say that he must acknowledge his disappointment at finding-still from the duke's letter merely-that there was no prospect of Catholic emancipation being effected during the approaching session of parliament. This was on the 23d of December; only six weeks before the opening of the session. These are curious disclosures of the way in which one of the most important events in British history, and in the history of civil and religious liberty everywhere, was first awaited, and then brought to pass. This letter, too, was immediately carried to the Catholic Association, and read aloud amidst plaudits, like the other. In this case the applause was natural enough; for the letter recommended a strenuous pushing of the Catholic cause, by peaceable means: 'The question should not be for a moment lost sight of;' but let the Catholic trust to the justice of his cause,' and use none but unexceptionable means, that his plea might be met by the parliament under the most favourable circumstances.' Such encouragement from the ruler of Ireland and a privy-councillor of the king, might well be received with cheers. A large tribute of admiration was voted to him for his manliness and political sagacity.' His sagacity seems to have failed him in regard to his own interests, however; his reputation for prudence and even political honour. If he was surprised, no one else was, when the next English packet brought his recall. He left Ireland in January, and was succeeded in the viceroyalty by the Duke of Northumberland. One cannot but see some comic intermixture with the very serious aspect of the times, at the close of 1828. There were the Duke of Wellington and the Marquis of Anglesey made the two pets of the Catholic Association-their letters treasured in the minutes, and themselves assumed to be both friends of Catholic objects; while, at the same time, and in consequence of these very proceedings, the duke was recalling the marquis, because the marquis had brought the duke into an irremediable difficulty. The Catholic Association was pledging itself to send seventy county members into the House, while its very existence was for the purpose of obtaining an admission to parliament at all. While the Catholic leaders were assuming that they should have all they wanted very soon, and the Brunswick Clubmen were certain that they would never obtain anything at all, as long as there were true Britons who would make their dead bodies a barrier between the Catholics and the privileges of Protestantism, the English Tories, through the mouth of Lord Eldon, lamented that, 'bit by bit,' emancipation would be granted; and the Liberals were certain that the duke meant to yield everything in the course of the next session; while the duke himself certainly was not aware, in the middle of the closing month of the year, that he meant anything at all. He might appropriate the saying of the sage: All I know is that I know nothing.' Mr Shiel has left us a picture of the time, in a speech at the association: The minister folds his arms, as if he were a mere indifferent observer, and the terrific contest only afforded him a spectacle for the amusement of his official leisure. He sits as if two gladiators were crossing their swords for his recreation. The cabinet seems to be little better than a box in an amphitheatre, from whence his majesty's ministers may survey the business of blood.' The viceroy was recalled for desiring and promoting what the head of the government was about to do. As for the great Catholic leader, the most noticeable particular about him was his having pledged himself to perdition, if ever again he would compromise the franchise of the forties.' Times seem to have become too hard for men's wits-for their endowments of sagacity and judgment, and of that prudence which, in affairs so momentous as this, should go by the name of conscience. CHAPTER VI. N the speech with which the king, by commission, dismissed parliament on the 28th of July, the first point of interest was a declaration of the reviving prosperity of the people. After the dreadful shocks of 1825 and 1826, it was some time before any revival of trade was apparent, at all adequate to the wants of the workingclasses. But now the immense stocks of every species of manufacture which had been prepared under the mania of speculation were pretty well cleared off; money and commodities had resumed an ascertained and natural value; and the state of the revenue and the general contentment indicated that a condition of prosperity had returned. One advantage of this was, that many statesmen, and whole classes of interests,' became convinced that free-trade-as the very partial relaxations of former commercial restriction were then called-was not the cause of the late distresses-was certainly enhancing the prosperity-was, in short, found to be a very good thing. The king's speech carefully indicated that the war which had been declared between Russia and the Porte was wholly unconnected with the Treaty of London; and promised to continue the efforts which had been made, in concert with the King of France, to promote peace between Russia and Turkey. Meantime, the emperor had been induced not to carry war into the Mediterranean, where so many interests were involved; and had actually recalled his warlike instructions to the commanders of his fleet in the Levant. It was announced that great disappointment had occurred with regard to Portugal; and that it had been found necessary by all the powers of Europe to withdraw their representatives from Lisbon. The mistake with regard to Portugal had been in ever appointing as regent such a man as Don Miguel. It might be evident enough that difficulties would be reconciled, and the future would be provided for, by