the restored government of France - restored by our money and our arms refused to consent to the immediate abolition. Bonaparte, amidst his memorable acts of the Hundred Days, abolished the hateful traffic by a stroke of his pen and it was abolished. The Bourbon government, a second time restored, dared no longer refuse this one demand of Great Britain. Had they refused, the British minister could scarcely have met the parliament. He is now come to say that France has decreed that there shall be an end to this sin and shame. Other nations

Mr Wilberforce.

have promised. But is it to be told that where we might have commanded, there alone is resistance?— Spain and Portugal still maintain the traffic. The firm band of abolitionists are secure that their silver-tongued leader he who resigned every meaner ambition to give freedom to the oppressed -will persevere through good report and evil report, with or without friends in power, till the chains of the negro are broken forever. They fear not enemies, they truckle not for friends; they have a support above what the world can give. This "band of brothers" reviled or honored, proselytizing or solitary I will hold their ground. They are the only united body of enthusiasts in an age of political calculation. They will manifest, as they have manifested, what enthusiasm may accomplish.

CHAP. II.]

THE PRINCE REGENT'S SPEECH.

21

CHAPTER II.

Fourth ses

sion of the Fifth Parlia United

ment of the

Kingdom.

THE House of Commons of 1816 presented a remarkable spectacle. The ministry met the representatives of the people with all the pride and confidence of a triumph beyond hope. The ministerial leader came flushed from his labors of restoration and partition, and took his seat amidst shouts such as saluted Cæsar when he went up to the Capitol. The march to Paris, twice over, says a conspicuous actor in the politics of that hour,1 was sufficiently marvellous; "but it appeared, if possible, still more incredible, that we should witness Lord Castlereagh entering the House of Commons, and resuming, amidst universal shouts of applause, the seat which he had quitted for a season to attend as a chief actor in the arrangement of continental territory." The opposition, considered numerically, were a broken and feeble body; but, intellectually and morally, their strength was far more formidable in this the fourth session of the parliament than at any previous period of its duration. In opposing the enormous war expenditure from 1812-in resisting the determination to make no peace with Napoleon they had not with them the national sympathy. The tables were turned. They had now to contend against the evident partiality for continental alliances enormous standing army the excessive peace expenditure the desire to perpetuate war taxes. They were supported by public opinion, for the once accredited indivisibility of peace and plenty appeared to be wholly at an end. The people were suffering, and the excitement of the struggle against the domination of France having passed away, they were not disposed to suffer in silence.

speech.

the

The speech from the throne, delivered by commissioners, was necessarily a speech of congratulation. Splendid suc- The Prince cesses, intimate union, precautionary measures, these Regent's were the key-notes to our foreign policy; manufactures, commerce, and revenue were, somewhat rashly, declared to be flourishing at home; economy was hinted at, economy consistent with the security of the country," and with that station which we occupy in Europe." In the House of Lords there 1 Brougham's Speeches, i. p. 634. Introduction to Speech on Holy Alliance.

Treaties.

was no amendment to the address. In the Commons a bootless amendment, which was seconded by Lord John Russell,1 declared the country to be suffering under "unexampled domestic embarrassments," and demanded "a careful revisal of our civil and military establishments, according to the principles of the most rigid economy." The Chancellor of the Exchequer on this occasion declared his intention to continue the property or income tax, on the modified scale of five per cent. This avowal was the signal for one of the chief battle-cries which were to lead on the scanty powers of opposition. Party hostility was not disarmed by the deportment of the foreign minister. Mr. Brougham having denounced Ferdinand of Spain as a contemptible tyrant," Lord Castlereagh thereupon deprecated 2 "that scrutinizing criticism of the internal policy of foreign countries, which could only be properly exercised at home." The lecture was not forgotten. The treaties with foreign powers were presented to parliament on the first day of the session. The formal debate upon them was deferred for a fortnight. Mr. Brougham had previously brought forward a motion for the production of a copy of the treaty between Russia, Austria, and Prussia, of the 26th September, 1815, the treaty of Holy Alliance. Lord Castlereagh had declared, when notice of Mr. Brougham's motion was given, with reference to this extraordinary document, that "its object was confined solely to the contracting parties, and breathed the pure spirit of the Christian religion." The motion was of course rejected. It was not till a later period of our history that it was shown that there was cause for alarm," when sovereigns spoke of leading armies to protect religion, peace, and justice." Mr. Brougham also moved for a copy of a treaty said to have been concluded at Vienna in January, 1815. Lord Castlereagh admitted the existence of such a treaty, and that this country had been a party to it; but he refused to produce it, affirming that it was a mere matter of history. "Yes," said Mr. Tierney,5 5" and, like other matter of history, it was necessary that it should be known, because the knowledge of it bore on other times." It appears to have been considered in the House of Commons that this alliance was directed solely against Russia. The "historical fact" has become clearer; the contracting powers, thus prepared for the last resort, had not a common danger once more united them, were Austria, France, and England, against Russia and Prussia. The motion for the production of this treaty was also rejected.

