MOORE'S PARODY. 193 on the most liberal basis, I shall look with additional confidence to a prosperous issue of the most arduous contest in which Great Britain was ever engaged." And he concluded by authorising the Duke of York to communicate the letter to Lord Grey, who, in turn, was to show it to Lord Grenville.* * The letter gave much offence to the Whigs, and was wittily parodied by Thomas Moore in one of his happiest satires,-which opens thus:"At length, dearest Freddy, the moment is nigh When, with P-ce-v-l's leave, I may throw my chains by; And as time now is precious, the first thing I do, Is to sit down and write a wise letter to you." It continues: "I need not remind you how cursedly bad Our affairs were all looking when father went mad; A more limited Monarchy could not well be. I was called upon then in that moment of puzzle, And the finer they are, the more sure to run through ... (No man except Pole would have writ you a better), 'Twould please me if those whom I've humbugg'd so long With the notion (good men !) that I know right from wrong, To let too much light in on me never would do; 13 194 A USELESS NEGOTIATION. The Whig leaders necessarily understood it as conveying, not an authority to form a new Government but a' proposal to join the present, with some modifications. They believed also that the communication of it to Lord Grey in the first place, instead of to Lord Grenville, who led the Opposition in the Lords, was designed to create a misunderstanding between them. They agreed, therefore, to decline the offer; intimating that their decision was based on public and not personal grounds, and that their differences of opinion from the existing Administration were "too many and too important" to admit of any union. They added an expression of their conviction that in Ireland was needed "a total change of the present system of government," and that the public welfare demanded an immediate repeal of the Catholic disabilities. On receiving this answer, which, it is to be presumed, the Prince fully expected, he informed Perceval that he was to continue Minister. Lord Castlereagh then succeeded Wellesley as Foreign Secretary. The Ministry formed after so much labour was destined to a very brief existence. On the 11th of May, its head, Mr. Perceval, was shot by a madman named Bellingham, in the lobby of the House of Commons. Some reconstruction was rendered neces So, in short, if they wish to have places, they may, See also the poem, King Crack and his Idols.' POLITICAL MANEUVRES. 195 sary by this deplorable event. Lord Liverpool,* assuming the lead, applied to Lord Wellesley and Mr. Canning to join him; but met with a refusal from both; from the former, on the ground of the hostile attitude of the Ministry on the Catholic question, and its want of vigour in prosecuting the war in Spain; from the latter on the Catholic question alone. Any intention Lord Liverpool might have entertained of going on with the Cabinet as it was, fell before a motion carried by 174 votes to 170, for an Address to the Regent, imploring him to form a strong and efficient Administration. Lord Wellesley was then called in by the Prince, but he could obtain no assistance from Lords Grey and Grenville, who were determined not to support an anti-reform policy.† A similar failure attended the efforts of Lord Moira; and Lord Liverpool then resumed office as First Lord of the Treasury, with Lord Sidmouth in the Home Office, and Mr. Vansittart (afterwards Lord Bexley) as Chancellor of the Exchequer : "One Mr. V-ns-tt-t, a good sort of person, Who's also employed for this season to play In 'Raising the Wind' and 'The Devil to Pay.'' 19 66 * Mr. Crabb Robinson (Diary, iii. 37) relates an amusing anecdote of Lord Liverpool. When young, he was the butt of his companions. At Christ's College, Cambridge, there being a party at some gownsman's (I believe, Canning), he broke in, 'I am come to take tea with you!'-'No, you are going to the pump!' And the threat was carried out." + Mr. Horner characterises the issue of these ministerial intrigues as "the triumph of inveterate duplicity, and the low arts of a palace, over an inflexible and proud integrity."-Life, ii. 111. 196 CANNING'S POSITION. Lord Liverpool earnestly endeavoured to secure the co-operation of Mr. Canning : "We expect, too—at least we've been plotting and planning To get that great actor from Liverpool, C-nn-g.' He offered him the Foreign Office, but Canning rejected it, because Castlereagh was to lead the House of Commons. "How striking," remarks Wilberforce, "is Canning's example! Had he fairly joined Perceval on the Duke of Portland's death, as Perceval offered, he would now have been the acknowledged head, and supported as such. But his ambitious policy threw him out, and he sunk infinitely in public estimation, and has since with difficulty kept buoyant." Canning, in a letter to Wilberforce, endeavoured to justify himself: "When I found," he wrote, "that the determination was to keep the substantial management of the House of Commons in the hands of Lord Castlereagh, I was no longer anxious to save appearances. I had wished to provide for the public good, not for personal feeling. Many people say, and you seem inclined to adopt their reasoning, 'The lead after all is merely a feather, what signifies it in whose hands it is?' Others say, 'Why not let Lord C. have it nominally? It will in effect devolve upon yourself.' Such has been the language of the Regent, and such that of many other well-meaning common friends. Now, to the first of these arguments, I answer that it is founded in a mistake. To the second, that it is (unintentionally, no doubt) a suggestion of dishonesty.' *Moore, Poetical Works: 'Occasional Addresses.' MEMBER for liverpool. 197 The Liverpool Ministry went on its way, and assisted by the repeated lustre of Wellington's victories in the Peninsula, succeeded in repelling every attack. As Sir George Lewis observes, the same events tended to discredit the Whigs, who had invariably opposed the Spanish war. As a party they were rendered unpopular by this opposition at the return of peace; in the same manner, though not to the same extent, that, twenty years earlier, they had incurred unpopularity by the opinions of their leaders on the French Revolution. To such men as Grey and Grenville, however, their unpopularity mattered little, so long as they had the consciousness of having faithfully adhered to the great principles and traditions of their party. In Canning took his seat for Liverpool in the Parliament which met in the autumn of 1812. His influence in the House of Commons gradually declined, and, in 1813, seeing little chance of a return to office, he formally disbanded his little group of adherents.* the autumn of 1814 he resolved, on account of the feeble health of his eldest son, to pass the winter at Lisbon. Lord Liverpool then, after consultation with Lord Castlereagh, offered him the post of Ambassador "A singular political event," writes Horner, on the 22nd of July, 1813, "and one not very intelligible, was announced last night, that Canning has formally, and with some solemnity, disbanded his party; telling the gentlemen who have been his supporters during the session, that they may, for the future, consider themselves as unengaged; and that he is no longer to be regarded as their head. Ward says they are all turned adrift upon the wide world, but as he has stayed a year in his place, he thinks himself entitled to a good character from his master." -Memoirs, ii. 135, 136. |