uniting the interests of the different branches of the royal family, in his regency, and his marriage with the yet childish queen; but all political arrangements proceed on the supposition that more or less reliance is to be placed on the acting parties -that some obligations of conscience, or at least of reputation, exist in each party that enters into a contract. But the conduct of Don Miguel in regard to his father, and in other instances, had shewn him to be, not only untrustworthy, but a sort of moral monster who cannot be treated with as men usually are. Yet his brother, the Emperor of Brazil, thought he had arranged everything, and settled adverse claims by appointing him Regent of Portugal, and promising him marriage with the young queen. At the beginning of this year, Don Miguel had been in England. He spent nearly two months in London; and it was regarded as a good sign that he went there, and associated with the rulers and statesmen of a free country, rather than visit the courts of despotic sovereigns. He had taken the oath to preserve the new constitution of Portugal, and had written to his sister-his predecessor in the regency-from Vienna, that he was determined to maintain inviolate the laws of the kingdom, and the institutions legally granted by Don Pedro, and to cause them to be observed, and by them to govern the kingdom. And before he left England, he had, according to the universal belief, written a letter, voluntarily, to George IV., in which he said that if he overthrew the constitution, he should be a wretch, a breaker of his oath, and a usurper of his brother's throne.' There was never any question of his being bound by the strongest obligations to administer constitutional government in Portugal, if he had been one who could be bound by any obligations whatever. But, as it was proved that he was not such a one, he should not have been trusted with any political powers whatever. The princess-regent took leave of the cortes in January; and on the 22d of February, Don Miguel landed at Lisbon. Among the acclamations which greeted him-the cries of Long live the Infant!'a few voices were heard shouting 'Long live Don Miguel, the absolute king!' Neither on this occasion, nor when he went in procession to the cathedral, and heard more of the same shouts, did the prince take any notice of them. They passed as the cries of a few discontented men among the rabble; and it was never clear whether Don Miguel had at this time any intention of usurping the throne, or whether he was afterwards instigated to it by his mother. From the moment when he fell on his knees before his mother, he shewed himself her slave, and wrought out her wicked pleasure most zealously, whatever might have been his previous CHAP. VI.] USURPATION OF DON MIGUEL. intentions. He was to swear to the constitution, four days after his arrival, in the presence of the two chambers and of the court. There was something strange about the ceremony, which excited the suspicions of the bystanders. The prince was ill at ease, hurried, and confused; and he spoke too low to be heard by those nearest to him. The Archbishop of Lisbon, who administered the oath, stood directly in front of the prince, with his priestly garments spread wide, so that the regent was little better seen than heard. He is declared not to have touched the book of the gospels, and to have said, when the show was over: 'Well, I have gone through the ceremony of swearing to the charter; but I have sworn nothing.' One significant circumstance is that there was no register, or legal record of any kind, of the event. The next day the new ministry was announced; and the announcement spread dismay among the constitutionalists. The funds fell; the bank, which was to have set off on a new score that day, feared a run, and postponed its payments indefinitely-all business was at a stand in Lisbon. The mob assembled under the windows of the queenmother, shouting for absolutism; and the primeminister distributed money among them. During the month of March the proceedings of the regent were so open and shameless in insulting and displacing liberals and favouring the absolutists, that many hundreds of the best families in Lisbon left the capital. Just at this time, the British troops sent by Mr Canning were embarking for their return; and a large amount of money-a loan from M. Rothschild to the prince-was arriving. The new British ambassador at Lisbon, Sir Frederick Lamb, decided, on his own responsibility, to detain the troops, and send the money back to London; that the usurper-for it was now no secret that the prince was about to assume the title of king-might be awed by the presence of British troops, and unaided in his treasonable purposes by British gold. This was in the middle of March; and it was the beginning of April before the British ambassador could receive instructions how to proceed. On the 14th of March the prince dissolved the chambers, to evade the passing of a vote of thanks to the British commanders, and some troublesome inquiries into state abuses. On the 2d of April the British troops were embarked for home, in pursuance of orders received by the ambassador. Before this, the prince had been declared in several provincial towns to be absolute king, Don Miguel I. When the British troops were gone, and with them all the respectable liberals who could get away, there was no further impediment to the proclamation taking place in the capital; and the thing was done on the birthday of the queen-mother, on the 25th of April. The scene was opened by the commandant of police with his guard, before the hall of the municipality, between eight and nine in the morning. Baring their heads, and drawing their sabres, they cried aloud: 'Long live Don