Before the great discussion upon the general treaties took

1 Lord John Russell was in parliament in 1814.

2 Hansard, xxxii. p. 48.

4 Hansard, xxxii. p. 353.

3 Mr. Brougham's Speech. 5 Ibid. p. 370.

CHAP. II.] PRESUMPTION OF THE GOVERNMENT.

23

place, the government declared its intention with regard to the peace establishment. There was to be an army of a hundred and fifty thousand men, maintained at an expense of little short of thirty millions; and the secretary for foreign affairs justified this course by the example of the large military establishments of the other nations of Europe. It was on a debate in the committee of supply that Lord Castlereagh used the memorable expression which roused a spirit in the country of deep hostility, almost of disgust:1"He felt assured that the people of England would not, from an ignorant impatience to be relieved from the pressure of taxation, put everything to hazard, when everything might be accomplished by continued constancy and firmness." From the moment of this offensive declaration, the income tax was doomed. The people had not borne the taxation of so many years of war with a heroism such as no people had ever before shown, to be taunted with ignorant impatience of taxation, now that they had won peace. The presumption of the government at this period was calculated to produce a violent reaction throughout the land. In parliament it produced alarms which now look exaggerated, but which men of unquestioned integrity most certainly entertained. The minor questions of continental arrangements were less regarded, and wisely so, than the peculiarities of our internal position. Men really thought that the old English spirit of freedom was about to be trampled upon. Lord Grenville, who on the first night of the session had given his heartiest assent to the address, rejoicing in the mode by which the peace had been accomplished-the restoration of the Bourbons now caused the Lords to be summoned ; and on the 14th February, in moving for the estimates for the military service for the year, delivered a speech that spoke something of the spirit of “the good old cause." He said: "The question which their lordships had now to consider was, whether, after a struggle of twenty-five years, maintained by such immense efforts, and at such vast expense, they were at length to obtain the blessings of that real peace for which they had so long contended, or whether their situation was to be exactly the reverse? Whether they were still to be charged with an immense military establishment; whether they were now to be called upon to take their rank among the military states of the continent; whether they were to abandon the wise maxims and policy of their forefathers, by which the country had risen to such a height, and had been enabled to make such great exertions, and, at an humble distance, turn servile imitators of those systems which had been the cause of so much distress and calamity to the nations by which they had been adopted and maintained?" The prime 1 Hansard, xxxiii. p. 455. 2 Ibid, xxxii. p. 512.

minister, in replying to Lord Grenville, called these "extraordinary and unreasonable fears." But they were reëchoed on many sides. When the great debates on the treaties at length took place, in which the Earl of Liverpool moved the address, Lord Grenville proposed an amendment which deprecated in the strongest language "the settled system to raise the country into a military power." The House divided, the government having a majority of sixty-four. Lord Holland protested against the address, in terms which embodied his speech upon the treaties, and expressed the opinions of that section of the opposition: "Because the treaties and engagements contain a direct guarantee of the present government of France against the people of that country; and in my judgment imply a general and perpetual guarantee of all European governments against the governed." In the House of Commons the Foreign Secretary moved the address upon the treaties. An amendment was proposed by Lord Milton, which deprecated the military occupation of France, and the unexampled military establishments of this country. The debate lasted two nights, the address being finally carried by a majority of a hundred and sixty-three. Romilly, in his diary, has noted down the heads of his own speech: 1 "As I consider this as the most important occasion that I ever spoke on, I have been desirous of preserving the memory of some of the things I have said." The importance of the occasion could not have been over-estimated. But what was said on both sides was, to a considerable extent, the regular display of party conflict. The exultations of the government at the settlement of their war labors look now scarcely more inflated than the fears of some members of the opposition that the confederated arms of the despots of Europe might be turned against the liberties of England. The practical business that was at hand the enforcement of economy, the alleviation of distress was the matter of real importance that was to grow out of these debates. There can be no doubt, however, that there was a strong and sincere belief amongst many good men that the liberties of this country were in eventual peril. Horner, in the debate on the treaties, made a very powerful speech; and a week after, he thus writes in the confidence of private friendship: 2 "We are nearly declared to be a military power. If this design is not checked, of which I have slender hopes, or does not break down by favor of accidents, we shall have a transient glory for some little while. bravery of our men, the virtues which the long enjoyment of liberty will leave long after it is gone, and the financial exertions of which we are still capable, will insure us that distinction ; but it is a glory in which our freedom will be lost, and which 1 Romilly's Life, iii. p. 229. 2 Horner's Memoirs, ii. p. 315.

The