Miguel the First! Long live the empress-mother!' Thereupon the national flag was slung up on the roof of the hall, and the municipal authorities appeared in the balcony, to proclaim the new king. The procla 255 mation was repeated at noon through the city; and all citizens were invited to sign a memorial, imploring Don Miguel to assume the function of king, This memorial was presented in the evening; but the paucity and doubtful character of the signatures -according to some authorities-annoyed and alarmed the prince. According to others, the signatures were wonderfully numerous; but the prince dared not proceed to extremities at once, because all the foreign ambassadors had notified that they should leave Lisbon immediately on his assumption of the title of king. He desired the memorialists to wait, and see what he would do. A note was sent round the next morning from the foreign minister to these representatives, regretting the popular manifestation of the preceding day, and assuring them that everything possible had been done by government to keep the people quiet. The foreign ambassadors met to confer upon their reply; and they agreed upon a notification to the minister that they suspended all official intercourse with the government till they should receive fresh instructions from their respective courts. All disguise was soon thrown off. On the 3d of May, Don Miguel issued a summons to the ancient three estates of the kingdom, who had not been assembled for upwards of a hundred and thirty years. They were to meet to 'recognise the application of grave points of Portuguese right,' since the importunate demand of various bodies in the state, that the prince would assume empire, had become very perplexing to him. The difficulty was how to sign this document. The awkwardness of signing in Don Pedro's name an invitation to declare that Don Pedro had no rights in Portugal, was so great, that the prince actually signed it as Don Miguel I. As king, he summoned the estates who were to meet to invite him to become king. The estates met on the 26th of June, and immediately declared Don Miguel to be lawfully King of Portugal. On the 28th, the new sovereign assumed his full name and title. He had not been left in peace and quiet in the interval. Oporto and other towns had risen against him; and many of the Portuguese refugees in England had returned to conduct the war. But they were delayed on the voyage; affairs had been mismanaged; and there was nothing left for them to do but to make the best retreat they could through Spain. Of course, the ambassadors all took their departure at the end of June. At first, the usurper did not conceal his rage and mortification; but presently he gave out declarations that they had all been recalled by his express desire, in order to be succeeded by others less addicted to freemasonry-his word, and that of other despots, for liberalism. From this time the course of the usurper became altogether disgusting. His practices could only be-where it was possible-denied by his flatterers; nobody vindicated them. He filled the prisons; set aside the laws, in order to procure the sacrifice of his enemies; confiscated all the property he could lay hands on; and spread such ruin that, with all his devices, he could not raise money enough for his purposes. He actually asked for a loyal subscription; and the back, and preventing its being officially communicated to any of the European powers. When the bad news from Portugal reached the emperor, he issued a decree, on the 25th of July, reprobating the acts of the usurping government, but treating his brother with a leniency which appeared strange; but which may perhaps be accounted for on the supposition that he had fears for his daughter, and might be uncertain about her probable fate. He spoke of Don Miguel as doubtless a captive and a victim in the hands of a party who compelled him to acts abhorrent to his nature. The government newspapers at Lisbon retorted by assuring the world that Don Pedro could not have prepared such a decree, except under the influence of 'the horrid sect of freemasons, who are the enemies of the throne and the altar.' The little queen, Donna Maria, now nine years old, arrived at Gibraltar on the 2d of September, on her way to Genoa, where she was to land, and proceed to Vienna, on a visit to her grandfather, the Emperor of Austria. The news which her con ductors heard at Gibraltar, however, put them also upon considering their responsibilities; and they decided-as so many had before done, to the high honour of our country-that England was the safest retreat for a sufferer under political adversity. One of the frigates was immediately sent back to Brazil with the latest news of what had occurred; and the other brought Donna Maria to England. She arrived off Falmouth on the 24th of September. She was received with royal honours; and there was something very affecting in the sight of the eagerness with which the noble Portuguese refugees rushed on board, to devote themselves to her and the vindication of her rights. If she was too young to be duly touched with a sense of her situation, others felt it for her. He who had sworn to govern for her with fidelity during her tender years, had usurped her throne: he who was to have been her husband, had repelled her from the shores of her own kingdom, and cast her upon the mercy of the world. No wonder the refugees rushed to her feet; for every heart in England bled for her. CHAP. VII.] DEATH OF LORD LIVERPOOL-CABINET DIFFICULTIES. When the frigate arrived at Falmouth, the queen and her conductors were uncertain whether she would be received as Duchess of Oporto, or as a sovereign. Everything hung now on a few moments. But all was well. The royal salute came thundering over the waters from the forts and the ships, and up went the flags on every hand. Then up went the royal standard of Portugal, and the young girl and her retinue knew that she was acknowledged queen by Great Britain. On her way to London, she was greeted with addresses by the corporations of all the principal towns she passed through, and the people everywhere received her with cheers. In London, almost before the Portuguese residents could pay their duty to their sovereign, the primeminister and foreign secretary arrived to welcome her majesty to our metropolis. They came in their state carriages, in military uniform, and covered with orders. The king sent messages. He was at his cottage at Windsor, living in almost utter seclusion, and, as his people now began to be aware, in fecble and declining health. On the 12th of October, the birthday of Don Pedro, an affecting ceremony took place at the residence of the Marquis Palmella. The whole of the Portuguese and Brazilian legations being present, and the Brazilian and Portuguese ministers at the courts of Vienna and the Netherlands, the Marquis Palmella told the whole story of Don Pedro's conduct and the young queen's position, read the decrees and the emperor's dispatches, and, in short, put his hearers in possession of the entire case, in a discourse of three-quarters of an hour. The marquis then, as the intended prime-minister of the queen, first took the oath of fealty to her; and his example was followed by all present-ambassadors, generals, peers of her realm, members of the cortes, and military and political officers of various ranks-in all, above two hundred. She had thus a little court about her while she remained in England; which was till the next year, when her father recalled her to Brazil. By that time it was explained that, while Great Britain acknowledged her sovereignty, discountenanced her usurping uncle, and desired to extend all due hospitality towards her, it was not possible to do more. Our treaties of alliance with Portugal, it was declared, bound us to aid her against foreign aggression, but not to interfere in her domestic struggles. We had sent troops to Portugal when Spain was invading her liberties; but we could not impose or depose her rulers. Towards the close of the year-on the 15th of December-the funeral-train at last left the door of Lord Liverpool's abode at Wimbledon. Of those who had hourly looked for his death nearly two years before, and who had held the affairs of the country suspended in expectation of it, some had long been in their graves. He was now released at last; and his funeral-train was a long one; for his private life had won for him a gratitude and warm regard, which made him now more thought of as the kindly hearted man than as the respectable minister who had ostensibly governed the country for fifteen years. CHAPTER VII. 257 HERE never was an instance in which men were more universally blamed than the Wellington administration were at the time of the removal of the Catholic disabilities. The public always will and must judge by what they know; and those who knew only what was on the face of things, could not but form an unfavourable judgment, in every light, of the conduct of the duke and his colleagues. Their own party, of course, thought them faithless, infirm, and cowardly. The fact was before all eyes, that they had suddenly relinquished the declared principles, and stultified the professions, of their whole political lives, deceived and deserted their friends and supporters, and offered to history a flagrant instance of political apostasy. The opposition complained, with equal appearance of reason, that, after having thwarted, in every possible way, the efforts of Mr Canning and the other friends of the Catholics, they shamelessly carried the measures which they would not hear of from Mr Canning; that, having damaged the liberal statesmen of their day with all their influence, they stepped in at last to do the work which had been laboriously prepared in spite of them, and took the credit of it. Truly, their credit was but little with even those who put the best construction upon their conduct. By such, they were believed to have yielded to an overwhelming necessity; and thus to deserve no praise at all; while there was much that was inexplicable and unsatisfactory in their method of proceeding. There was evidence, that up to the middle of December, the prime-minister did not intend to remove the Catholic disabilities, or that he chose the public to suppose it; while on the 5th of February, the speech from the throne recommended their removal. Time, however, clears up many things. The conduct of the ministers was inexplicable; for their difficulties were of a nature which they could not explain. They explained, as much as men of honour and loyalty in their position could, the necessity which existed for what they were doing; but about everything which most closely concerned themselves, everything which was necessary to clear their political character, they were compelled to keep silence. By others, however, bit by bit, and in a course of nearly twenty years, disclosures have been made, which appear to put us in full possession of their case, and leave us with the conviction that their fault lay in their preceding political course, and not in their conduct at this juncture. Their anti-Catholic principles and policy had been mistaken, as the liberal party had, of course, always declared. There was nothing new in that. And a close study of the facts of their case, as now known, seems to lead to their acquittal of all blame in the great transactions of 1829. The difficulty which embarrassed them, and compromised their reputation, was in regard to the king. Q |